Day Nine - Short Day

When we were leaving Dicky Lake, we stopped for a picture at the boat ramp and saw a loon swimming just off the boat dock. Pat had heard the loon calling earlier, so it was fun to see it too. We'd had a leisurely start to our day with a pancake breakfast, but were still on the road by 8:30. Fifteen miles up the road, Hwy 93, was the town of Eureka. It was a cute little town that seemed to be just waking up as we drove through. If we had continued north, we would have reached the Canadian border in another six miles. Of course, due to the Coronavirus, the border crossing would entail a fourteen day quarantine, so south and west we went instead.  

Our aim for the day was to check out the Libby area of northwestern Montana. About six miles after

turning west onto Hwy 37, we glimpsed the Koocanusa Reservoir. This is a large reservoir on the Kootenai River which extends up into Canada. On the map it appears to be at least 70 miles long and was a pretty teal blue color. I had read that when they built the dam in Libby, they had a contest to name the reservoir. The winning name was Koocanusa. The lady who submitted the name was asked what the word meant. She said it didn't mean anything, but she had combined the first three letters of KOOtenai, CANada, and USA, so it came out "Koocanusa"... I just think it's a fun name to say.

We caught glimpses of the lake as we drove high above it on a winding road.  A few short stops at

turnouts for pictures and rock gathering (my pastime, I always come home with lots of rock...) were made . There was a sign for a campground to the east of the road, but we had already passed it, so we drove on. Often on these exploratory trips we stop at camps just to see if they would make a likely place to stop in the future. A few miles later, we saw a sign for a boat ramp at Peck Gulch and thought we'd take a look. It turned out that it was also a campground, better yet, we could check it out.

We had to turn sharply and start down a steep road. Thankfully we had the camper because a trailer would have made  for a tricky turn. The road at first was barely two lanes and narrowed to one lane toward the bottom of the hill. The boat ramp was to the north. The campground consisted of a few sites tucked in at the base of the hillside along with another ten sites in two gravel areas along the lakeshore.

Pulling into one of the latter, we got out to look at the lake. Just then three loons flew in front of the

camp making their loon calls... looney calls... loons call... however you say it, they were making their distinctive sound. I took it as a sign that this should be camp today. We started with a loon at Dicky Lake and now there were some loons at Peck Gulch.

It turns out this was another campsite suited to our style - quiet, few other campers, and water. The water was especially important on this day since the temperature

climbed to 98 degrees for a good part of the afternoon. When we got hot, we picked our way down to the lakeshore and stepped carefully in on the shifting rockys out into the refreshing clear water. 

A persistent wind kicked up some swells that made it fun to float in the lake for most of the afternoon. We enjoyed our short travel day, it was less than a two hour drive and under forty miles from our previous camp.

However, playing in the water, reading, drinking iced coffees,  journaling (aka. blogging), listening to the loons, and watching the quarter moon rise above the evergreen forest made it worth what will undoubtedly be a longer day in the near future.