On a map, nothing in Montana looks too far away, but it is a big state and the mountains do tend to make straight line travel a little difficult. It was about an hour from Jenn and James’s to the Upper Stillwater Campground and when we started looking around, we realized that we would probably have to move to do any exploring in the mountains, so we took advantage of what was right around the campground.
Just down the road into the campground was the trailhead for hikes to Finger, Hole in the Wall and Lagoni Lakes. We headed out early on a Saturday morning with coffee in hand thinking that we would take a couple of hours to hike up to Finger Lake and check out the views. We got to the lake shore and took in the views of the lake from up on a bluff and then headed down to see how far we could make it down the trail that followed one side of the lake. We wound up making it most of the way around the lake either on a man-made trail or game trails and then cut over to Hole in the Wall Lake before heading back to the campground. We found a giant rope swing that we didn’t take advantage of, crystal clear water, thick carpets of dried moss and lichen and lots of very unique rocks. What we thought would be maybe 3 miles and a couple of hours turned into almost 6 miles and 3.5 hours. We are slowly learning to pack more water and food than we would expect to need so we can take the time to enjoy the places we wind up.
We have so enjoyed being able to both take our time exploring what we find and not being in a hurry to do anything most days. After a lazy morning around our campsite waiting for the day to warm up, we packed a lunch and headed out on the paddleboards on the Upper Stillwater. Mike had scoped out the area and was intrigued by the elevation change that happened a ways down the river that came off the Lake. We thought we might get to paddle below some bluffs so we headed that way. The lake paddling was nice and peaceful except for one noisy boat. When we got to the river section, though, it was beautiful. We portaged the boats over some rapids to head down the river and kicked ourselves a little for not packing camping gear. We thought that there was a possibility of camping near the river and we found a lovely spot right by the rapids that another group was leaving. On the way back, we also found the real portage around the rapids so we didn’t have to carry the boards over some tricky rocks and water.
The wind kicked up on the way back to our campsite to help push us on our way and Mike used his shirt as a sail to make use of it.
