Solo Northfork of the Clearwater (aka Tom's Bachelor party)

I made a decision last week to make a solo trip to the Northfork of the Clearwater in order to clear my head and relax! It was also my pseudo-bachelor party...I never wanted anything over-the-top and this seemed to be right up my alley. Shoot, you all know me by now.

But, it began Friday morning with me having to clean cat urine off my dry bag. I had all my gear staged near it so luckily it didn't get "soiled." Tate is catching a lot of our stress...and consequently peeing on things. It's bizarre and we're hoping that'll be over once the 13th rolls around! Following that I went down to the label makers to straighten out a botched order and headed out!

The drive on the interstate was stressful for some reason (with all the people and whatnot) and I was glad when I finally hit Superior. Pretty quickly I was the only one on the road and felt 10x better...and my mood just kept improving as I got further and further into my old stomping grounds. Oddly enough, about 4 miles past Kelly creek is one of my favorite camps...and it was open!!


My driveway


The driveway is on the left...hidden camp.



See? Driveway on the right. HIDDEN camp!!



The approach.



After the final turn you can finally see my truck!



Even from the truck, the camp is hidden



My tent nestled on the sand under some big cedars



Ain't she purty!?



The dining room, kitchen, and living room.


I'm sure you can understand why I like this camp. It's quiet (except for the river noise), it secluded, there's NO ONE nearby, and...it's just plain awesome.


High water, looking downriver from camp



Upriver from camp

Well, I got everything set up and proceeded to wash my dry bag in the river. It still had a little "stink" to it. Turns out the river is high and cold, but it's an excellent washing machine!


Washing machine

I hung out for a very short while then decided to go fishing when I saw the hatch starting. I have a little honey hole down near the Bear Butte trailhead and it always produces. Sure enough, I must have caught about 12 fish in quick order. The finale was three fish in five casts...all over 14 inches! Perfect way to end the evening.

When I got back to camp I noticed some ATV tracks going down my driveway. No worries, he probably saw my tent and turned around...sure enough, that's what he did. But there was something in the middle of the driveway...something small, dark, and square. I turned the truck around and investigated. Turns out he dropped a lot of flies!


Unfortunately, they're hand-tied and not the best quality.



So, I watched the sun creep up the opposite side of the river and relaxed!



Classic view on the Northfork

Well, the night went well and I got up with the sun. I moved the chair down to the river and hung out in the sun for a bit. I wasn't entirely sure where to start with the day, so finally headed out on a drive down memory lane...which led me all the way to Canyon. There were people everywhere! Most of them had Washington plates (I only saw about three Idaho plates) and everyone had their fishing uniforms on. It just pisses me off when I see that everywhere...you do NOT need all the new gear and be loaded down to fish that river. Seriously, these guys were never very far from their truck...it probably took them longer to get "dressed up" then it did to fish a hole. And the waders? I didn't see ONE person further than five yards from shore...the water is that high. Geez, learn to roll cast and save yourself some trouble. (Gosh, I sound an awful lot like a snob don't I?)

But, all was good. I turned around at Aquarius campground and decided to fish my way back upriver. Hmm, it was noon by that time though. Many of the better spots and nearly all the turnouts had people in them. When I DID get down to the river, it wasn't that productive. Too hot, no wind, and not a lot of bugs on the water. But I splashed around for a bit and made it back up to my camp. Not really wanting to sit around, I kept going and headed up to Mush saddle. I don't know why, but I go up there every time I go into that country. It gets you away from people I guess.


There was a lot of Indian paintbrush blooming!



Vibrant flowers



Up on top I finally got into beargrass



Just kinda interesting

There's a fern field up there that I WILL go up to someday. I was going to jump up there and take some photos because those ferns will grow to about five / six feet. But, seeing as how our growing season has been screwed up, they were only about two feet tall.


Doesn't that just look inviting?


I'll bet there are some good views up there.

I headed back to camp and was just starting to think about getting dinner ready to go...


This photo is from the morning...but it was a standard occurrence.


When I heard some DEATHLY screaming coming from up on the main road! Over and over screaming. Without a thought, I grabbed the handgun and headed up there. I honestly thought someone was getting beaten up by a bear, and I wanted to be able to help. When I got to the entrance to my camp, there was a truck with four fellas in it coming down. They stopped and I asked them if that was them screaming. "Yea it was us man, we're just having a good time. Why are you packing?" I told them and the driver kept asking about the caliber and whatnot...then said, "We're just looking for firewood." I told them I couldn't help them and they took off. All of them were BLITZED out of their skulls.

But, as I was hustling up there I passed the truck and noticed my front passenger side tire was flat. CRAP. I remember continually thinking, "you should check the spare's tire pressure. Nah, what can happen to a spare under the truck?"

Hmmm, so after getting the tire off I pulled the spare down and THANK YOU LORD it wasn't flat!! Well, by this time the jack had sunk in the mud and I couldn't get the spare on. Okay...drop it back down on a piece of wood, get a rock under the jack, and put it up again. That did the trick and I successfully got the spare on. By this time it's about 8:30, but not wanting to take chances I checked my other tires. That's when I noticed the driver's side front was looking pretty low. I tried pressing my ear to it to listen for a slow leak, but couldn't hear anything over the roar of the river. After a brief consultation with myself, I made up my mind.

I THREW camp into the back of the truck and blazed out of there. With no other spare, I needed to at least be on the other side of the hill in Montana (if nothing else closer for the tow truck) if it came to that. So there I was cruising up Black Canyon in the dark right? (By the way it was pretty nice...NO ONE on the road...everyone hunkered in their camps.) I stopped to pee and when I finished my business I saw some black spheres on a bush. Imagine me, in the dark...with only the light of a half-moon...eating huckleberries by the side of the river. After a few seconds I thought, "Tom. This is retarded. You're hurrying to Montana because of your tire. GET A MOVE ON!" I must have been hungry and I still get a chuckle out of that little event.

Well, I was planning on camping in that big basin just beyond the pass (because it'd be a pretty place to be stuck if it came to that) but it was taken. So I made it all the way to the bottom before I found another available spot. It wasn't the best, but it was late enough I didn't care. I had thrown some sticks from the road in the truck on the way over, so I made a hasty fire and cooked some dogs for dinner. I was in bed in a hurry. (And the tire was still good.)

In the morning I putzed around for a while and then started organizing my stuff for the interstate trip home. That's when I noticed it. I had taken my spinning rod as a backup if I broke my flyrod. I hadn't touched it and it had just ridden around in the back of the truck. Until now. Someone had stolen my rod! I have a pretty good idea where it was because when I was fishing the day before, I was pretty far from the truck, but I heard a lot of cars on the road. When I got up to the truck after that didn't produce...I was digging around in the cooler and thought, "I COULD NOT have drank that many beers! Did I?" I remember checking my empties and thinking it didn't add up, but, whatever. So, all I can figure is someone stopped to raid my cooler and decided to acquire a new rod at the same time. SONOFABITCH. And the worst part? I had JUST bought that reel on the Selway trip....remember? An $80 setup gone. I would have never expected that from folks on the Northfork.

But, it seemed as though I had everything else and since there was nothing I could do about it, I made my way to Superior. I stopped and checked the tire before getting on the interstate...still good. Did I just do all that worrying for nothing? Ahh, it's better to be prepared.

So back on the crowded interstate and stressed out after being robbed and worried that the "CAUTION: ROUGH ROAD AHEAD" signs weren't lying. Well, they weren't lying and the road was rough. I kept pulling over and checking other pieces of gear that just happened to occur to me, "Do I still have my tripod?" Stop, check, yep. "Where's my good camera?" Stop, check, panic, find it, move on.

I was VERY glad to get to the top of 4th of July pass so I decided to ditch all the bad drivers and take the slow roads down the back. That helped calm me down and I made my way to Blue Creek to dump garbage (there's a dispersed dump site there.) That's when I saw this:


Blue creek bay FULL of boats. Redneck yacht club much?

Everyone was just anchored there...hanging out. Ugh, I am so tired of tourist season around here. I guess it just makes the fall that much better though, and the winters are very quiet and blissful!

I HAD been trying to wait until after the wedding to get new tires, but that wasn't an option now. So I went in there Monday and the guy asked if I had 2.5 to 3 hours to wait. Nope. Obviously everyone got flats that weekend. (And I saw plenty of them on the interstate, which didn't help my stress level!) So I was in there Tuesday morning and the gal said, "You'll be out of here in an hour." Sweet. My truck didn't move out of the PARKING LOT for an hour, then another hour to get $880 of new tires put on. Meanwhile, I'm starting to fume because I was surrounded by people MUNCHING LOUDLY on popcorn, constantly, for two hours. Add loud cellphone talkers to that and let's just say I was irritated.

But it DID get livened up by me getting to witness my very first high speed car chase. A red Dodge charger went blasting up government at about 60 mph...in a 35 (turns out it was stolen.) He was followed by about a dozen police trucks, cars, and motorcycles...bouncing over curbs, coming out of the woodwork and racing after this guy. Pretty impressive...but there were people in there that never looked up from their papers! Bizarre. I guess the cops gave up the chase due to safety (he was clocked at 100 mph in town) but caught up with him later that night.

All in all, I feel like I need a vacation to recover from that vacation. Tempting...oh so tempting.


But THIS sure was nice!