Trees and Water

Off we headed to Montana this morning after breakfast... just to see what we could find.  The State line was only a few miles east of our camp so right after breakfast we drove in that direction.  

Our first side trip was to check out the Cabinet Gorge hydroelectric dam on the Clark Fork River.  

According to the dam's history of the surrounding area there used to be a huge glacial lake covering the area during the Ice Age.  The ice dams would break apart and release huge amounts of water downstream...these floods came to be known as the Missoula Floods.  The results of this "wall of water" is thought to have created several of the area's surrounding lakes. 

Back on the road our ultimate destination was to see the giant cedars in the Ross Creek area of Montana.  The trees were huge... not as big as the Giant Redwoods, but amazing that they had not been logged.  

The walk through the forest was cool and quite beautiful.  The only other critters were as few red squirrels although mink, pine marten and weasels are supposed to be in the forest none were seen by the ever diligent Cooper.  He kept looking, but all he found were rocks... no squeaks or whistles to be heard.

We decided to drive onward until we reached Libby, MT.... the so called "city of eagles".  Their sculptures are everywhere in town.  Our last visit was during our very first trip West in winter.  The only thing we really remembered about the town was the car sticking out of the local school... it is still there as are the eagle sculptures.  

After a quick lunch at an outside picnic table we headed back towards camp.  Of course we made a detour along the way to hike out to the Kootenai Falls and check out the swinging bridge.

Awesome falls not too far off the road.  Lots of water still flowing down the river.  

The swinging bridge did not look too safe to 2/3's of us... Bill took the challenge and walked across the river while we watched from the safety of a shade tree.  

Anything that says "only 5 people at a time" says all one needs to know about the foot bridge.

After a pit stop to get homemade chocolate covered almonds we made it back to camp in time for a dip in the lake to cool off.  Cooper is still swimming out to 'rescue' whoever is in the float... until he's too tired to care.  Now if our float would not try to sink us we'd be in great shape.  Hopefully our 'tenacious tape' will fix the hole.