Hidden Lake

For our Memorial Day McKay, Christy (my old roomate), and her husband (Jason), and I planned a camping trip to Hidden Lake, Montana.  It is north of Island park, somewhere relatively near Henrys Lake.  In order to get to the camping area you have to travel up to Island Park and then take a dirt road (for about an hour) until the end.  At the end, you unpack all of your things and carry it down a hill to the edge of the lake and canoe everything across (about a mile) and set up camp.

The bear signs were pretty nerve-racking especially we were 7 miles away from the nearest person. It was just us... Christy and Jason.. and the animals.  Looking back, we decided that it would have been smarter if we had brought something for self defense... ya know... just incase we had any unwanted visitors.

Above: Christy at down at the lake for the first time

Below: After we canoed across and found where we were camping

McKay and I canoeing to our campsite (that purple spot, in the trees, is our tent)

Setting up and making dinner.  I love cooking in dutch ovens! They are easy and make really good food.  The bad part is trying to clean them.

Later that night McKay and I didn't sleep at all.  I think all of the "Beware of Grizzlies" signs had something to do with that.  Right when I almost started to fall asleep McKay woke me up and whispered "Jessica, there are like five animals outside our tent". This was most likely just the wind rustling leaves and branches but we were having a heart attack. 

The picture below is a footprint a couple of feet away from our tent.  I'm pretty sure it is a moose print (correct me if I am wrong).  There was a whole bunch of elk and moose poo poo all over our camping area.

Karate Grizzly Cubs... first off I wish this picture was mine, and I wish we could have saw them... wait, no, not really.

Early the next morning, we went canoeing  and it was the most beautiful, quiet, and untouched area I have ever been in.  

There was an awesome echo and it kept the guys entertained for quite a while.  Christy has a video of it on her blog so go check it out 

Cool, abandoned, non smelly, broken, outhouse.  We saw this on our hike, along with a moose.  I think this outhouse is AWESOME and has future ceramic project potential.

When we were packing everything up the hill it was much harder than going down.  We were exhausted and I almost had another heart attack.  And after we left we ended up getting stuck on a steep curvy hill along the dirt road with the canoe trailer starting to jackknife off of the cliff.  Yeah, I almost had my third heart attack.

And we all lived happily ever after.

The End