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- May 31, 2015
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July 15-17, 2022
This was originally going to be a trip to the Bob Marshall Wilderness, but circumstances rendered it so we didn't have enough time. You need probably 3 nights minimum for a decent trip in there. So we re-set our sights on the Mission Mountains nearby. Where we went is probably the most popular spot in the range, so we saw a good number of people, but I'd classify it only as "busy" by Montana standards.
We met in Seeley Lake since two of us (Chris and I) were driving up from Bozeman, and Andrew was driving over from Spokane. We headed into the forest to find a spot to camp for the night. We found what appeared to be a not frequently used trailhead off the road and set up there. Had a fire and some huckleberry cream ales. Bugs weren't terrible either. Not bad. Gave me an excuse to bring the car camping tent too. Always nice to have a lot of room.
We drove the remaining miles to the trailhead in the morning. By some miracle, Chris had a bit of cell service even though we were 10 miles up a dirt road in the woods. So we waited a second for Andrew to buy a fishing license online so he could try some of the lakes we'd see.
Me, Chris, Andrew. Ready to roll.
Pretty quickly we came to our creek crossings. This one had a slanty bridge.
This one required us to change our shoes.
We passed the first lake but never really got right up on it. There's a spur trail we could have taken, but we didn't want to bother with it since it was supposed to be a hot day and we were trying to move quickly while it was kind of cool out. We saw it from up high, and that was good enough.
Climbing up out of the forest.
Nice spot with a view. There's the first lake down below.
There was bear grass everywhere on this trail. Very dense in a lot of places, especially down in the forest. It had yet to really bloom down the lower forest though. Up high, it was going off. Apparently there's usually not much bear grass on this route, so we were lucky with our timing.
More bear grass. Getting close to camp.
The next large lake. Loved the sheer walls and the drop off at the foot of it.
There's a handful of smaller lakes up there also, and the terrain makes it kind of hard to find a good camp site. Because the area sees a good bit of use, it wasn't hard to find spots people had used previously. We found one that worked well enough, although it was closer to the water than it should have been. It was on slick rock maybe 15 feet above the lake though, so that kind of helped.
Lake we camped at.
We set up and then headed up to see the largest of the lakes.
Outlet of the largest lake. It was interesting seeing all the channels it ran through.
The big one.
Me, taken by Andrew.
Because it was hot, we decided to strip down to our underwear and jump in the lake. It was quite cold, as you may have guessed by all the snow in the background melting into it. I have videos of us jumping, but I won't subject anyone to seeing us in our underwear. Ended up jumping in maybe 4 or 5 times.
We hung out by the lake for a good while. Andrew tried a few casts, but there were either no fish or extremely few in there.
We left and checked out the log jam and outlet of the lake.
The water was really moving. There was some feature to the rock under the stream that made the water it shoot up really high in that spot.
We went down to the other large lake and saw a fish rise. Andrew tried several casts to no avail. Nice place to hang out regardless.
Got back to camp, ate, and watched the sun set. It didn't get too cold that night.
Really nice sunset thanks to some late afternoon/evening clouds.
Sunrise was also great. I got up as it was coming up, and I was glad I did.
The hike out was not as hot and sweaty as the hike in. It did seem to take a long time though. We got lunch in Seeley Lake and went our separate ways. Really glad to have gotten out and done this one!
This was originally going to be a trip to the Bob Marshall Wilderness, but circumstances rendered it so we didn't have enough time. You need probably 3 nights minimum for a decent trip in there. So we re-set our sights on the Mission Mountains nearby. Where we went is probably the most popular spot in the range, so we saw a good number of people, but I'd classify it only as "busy" by Montana standards.
We met in Seeley Lake since two of us (Chris and I) were driving up from Bozeman, and Andrew was driving over from Spokane. We headed into the forest to find a spot to camp for the night. We found what appeared to be a not frequently used trailhead off the road and set up there. Had a fire and some huckleberry cream ales. Bugs weren't terrible either. Not bad. Gave me an excuse to bring the car camping tent too. Always nice to have a lot of room.
We drove the remaining miles to the trailhead in the morning. By some miracle, Chris had a bit of cell service even though we were 10 miles up a dirt road in the woods. So we waited a second for Andrew to buy a fishing license online so he could try some of the lakes we'd see.
Me, Chris, Andrew. Ready to roll.
Pretty quickly we came to our creek crossings. This one had a slanty bridge.
This one required us to change our shoes.
We passed the first lake but never really got right up on it. There's a spur trail we could have taken, but we didn't want to bother with it since it was supposed to be a hot day and we were trying to move quickly while it was kind of cool out. We saw it from up high, and that was good enough.
Climbing up out of the forest.
Nice spot with a view. There's the first lake down below.
There was bear grass everywhere on this trail. Very dense in a lot of places, especially down in the forest. It had yet to really bloom down the lower forest though. Up high, it was going off. Apparently there's usually not much bear grass on this route, so we were lucky with our timing.
More bear grass. Getting close to camp.
The next large lake. Loved the sheer walls and the drop off at the foot of it.
There's a handful of smaller lakes up there also, and the terrain makes it kind of hard to find a good camp site. Because the area sees a good bit of use, it wasn't hard to find spots people had used previously. We found one that worked well enough, although it was closer to the water than it should have been. It was on slick rock maybe 15 feet above the lake though, so that kind of helped.
Lake we camped at.
We set up and then headed up to see the largest of the lakes.
Outlet of the largest lake. It was interesting seeing all the channels it ran through.
The big one.
Me, taken by Andrew.
Because it was hot, we decided to strip down to our underwear and jump in the lake. It was quite cold, as you may have guessed by all the snow in the background melting into it. I have videos of us jumping, but I won't subject anyone to seeing us in our underwear. Ended up jumping in maybe 4 or 5 times.
We hung out by the lake for a good while. Andrew tried a few casts, but there were either no fish or extremely few in there.
We left and checked out the log jam and outlet of the lake.
The water was really moving. There was some feature to the rock under the stream that made the water it shoot up really high in that spot.
We went down to the other large lake and saw a fish rise. Andrew tried several casts to no avail. Nice place to hang out regardless.
Got back to camp, ate, and watched the sun set. It didn't get too cold that night.
Really nice sunset thanks to some late afternoon/evening clouds.
Sunrise was also great. I got up as it was coming up, and I was glad I did.
The hike out was not as hot and sweaty as the hike in. It did seem to take a long time though. We got lunch in Seeley Lake and went our separate ways. Really glad to have gotten out and done this one!
