Phillips Creek

Saturday June 21 I went on my second hike of the season. The group wasn't sure if Blacktail Mountain still had snow on it so I planned this hike instead.

I called the Swan forest service ranger to ask about a few trails with views in her district. She told me the Beardance and Phillips Creek trails were snow free.

She recommended Phillips Creek trail over Beardance. She said the Phillips Creek trail had more views of Flathead Lake as the Beardance trail was mainly in the trees while Phillips Creek passed through a meadow.

She said if we started on the Swan Lake side of the trail we'd only climb 150 ft instead of the 1200 ft coming up from Flathead Lake and Hwy 35.

Joyce, Bill, Arnie, Sue Ann, and I met at 8 am as the day was predicted to have temperatures in the upper 80s F and clear skies.

I drove my car as everyone fit inside it. Good thing that half the people are shorter than average.

To reach the trail head we had to go through the town of Ferndale to get to forest service road #498. We saw no signs for the road but Ferndale is very small and the side road I picked was the correct road to get us to forest service road 498.

On this road we were to drive until we saw mile marker 3. We never saw it nor any other road sign. After a half dozen miles we saw a side forest service road and checked its number. Uh, oh. Wrong number. We gone too far.

We drove back down the road and mountain side and watched closer for signs.

We didn't see any signs but we did see a place where one could park on the east side of the road, which is what the trail description also mentioned. I got out and then found a small wooden sign indicating trail 373 to the north, which is the Phillips Creek trail.

After everyone got out of the car and prepared to hike Joyce found a sign that said "Phillips Creek" and a trail to the south.


The trail was nice. We went through a forest which kept the temperature cooler. Phillips Creek was pretty.

Some blow down crossed the trail but it wasn't too bad.

Lots of beargrass...

Phillips Creek trail is supposed to be 3 miles long and after almost 2 miles we found a side trail that led to a small clearing where we could see Flathead Lake down below. We had a nice view of Blacktail Mountain on the north (right) to Big Arm and Elmo to the south.



Far off to the west we could see snow covered mountains. The Cabinet Mountains?



We stopped and had lunch before continuing on. After lunch the trail headed down the mountain. On my map it would join with the Crane Mountain trail and the Beardance trail. How far down before the trails joined was the question.

We came to where our trail joined with another that went up (left) and down (right) the mountain. I checked the trail out and found it went back up to where we initially split off the trail to see the view of Flathead Lake. We decided to go back to the car as the "down" part of the trail was definitely down.

In the sun my black car was hot inside. As we aired my car to cool it down I saw on the map that trail 96 left from this trail head in the NW direction to Estes Lake. The sign saying 373 instead of 96 did not match, but what the heck, let's explore.

We went through more forests. We wandered around for a few miles. On trails, old roads, routes that were half trails and half roads. We passed signs of bonfires and beer cans and even passed a SUV parked at the end of a road. (We never did come across the SUV's occupants.)

After passing a lake that was more like a swamp the trail went up. Again I scouted ahead while the others waited and rested. The trail/road split and I took the trail westward. After a while I stopped and turned around as enough distance and time passed where I needed to return to the others.

On my way back I noticed ATV tracks off the trail and upwards. I followed and climbed on top of the large rock that was on the west side of the lake/swamp where I left the others. On top of the rock I had views out over the forest to the Swan Mountain Range to the east, and through the trees a glimpse of Flathead Lake off to the west.

I rejoined the others and we decided to return to the car and look for the other trails.

Off we drove. We found forest service roads that were on the map, forest service roads that were not on the map, and from the map we never found some of the other forest service roads. My map is dated 2007 so it is not an out-of-date map.

I drove down a few side forest service roads to dead ends and nothing else. No trails to be seen. No signs. Sue Ann began to tell us about the time she and a friend drove these roads many years ago when she lived in Bigfork and how they got stuck in snow. I was careful and didn't get my car high centered on the side roads. I missed most of the potholes but a few got me.

I was determined to go to the end of forest service road 498 even though the map had it ending in the middle of the forest. We also were curious as to what Mission Well was. This was labeled on the map closer to the end. Joyce said her husband had hauled logs out of Mission Well years ago but she didn't know what it was. What it is... is a lake. The lake is brown. I imagine from all the decaying trees that fell into it.


On we drove. We began to have snow off and on along the road, and a few times I had to drive across snow. The road was a little more than a vehicle width wide and at times I had to squeeze around a tree that fell across part of the road. One time I got out and moved a smallish tree off the road so I could drive by. I was determined to get to the end.

Near the end we came to a large tree across the road. Someone had cut the end off so a vehicle the width of an ATV could get by, but not a car. The tree was between two trees so we couldn't slide it sideways off the road. We couldn't push it down the mountainside as it was too large. I checked the end of the tree trunk and saw someone had cut the tree down. It was not a blow down. Hmmmm...


 
We left my car and walked down the road and found it split a few hundred yards beyond the tree. Each split had a mound of dirt and a deep trench on the other side dug across the road. The forest service went through a lot of effort to block the road. We continued walking on the west split. After a half mile we turned around as the scenery wasn't all that great and the road dull to walk on.



I had to drive in reverse a ways before I could turn my car around. This made Sue Ann nervous.

On the way back at Joyce's request I stopped on a section of snow so she could get out, dig down to white snow, and fill her water bottle to get water once it melted. This led to a snowball fight and everyone was lightly tossing snow at each other. Arnie misjudged and I got a face full of snow.

I kept track and found that forest service road 498 is 17 miles in length.

It was after 3 pm when we got back to Kalispell. We had wasted away the day, but had fun doing so. All told we probably hiked 7 miles total.