Friday, August 24th – Time to explore a bit

Friday, August 24^th

Went to the National Bison Range and got up close and personal with some quite large animals.The visitor center had a very nice exhibit.

The beautiful Mission Mountains in the background and an Antelope on the loop drive through the preserve.

Some big beasts and right along the road!

A Bison ran across the road in front of my vehicle just like in Yellowstone last year (Barbee and Natalie still give me a hard time about that as they say I was trying to run it over) – are they trying to mess with me like the squirrels do?

I even fished a bit on Mission Creek that runs through the preserve and caught one small trout. I made a point to watch my step as I walked up the creek!

Afterwards I drove to the headwaters of the Bitterroot River again and fished until dark with mild success.

After dinner at a diner in Hamilton I went to Lake Como Campground just down the road to camp for the night and when I got there the sign said campground full. Bummer! So I had to stick to my original idea of driving up to Twin Lakes camping near the Selway-Bitterroot Wilderness on the Bitterroot divide. Twin Lakes Campground is located at an elevation of 7,200 feet within the Bitteroot  National Forest in southwest Montana near the Idaho border. I really didn’t plan on driving 20 miles up to 7200 ft on a very bumping pothole ridden gravel road in the dark. It took me an hour to get there. Set up my tent and got in my sleeping bag about midnight. One thing about getting there when it is dark is that you don’t know what you will wake up to the next morning.