You betcha
Thanks for the kind words! Tell me more about montana....we r headed somewhere next week!
Sure thing: Closest to you in PC is the Centennial Valley, just across the divide/state line on the east side of I-15. It runs 50-60 miles along graded gravel roads to Red Rock Pass, where you drop back into ID at Henry Lake. There are two large lakes in the valley and the lakes and surrounding swamps are a National Wildlife Refuge.
A little further in is Dell, MT, where the Big Sheep Creek Backcountry Byway strings together 55 miles of graded gravel and two-track terminating at MT 324 (paved) west of Clark Canyon Reservoir. The Big Sheep Creek corridor is around as remote as you'll get in MT.
A little north of there, accessible from either MT 324 or MT 278 out of Dillon, is Bannack, Montana's first territorial capital. It's now a state park and a very well-preserved ghost town, including a great and well-preserved hardrock gold mining mill. On July 19 and 20 this year, the annual Bannack Days "fair" will be held, with a lengthy list of exhibits, demonstrations of frontier life, and events. Be sure to arrive early and purchase a strawberry-rhubarb pie from the ladies of the Dillon Methodist Church before they're all gone. The sourdough pancake feed at the Hotel Meade is fine eating, too. Oh, and kids of all ages are invited to dress up in Frontier garb and stroll about the town (outfits available for rent/borrowing (?) right there on Main Street). Bannack SP has a small campground, but shade is at a premium and all of the daytrip traffic makes is miserably hot and dusty. If I were to go on a camping trip, I'd shoot for a disbursed site a few miles up the Pioneer Mountains Scenic Parkway around 15 miles north, where there is also a normal NF campground is between the Grasshopper Inn and the entrance to Elkhorn Hot Springs (Grasshopper CG?, Elkhorn CG?).
A great hike, and accessing a lake I've found to be full of voracious trout, is the Sawtooth Lake trail, trailhead off of the Parkway across the road from the Grasshopper Inn. It's about a 4 mile hike w/ 1,600' of elevation gain on a trail substantially improved in 2010-2011. Sawtooth Lake is maybe 30 acres and is a tarn (glacial lake at the foot of a cirque--a huge headwall leading up to the jagged peak of Sawtooth Mountain). Fairly easy hike, and with so much in the way of easily accessible trout water elsewhere, I've never seen anybody else up there on the 3 July weekdays I've hiked up. Sawtooth Lake has some stocked (?) California Golden trout and some incredibly aggressive brookies. We had a ball with ultralite spinning gear (and of course Lilly's pink spincast combo would be equally ideal). The one time we took flyrods up, our arrival coincided with the arrival of a squall line which brought hail, sleet, snow, and fearsome lightning, so we headed straight back down while enjoying the development of stage 1 and 2 hypothermia. In July.
Near the top of the Grasshopper Creek-Wise River divide along the parkway, a two-track trail system cuts away to the east to reach Comet Mountain. There you can drive up to 9,600' to a mining exploration adit (with incredible views right there), then boulder-hop 600' elevation to the summit, where a world of glacial geology awaits you. Hang on tight to the kiddo--the east side of the summit is shorn off to a nearly vertical 1,400' drop to two tarns below. Caveat: the last few switchbacks are shelf road with some steep north-facing segments. I've been stopped by snowbanks at around 9,000' twice. In 2011, on July 12, we were the first to sign the summit log that year, and in 2010 we were the first full-sized rig to reach the adit/drill pad at 9,600'.
Near the headwaters of the Wise River, right on the Parkway, is Little Joe campground. No great shakes about the CG, but it's along a very nice stretch of the Wise River, there only 10-20' across, with meandering loops and cutbanks sheltering voracious brookies. Last few times I was there, there were a number of families camping streamside in the mile or so downstream from Little Joe CG.
Elkhorn HS is commercially developed but is quite rustic, with rustic sometimes being a gracious term. The spring waters are piped into an outdoor concrete swimming pool, though, and the surrounding lodgepole forest is a nice backdrop for a soak.
West of Grant, just a few miles further out MT 324, is the road leading up to Lemhi Pass, where Lewis & Clark first reached the Great Divide. The BLM built a nice kiosk with exhibits up there and the Sacagawea Spring allows even little girls to stand with one foot on each side of the mighty Missouri River's source. (caveat: it's long been known the source of the Missouri is at Red Rock Pass at the head of the Centennial Valley, but we needn't tell the kids just yet).
Just over the Divide on the ID side of Lemhi Pass, a few miles descent along the easier of the two routes (Agency Creek Rd = steep and twisty, Warm Springs Rd = easy), lies Sharkey's Hot Spring. There the BLM has developed a nice pair of concrete pools, concrete aprons around them, changing houses, and bathrooms. They charge a modest self-served fee of $1 or $2/day, I recall, but it's a nice little spot for kids. You can drop on down to ID 28 a few miles south of Salmon, ID from there (or access Sharkey's or Lemhi from there).
If I recall correctly, it took us around 6 hours at 70 mph average to get from Dillon down to our friends place at Pinebrook outside of PC. Not exactly next door, but I-15 is scenic enough and provides for quick travel.
Enjoy and post more "Lilly Trip" reports, please.
Foy
