Lolo

We are at the Earl Tennant campground in the Lolo National Forest (map), between Lolo Hot Springs and Lolo, Montana. Earl was the first ranger here when this site became a ranger station early in the last century; the station closed in the sixties, and was used as a fire staging ground for several years thereafter. Two of the buildings are still here, abandoned and forlorn, and one of them is unlocked. It is a testament to how remote this area is that neither has been vandalized in four decades.

There are only a half dozen sites here, and still we had the entire place to ourselves. We took the only spot in a clearing large enough to get the satellite on-line, just grazing the trees at out current look elevation of just 28°. That was good, because there is no cell coverage here whatsoever. I did have to jiggle the bus around in the space a few times.

I'm guessing the camping at this site is fairly new, because it is neither marked on our official Lolo National Forest map, nor listed in our directory of National Forest campgrounds. That may account for why this place is empty, whereas the Lee Creek campground, which we visited on our way down the hill, was already pretty busy on a Friday afternoon, and I am guessing the Lolo Creek campground, which we will pass today, will also have some occupancy. We're glad we bypassed Lee Creek, as we much prefer an empty campground, and it was only $8 here vs. $10 there. The real reason we pressed on, though, was that I could not find enough of a gap in the trees there to shoot the bird.

We knew about this spot from our Days End directory, which has a spotty track record of late. That same directory said we could park overnight at the Lolo Pass visitor center at the very top of the pass, just on the Idaho side of the state line, but the staff there said it was not allowed and never has been. That's unusual; when the directory is wrong it is more often because the status of a particular spot has changed since the listing was added. That spot was not all that appealing anyway, because it was surrounded by parking lot lights, was very exposed, and was a good ten degrees colder than here at the lower elevations.

We had a lovely drive yesterday -- Lolo Pass is rather spectacular.  At one point in the drive, while still on the west side along the Lochsa River, I had to slow down for a bald eagle.  He was perched on something rather low to the ground, unusual for an eagle, on the left side of the road.  It is possible he had a fresh kill there.  In any case, when he saw us approach, he decided to take off and fly to a higher spot, but oddly he chose to do so right in front of us and in our lane, necessitating a quick response on the brakes.  So for a very brief moment, we were following him, his wingspan taking the whole lane, and the stark white of his tail plumage just a few dozen feet ahead of us.  It took him quite a while to get up above us, at which point he immediately turned to the right and landed on a tree a little ways above us.

As lovely as it is right here, we are feeling motivated to move along, and so in a short while we will continue on to Missoula, where I will put enough fuel in to get us across the state before continuing east to Helena. We should be somewhere between Drummond and Helena tonight.