Heart Lake (Great Burn) - September 3, 2024

Participants: David & Julie Kahl

We were busy over the weekend and decided to shift this trip one day, to Monday, another spectacular fall day. Driving over to Superior, I totally spaced that Heart Lake was in the Trout Cr. drainage, and that on Superior’s south side that Diamond Match Rd. (there used to be a Diamond Match factory up there) was the road to Trout Cr. Rd. We ended up turning too early onto Cedar Cr. Rd. where -in our defense- there was a sign, about 5 miles/8.05k up, that said “Heart Lake 20 miles/32.12k,” right where the Oregon Cr. Rd. goes off. We quickly discovered that Cedar Cr. Rd. is booby-trapped with those kiosk like historical signs all along its length, we stopped at two, one by “China Gulch” and “Louiseville” where there was a two-feet-thick-stone-walls house, built into the side of a hill, undergoing some preservation. And the Gildersleeve Mine/Resort. All of the history is about: from 1870-73 or 74, when an 1869 gold strike in Cedar Cr. set up a mining boom. For those few brief years, Cedar City was the center of commerce in this area. What would become the Missoulian actually started out as the Cedar City Pioneer. Then gold strikes elsewhere in the state drained the miners off. Most of it was placer mining, in Cedar Cr., but there was a little bit of shaft mining here and there. As was the custom in those days the miners split up into ethnic groups, hence China Gulch, another that had a French sounding name, and starting an old Montana Tradition -California Gulch. The Gildersleeve mine came later and is on the Register Of Historical Places as the only, Depression Area (1930’s), totally intact mining facility in the country. After active mining stopped it became a resort of sort. The Gildersleeve family still lives in the area and takes care of it. And there is still active, Gildersleeve assaying activity for miles around. A day excursion just to read the signs and visit the sites is recommended.

To our surprise this was a very well maintained road, though it did get narrower as we went up. We kept running into logging trucks coming out and eventually a guy in a pick up truck flagged us down to tell us that one more truck was coming down behind him, talking with him he said that is was the road to Missoula Lake, not Heart Lake, and that was when we realized we were in the wrong drainage. We pulled off into a pull off to let the last log truck get by and ate lunch and consulted our maps. We had a Ninemile Ranger District map that had Heart Lake on it, but nothing to the west -Cedar Cr.- that was on the Superior Ranger District Map. We discussed doing Lake Missoula instead, but had no map to show us where it was. I ran Cedar Cr. Rd. out on my GPS and found it went up to a Freezeout Pass, which was on our map, and had the road continuing over and down to meet with the Trout Cr. Rd. not far from the Heart Lake trail head. At Freezeout Pass, where the kiosks ended, they talked about Illinois Peak, but again with no map to show us where that was we had to pass on it. There was Gildersleeve mining activity up there. Coming down the Trout Cr. side we got some spectacular views down the drainage.

When I first hiked to Heart and Pearl Lakes in the 1980’s, the trail was about 2 1/4 miles/3.62k long, and we just pulled off into the weeds beside the road to park and “use the facilities.” When last here in 2000 or 2001 we still parked in the weeds, but some trail work had been done and the trail was now 2 1/2 miles/4.02k long. Today, there is a parking lot off the road, with a vault toilet across the road. The sign said Heart Lake was 3 miles/4.83k, but our GPS’s said 3 1/2 miles/5.63k. There were 4 vehicles parked there. two from Idaho, another Missoula vehicle and one from Wisconsin. We left the trail head just after 1:PM, ran into the two separate Idaho parties coming out. The trail was mostly as I remembered, two short bridges over side streams, sections with big boulders in the trail, most of the middle section was forest with duff, a few “board walks in swampy areas” that were much more substantial than in the past, to accommodate pack stock travel (route into the Great Burn). There were a few muddy small creek crossing and places were water was running down the trail. Much of the elevation is gained in the last mile, switch backs were mostly new, then we crossed the lake outlet -now the head waters of Trout Cr.- on stepping stones. From there you need to climb up and over the rock features that impound the lake above, with a few short views down the drainage. It was mid afternoon when we got to the lake, dark clouds and cold wind were the conditions, though the sun did peak out occasionally. We took pictures, ate some more lunch and headed back out before we needed to dig in our packs for jackets. The party of Missoulains was coming down from Pearl Lake as we were eating, and caught up to us as we were crossing back over the outlet. These three parties all had dogs with them. It was one of those trails, where, as you are going down, you wonder why it didn’t seem to climb so much as you were coming up. We got passed by the Wisconsin Guy, with a rifle, binoculars and such. He was bear hunting, had gone in yesterday and saw a sow with cubs -he has a boar tag- elk, deer, goats, everyone that had been up to Pearl Lake saw goats up there. Said he had seen a likely spot further down and would stop there until dusk looking for game. On the far side of the nice duffy trail section we found him sitting in a grassy spot above a rock, scoping out across the creek, where there was an open expanse of the opposite ridge, all decked out in fall colors. Beautiful spot. We visited briefly, then finished going out. Drove down Trout Cr. Rd. to dinner in Superior.a