6mm Remington
Ammo Smith
- Feb 27, 2006
- 5,271
- 693
So I've been up Kootenai Creek scouting a few times now and I've put on some miles. I've been keeping track with the GPS so I can tally up how far I've gone and so I know distances to certain points. I made it back to North Kootenai Lake on September 4 when it was hotter than blazes. I couldn't find anyone to go with me so I just went by myself. I think I saw one goat in about 3 miles from the trailhead, but that was it. The lake was 13 miles from the trailhead according to my GPS! In looking at the topo map, it looked like it might be about 9.5, but those are only rough guesses and you don't get all the twists and turns involved. Damn you topo-map!
I spent the night and when I woke up it had gotten down to about 30 degrees as the tent was covered with frost. I started at 3200 feet and the lake sits at 6500 with the last 1500 coming in about the last 4 miles with most of it in about 1 mile of horizontal distance I would guess. I was going to stay one more night, but after glassing and looking around in the area for about 4 hours, I decided to come back out as I wasn't feeling real super. I never saw a single goat at the lake or near the lake. I started not feeling so great and I think I caught a stomach bug or something as I was throwing up. I never made it to the middle or south lakes to check them out, but was able to glass a large area at the north lake and find a nice :mrgreen: campsite for later on. I was not planning on coming back in that far until about October 10 hopefully on horseback! I wanted the goats to hair up, and it also was so hot that it would have been vertually impossible to keep the meat from spoiling and I sure didn't want to waste an animal just so I could say I shot one. The huckleberries at the lake were just getting ripe, but only 6 miles down the trail they were at the end of their season on September 4th. There were still some thimbleberries too which were great to munh on as I hiked in. My pack weighed in the neiborhood of 50 pounds and I felt it coming out as I stated, was not feeling so great. I hit the truck at 9:30 PM the second day. It was beautiful country and I still enjoyed it.
Miles tally so far with previous scouting trips added to the September two day trip of 27 (1 hiking around at the lake) miles equals, 49 miles so far. October 10th trip and then going in today for a few miles puts my total miles now with most of it being on foot at 81 miles.
Some pictures of the summer and early fall scouting trips.
Pretty creek I crossed.
Camp at the lake on the south end.
North Kootenai Lake
Beautiful!
Nice site for later in October.
I spent the night and when I woke up it had gotten down to about 30 degrees as the tent was covered with frost. I started at 3200 feet and the lake sits at 6500 with the last 1500 coming in about the last 4 miles with most of it in about 1 mile of horizontal distance I would guess. I was going to stay one more night, but after glassing and looking around in the area for about 4 hours, I decided to come back out as I wasn't feeling real super. I never saw a single goat at the lake or near the lake. I started not feeling so great and I think I caught a stomach bug or something as I was throwing up. I never made it to the middle or south lakes to check them out, but was able to glass a large area at the north lake and find a nice :mrgreen: campsite for later on. I was not planning on coming back in that far until about October 10 hopefully on horseback! I wanted the goats to hair up, and it also was so hot that it would have been vertually impossible to keep the meat from spoiling and I sure didn't want to waste an animal just so I could say I shot one. The huckleberries at the lake were just getting ripe, but only 6 miles down the trail they were at the end of their season on September 4th. There were still some thimbleberries too which were great to munh on as I hiked in. My pack weighed in the neiborhood of 50 pounds and I felt it coming out as I stated, was not feeling so great. I hit the truck at 9:30 PM the second day. It was beautiful country and I still enjoyed it.
Miles tally so far with previous scouting trips added to the September two day trip of 27 (1 hiking around at the lake) miles equals, 49 miles so far. October 10th trip and then going in today for a few miles puts my total miles now with most of it being on foot at 81 miles.
Some pictures of the summer and early fall scouting trips.
Pretty creek I crossed.
Camp at the lake on the south end.
North Kootenai Lake
Beautiful!
Nice site for later in October.