Wagon Mountain Trail

The Wagon Mountain Trail is one we discovered this winter while hiking out of the Lee Creek Campground. I thought we might be able to get up high enough for some good views that deep snow prevented us from doing in the winter. To get there leave Lolo Montana on Highway 12 heading west. Drive approximately 25 miles, you will pass Lolo Hot Springs, and see the Lee Creek Campground on the left. As you turn into the campground make an immediate right into the parking area.

Behind the first campsite you'll find this wooden bridge. Cross over Lee Creek to get to the trailhead and on your left is the trail heading up the hillside on a fairly well defined path. This hike is about 6 miles round trip taking about 2 to 3 hours depending on if you stop for lunch or not. Daisy and I always take lunch with us on our hikes and I was really glad that we did. Be sure to take lots of water with you as we didn't find any along the way.

"Are you sure you want to hike this trail?" Daisy was right I was starting to have second thoughts. I haven't hiked on a trail with so much down timber on it for along time. I'm reluctant to give trail directions on this hike because we got lost. My friend Rick laughed, "You, you got lost?" Yes we did and our 3 hour 6 mile hike turned into a 7 hour 10 or 12 mile hike. There's nothing like hiking a half mile down an old logging road only to find you should have taken the left fork instead of the right fork. By the time we got back to our Toyota Tundra we were both beat. I didn't hear a peep out of Daisy all the way back to Lolo.

Our directions went something like this; follow the trail to the old logging road, turn left and follow the logging road for 25 yards and then right on the unsigned trail. Follow this path until you come to another logging road then turn left and follow the road for about 110 yards and then take the trail on the right. Continue on the path until you come to an old jeep road. Take the right fork of the old jeep road until you come to where it levels out and enters the forest.

"Is this the old jeep road?" Beats the heck out of me, there are so many old skid trails, old logging roads, old jeep trails, game trails, and somewhere the trail to Wagon Mountain. We also came to discover that some of the trail markers must have fallen off the tree's during this last winter. The Wagon Mountain Trail is also part of the Lewis and Clark, or Nez Perce, National Historic Trails for a mile or so. You must remember where the Wagon Mountain Trail branches off these trails or on your return trip you will end up on the wrong side of the mountain from Lee Creek. This is what happened to us the first time we hiked Wagon Mountain and we ended up backtracking up some very steep trails.

"This must be the right trail; there's a tree lying across it." Daisy has learned to wait for me when I have to find my way around stuff like this even if she can easily walk underneath it. If I can't easily step over I go around, one slip and you can get impaled. If Daisy can't walk under the tree I make her walk around with me because she has scratched herself jumping over some of this stuff. Some of these broken off branches are sharp! This is probably one of the more dangerous situations you can encounter out hiking. As the day went on I kept thinking of those jungle movies and all those traps with the spikes sticking up.

Even the most experienced hiker might be confused by the maze of roads and trails we came across. It'd be fun to take my brother Joe and friend Rick up here just to listen to them arguing. "It's a logging road." "No, it's a jeep trail." By now I was wishing I hadn't put off getting that GPS I've been looking at for the last year. In fact I ordered the GPS the next day and we will see if it'll help when dealing with this kind of trail confusion. If there is any logic to the way these roads were created it sure escapes me.

"Come on Doug, just one more after this one." I can't remember ever coming across this many down trees on any hike. While trying to get across one I slipped and thank goodness I had my hiking stick with me or I could have been seriously skewered. As I went down with all my weight on my hiking stick I had this vision of puncturing my femoral artery. My poor old trusty Leki hiking stick that I picked up years ago in an R. E. I. store was so badly bent it would no longer be telescoping.

The story of Wagon Mountain goes something like this; sometime around the year 1900 a man with a wagon pulled by an ox decided to take this trail. As the trail narrowed he kept shortening his axles so the wagon could pass. Finally he had to tear the wagon apart and build a two-wheeled cart. Then when even that couldn't pass he built a pack frame for his ox and left the rest behind. Pieces of his wagon were found all along the trail giving the mountain and trail its name.

"Let me know when dinner's ready."

Until Next Time,

Doug