Fort Fizzle

Fort Fizzle is one of our favorite picnic spots especially this time of year when a lot of the hiking trails are covered with melting snow and are hard to hike. Besides, it's fun to get out and have lunch next to Lolo Creek. To get there leave Lolo Montana on Highway 12 heading west. Drive for approximately 4 miles; you will see Fort Fizzle on your left. Even though Fort Fizzle is only 4 miles from Lolo very few people seem to come here. We usually visit Fort Fizzle during the week to avoid people but once on a beautiful sunny Sunday we stopped to eat our lunch and to our surprise there was no one here. We ate our lunch and wandered all over the place for almost an hour before a young couple showed up just as we were packing up to leave.

Daisy always goes right to the same picnic bench. But she's not fooling me, I know she picked this spot as her favorite because it's closest to the trail heading down to Lolo Creek and she likes going down to check things out. She's not even really interested in lunch it's much more fun to go exploring and looking for squirrels. Sometimes she's just like a little kid before Christmas and can hardly stand the wait.

Fort Fizzle has been called "A Successful Failure" for the part it played in the flight of the Nez Perce Indians. Army Captain Charles Rawn of Missoula was ordered to stop the Nez Perce fleeing Idaho via the Lolo Pass. In late July of 1877 he and his 35 soldiers selected this site on Lolo Creek for a barricade. With the help of about 150 citizen volunteers, and their elected officers, they dug dirt pits and topped them with log walls. The Nez Perce were looking forward to passing into the Bitterroot Valley where they had enjoyed peaceful relations with friendly Indians and White settlers. People in Missoula had been told hostile Indians were coming.

When Chief Looking Glass saw these pits he called them "Soldiers Corrals" and the name stuck. After several parleys the citizen volunteers accepted the word of the Nez Perce that they would pass in peace. The army would not accept anything but the surrender of the Nez Perce. The citizen volunteers decided to go home even if it meant disobeying orders from the regular army. Many of the volunteers thought the soldiers were ignorant immigrants who were dirty and drunk all the time. The soldiers thought the volunteers were disorganized, insolent, and always disobeying orders. One army officer threatened to shoot a volunteer officer for desertion but the volunteers left anyway. Captain Rawn soon found he had insufficient men to do anything about the Nez Perce and lucky for him the Nez Perce found a way to go around him and his fort. The fort quickly became known as Fort Fizzle.

After checking out the rest of the picnic ground Daisy can't wait to get down the pathway to Lolo Creek. She was very impatient with me one day because I was trying to photograph two woodpeckers up in a tree. She knows that she has to wait for me and that I want her to stay in my sight. Failing to get a good picture of the birds I hurried down the path to catch up with her. The path forks at the creek and you can follow trails upstream and downstream.

Lolo Creek is a pretty little creek most of the year but this time of the year it's really running high with runoff from snowmelt. There are little offshoots from the trail that will lead you right up to the creek giving good access for fishing and taking pictures. There is trout here but when the creek is running this high the fishing isn't very good because all the silt that is being washed downstream turns the water murky.

Daisy is reluctant to leave Fort Fizzle until every pathway and trail has been thoroughly searched. We've seen deer, turkeys, and many types of birds here. But, her main interest is finding any of the local squirrels and making sure they're up in their tree where they're supposed to be. Please remember to be a good neighbor my rule of thumb is if anyone else is in the picnic ground, whether they have a dog or not, Daisy has to be on her leash.

I suppose dinner will be late tonight.

Until Next Time,

Doug