weekend essay

No One Else for Miles

By Joan Melcher, Guest Writer, 8-24-07

It’s surprising to see what Montanans will do to get away from it all. “There was no one else for miles” could well be our state motto and we’ll do a lot to get there.

Take a recent weekend.

Saturday morning and the heat is already bearing down. My initial idea is to drive to a high-country lake, take a short hike, cool off every half hour in the water and come back as dusk cools the scorched earth. It would be simple – a little packing of gear, a bit of driving, but home to a nice comfy bed.

Of course, Kelly, my partner, will have to fish. That’s a given. But I soon find, that the cold he’s been suffering with for days isn’t about to stop his other main urge – to have a prime piece of Montana all to himself overnight. He ups the ante.

“Let’s take the raft, go to Salmon Lake,” he says. “There’s an island. We can camp.” We do have a five-horsepower motor that we could put on our boat, but we need to replace the battery and we clearly don’t have time to do that and get away at a decent hour. “No problem,” says Kelly. “I’ll row out.”

I should have bought the bridge then.

Arriving at a camp site for Salmon Lake, we find no easy access with a raft and a multitude of power boats creating steady wakes. It doesn’t look promising. As we drive further, we see other campers have beaten us to the island. I’m not sure it is so attractive anyway. The only tree on it is a tall burnt snag angling over the shoreline. Did I mention the temperature is approaching 100 degrees?

“Ah well, we’ll check out Placid Lake,” he says. (This, of course, was before the fires.)

Nearing it, we see a short line of cars at the campsite. Of course, he’d never stay at a designated campsite unless he was experiencing piercing chest pain. The idea of waiting in line to camp on top of someone else is his idea of pure lunacy. “I’ve heard there’s great camping at Jocko Lake.” he says.

Okay ….

We look at the topo map. It’s clear we’re in for a good ten miles, maybe more, of gravel road.  Ah well, “there will be no one else for miles.”

We drive on. The road is as bad as any I’ve been on and I grew up in eastern Montana. Fifteen mph tops. Once we finally spy blue out the window, we search in vain for a site. We see one, but we could never maneuver to it with the raft. We drive on, looking for any real access to the upper lake and then lower Jocko Lake.

I think about people who actually plan their outings.

About 15 miles in we do, indeed, NOT see another person. I’m sure people use this road, which connects the Seeley-Swan to the Flathead, coming out just above Arlee, but they mainly drive up a few miles up from each valley. What we are doing, basically, is crossing the Mission Mountains. It’s like taking the Rock Creek road to Philipsburg, but worse. The people likely to be spotted in these high elevations seem to be loggers, from the look of several of the hillsides.

Kelly keeps sneezing, coughing and wheezing because of the dust and his cold and stopping to make sure the raft is secure with all the bouncing around. Everything is coated in a mantle of dust.

It seems like we’re taking our raft for a ride. I imagine an animated raft, with raised eyebrows and a slit of a mouth, choking in a whirlwind of dust, saying, “what the hell …”

I keep telling myself things like, “at least the truck isn’t overheating.” Our dogs, patient as always, sit up in the back and watch us with deepening question marks in their eyes.

Somewhere along the line, Kelly realizes we are on the reservation and he doesn’t have a license to fish. In most situations, this would be a major catastrophe, enough to make him drive forever, especially if there are any remote options for angling before dark. But we’re nearing the top of the pass and from looking at the map, it’s at least another hour of dust to get to Arlee.

Finally, we stop and Kelly grabs a couple of cold ones out of the cooler in the back. Okay, we’re breaking the open container law, but somehow I think we’ll escape punishment on this road, going 12.5 mph. The last time a highway patrol officer was up here was probably to help evacuate a logger who’d had an accident with a chainsaw.

The only problem the beer seems to be causing is a slight distraction as it sprays us when we hit another rut.

We drive on. I think of my cool living room at home.

Five hours after we began this adventure, we see a little dirt road and beyond that Jocko Creek, tumbling west to the Flathead. We pull over and the dust cloud that has accompanied us for a couple of hours slowly settles. We get out of the truck. The dogs spring from it as if released from a pressure cooker.

The place is beautiful. Moss-covered rock ledges cradling pristine waters. Easy access to the creek. Far enough off the road for privacy. A sweet splash of wild daisies rising from the creek bank. Shade.

Not a soul for miles.

“We’re home,” he says.

Yup.

Like a sleepwalker, he goes to the back of the truck and pulls out his fishing gear. I raise my eyebrows. He takes a chair and sits with the rod in his hand. After wetting myself in the creek, I pull a New Yorker out of my gear bag and get my chair. Sophie, the fishing dog, comes up out of the water, does her little shake, looks at Kelly, over to me. She understands on some level. It is a catastrophe. But we’ll get through it.

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