Day 48-May 7, 2018-More rapids, mountains, passes and snow back to Idaho
Drove 125 miles in 3 hours.
Temp was 50 and it was cloudy when we started, 63 and sunny when we stopped
Rained most of the night and the rivers are really swollen now. The one behind us rose about 2” overnight. We stopped in at the hot springs pools across the street from the campground just to see what they looked like. The indoor pool was 106 and the outdoor one was 87 and there were people in both of them. There’s not much more invigorating than the smell of a pine forest after a good rain. It wakens all your senses and that’s what we felt this morning. We’re heading downstream on the river, which has a lot more dead trees in it from the storm last night. We passed a whole mountain that looked like it had burned and then ranches and more flooded rivers. Lolo Peak is off to our west and at 9096’ is covered in snow. After 25 miles on route 12 it ended in Lolo, MT and turned into 93 south, aka, The Salmon River Scenic Byway. We finally got some cell phone service for about 10 minutes. The road now is 2 lanes both ways and we went through small towns like Victor and Darby and big ones like Stevensville and Hamilton, where we realized we were in Mountain Time Zone from all the clocks on the buildings. Both sides of the road are lined with businesses just like any other town and also casinos, gravel pits, lumber mills and river fishing, rafting, boating and hiking tours and supplies. Then the road goes back to one lane each way and we’re surrounded by the Bitterroot Mountains, high peaked snow covered mountains all around us. More ranches and more warnings about “Big Game On Road”. We climbed the Lost Trail Pass at 7000’, more and more snow all the way up and the temp got down to 47 at the top. Tried to get Harry to go to a Battlefield 16 miles down a road and then 16 miles back up but the weather was too nasty. It was cold and rainy and looked like snow and we didn’t want to get caught on the pass in that. Crossed the Continental Divide and got back into Idaho right over the pass. The road is really windy and steep both going up and coming down but the views are gorgeous, lots of ski slopes and on the mountains. Pretty waterfalls, too. Back down to about 3500’ we passed a nice little campground and decided to stop here for the night. We had planned to go to another campground about 10 miles down the road but this one looks really nice. Right on the North Fork River which flows into the Salmon River and great views of the green, grassy mountains. And pine trees. This river is flowing swiftly too. There are dandelions all over the grass and the owner hates them but I think they look really pretty. The owner showed me a video of salmon in the river last summer right behind our site. Too early this year to see that but the river’s great to watch and I love to listen to it rushing. We looked at maps and campground books again, still unsure of where we go from here. Harry says he needs to get to someplace warm so I guess we’re going south. Can’t make any reservations because we have no phone service or internet so we’re hoping the campground will be open, a lot of them are opening this week-end. Because we crossed back into Idaho from Montana I wasn’t sure if we went back to Pacific Time Zone but it seems we’re still in Mountain Time. The wind is pretty strong here but with a jacket on it’s not too cold to sit outside and read.