Apparently I have the superpower of being able to completely overpack as you will see in the photo, especially for an overnight camping trip (actually I deliberately overpacked because I wanted to put as much on it as I'd take for a week long trip just to see how to configure everything and how it would handle). Still though, pretty embarrassing amount of gear for one night. I could have put more inside, but we have two dogs so I'm grateful for the roof rack.

We were going to go to a spot called Pigeon Creek which is in the Beaverhead-Deerlodge forest. I had never been there before but there was apparently fish in the creek plus it was less than 30 minutes away.

It is 11 miles up a forest service road. The shady sides were still very deep in snow. Every few hundred yards there were deep ruts between the snowpack where meltwater had been going the path of least resistance as it melted at higher elevations. After a couple miles I noticed older footprints that had been snowed over and iced over. They were headed downhill, which should have been an omen. Nevermind I kept going. Then I saw where the owner of the footsteps had been walking from. The road was a mess. Not only had someone gotten stuck, but after they walked a few miles down and found someone (best I could guess) that person made a mess of things too.

Regardless I decided to try and plow through. No such luck. Stuck. And no trees to winch from since the right side was a steep hill and the left side was an even steeper hill going down. I was sitting on the axles since the left rear and right front tire would spin, even in Lo and Diff Lock.

A bit of shoveling and a rock kicked under the left rear tire and I backed out. I was about 2 miles from the top of the mountain and wanted to go forward since I could see clear dirt up in a sunny area but since the road twisted around again there was no way to tell if it got worse and apparently no one had been up here since the snow flew in winter. So I backed down half a mile, got it turned around and went to another spot: Delmoe Lake.

Delmoe lake sits right on the Continental Divide. You go up and over but the lake itself is at 6100'. I know people ice fish there so I figured someone would have paved the way. It's also a huge off-road recreation area with tons of trails (pic is of me on one of them in my TE310 right before a sudden summer hail storm that dropped an inch deep worth of hail last summer and that trail became a river of sudden ice melt).

We got up there before sunset (which this time of year is 8 pm with another hour or so of twilight - in summer itself we have daylight until around 10 pm) and set up camp.

Uneventful and peaceful night camping (that tent is a vintage canvas tent - sets up in about 5 minutes (putting it back in the bag takes a LOT longer) and is about 9' wide by 16' long.

Bonus, at daybreak it was 28 degrees. Once the sun came up it was warm enough (despite still being only 28 degrees) to go shirtless for a couple hours and get some Vitamin D. That's the one thing my friends back east can't comprehend - how 28 degrees can actually feel HOT with the sun. No complaints here.

Very enjoyable weekend. I'm definitely going to go for some kind of recovery traction devices though as it's easier than hunting for rocks.

My wife also photoshopped a nice Grizzly into a picture...

 

Cook story and pictures. That's what a discovery is for. And bravo for the roof loading! Epic!

 

Awesome setup, love the old canvas tent and the scenery is spectacular. Doesn't get much better than that.

Thank you, for sharing.

Brian.