Lost Horse Creek

This past weekend, our last hurrah before school started, we packed up our little home-away-from-home and drove down the Bitterroot. After one stop at a campground that was full, we drove a bit further south and into a drainage called Lost Horse. It had a ton of campsite, which was great, and they were all free, which was even better. The only hang-up with free camping in Montana is that usually means there is no outhouse available, which there wasn't. I'm sure that would scare off the faint of heart, but we aren't opposed to doing our business in the bushes, so we stayed. We also have a porta-potty we let the girls use which makes life much easier. If you've ever tried to help little girls do their business in the bushes you know exactly what I am talking about.

Our campsite was right on the creek and had plenty of room to play. So Daddy and the kiddos rode their bikes and played in the water. The water was perfect. Not muddy, clear as a bell and cool and not too deep. Absolutely perfect for kids. Unfortunately it wasn't really warm enough to want to get in the water after the first night we were there. *sigh* Welcome to fall.

The girls playing Frisbee with our Scottish friend Bob, who joined us for our camping weekend. We actually found the Frisbee in the bushes, and the girls had so much fun playing with it until it broke that I think I'm going to stash a Frisbee in our camp gear to stay.

Kera in the creek. There was this little rock wall of sorts someone had erected in the water and the girls had a ball "decorating" it.

I don't think Erik intended to look as dorky as he kind of looks here. This was my first-day camping hair--after this it would be in a baseball cap! hee hee

We drove up to a little camping/hiking area further up the Lost Horse creek road the next day and did some hiking around. The campground up there was awesome--it had several outhouses, big trees, tons of firewood and cute little tent areas. Too bad the road to get there is a little iffy for a camper, I'd totally go back there. When it came down to the hiking, Lindsay was not too happy. She just wasn't into it and pouted and whined most of the way.

Beautiful views.

Cool whitewashed trees.

The end of our hike brought us to a little lake called Mud Lake. We had a snack and after this Lindsay's attitude greatly improved. It was a muddy little lake with tons of moose tracks around, but we didn't catch a glimpse of any animals, except a couple frogs and lots of tadpoles.

Mud lake. It had these cool rock islands in the middle with trees growing out of them.

We saw lots of these cool flowers on our hike. I have no idea what they are called.

Bob and the girls looking out over one of the Twin Lakes at the start of our hike, not far from where we parked.

It was a wonderful way to spend the last weekend of our summer vacation and a great place to see that I'm sure we'll go back to eventually!