Logan
is located in a valley and is the home of Utah State University (Aggies). The university has a good
forestry school. The campus is impressive, big
and quite beautiful. Logan is a nice, clean college town with lots of summer activities going
on – concerts, opera and theater. We enjoyed our time but after 2 days we were ready for the
mountains and cooler days again so we headed to Montana.
We left Logan on Wednesday, June 27 and travelled north on I – 15 to
Divide, Montana (just south of Butte). Turning west on Hwy 43, we went south at the town of Wise River on the
Pioneer Mountain National Scenic Byway in the Beaverhead - Deerlodge National
Forest.
The Scenic Byway was a gorgeous
drive following the Wise River through a lush valley surrounded by the Pioneer
Mountains on both the east and west. Granite peaks topping 10,000 feet rose to
the east of the valley and to the west the mountains stretched out into a gentler, heavily forested
terrain.
 |
| Wise River Valley, East Pioneer Mountains, Beaverhead - Deerlodge N. F. |
We camped at a National Forest Campground called Lodgepole located on the Wise
River. It was a small campground with 10
sites, no services and practically desserted except for a few fishermen. But there was potable water via a hand pump
where David and I worked on our upper body strength (good for us as we’ve
mostly been working our legs with all the hiking).
Our showers were quite brisk to put it mildly. We cooked with gas and went
to bed when it got dark. It was like
backpacking only we still had a great bed – no rocks in the middle of our backs. And the nights were in the 30's! Sleeping under a down blanket with sounds of
the river in our ears and fresh smells of the water and the forest – it
couldn’t get much better.
 |
| Our campsite in the Lodgepole Pines |
 |
| The Wise River just 20 feet behind our campsite |
No comments:
Post a Comment