12/23/17 Owl Creek Cabin and Campground

Fading sun on the Swan Mountains

Even though this trip was not in the direct Missoula vicinity, it is close.  It took us about one and one-half hour to make it to the Owl Creek Cabin, where we stayed for two nights.

On the 23rd of December, Carrie and I drove up with Jeff and Rebecca to the Owl Creek Cabin, near Holland Lake, to spend a couple nights.  That first evening, after settling in to the cabin and getting a fire going to warm it up, we stepped into our skis and set out to explore our surroundings.  We started on the campground road and headed out by a corral, angling through the trees beyond to what looked like a meadow.  In the opening past the trees, we found some of the private houses in the area and decided to turn around.

Heading back to the cabin

Back on the campground road, we enjoyed some of the waning sunlight on the peaks.  We passed the cabin and skied up the trail that left right from the campground entrance.  It was a nice, wide trail, and it was evident that this was a popular stock trailhead for people getting into the Bob Marshall Wilderness.  Shortly after starting, we crossed another road and carried on up the other side.  When the trail became steeper, we decided to stop.  We talked about the possibility of starting up this trail the next day and making a loop to Holland Lake and back to the cabin, and then we started skiing back.  At the road we crossed, we decided to ski down it to the open road to the cabin.  Despite looking like some downhill, we could not just coast down to the road.  The snow was good, however, and we had just underestimated the steepness of the hill.  From the bottom of the hill, we skied the open road happily back to the campground and through it to the cabin.