Whitaker Bridge (Blackfoot River Area)- April 13, 2025

Participants: Roy Regel, Steve Schombel, David & Julie Kahl

I always find it interesting, when we are doing what was essentially a Sunday afternoon stroll, on a beautiful day, in places were we are one of the few parties without dogs. It always takes me back to the days of hiking with Lois Crepeau, who never met a dog she didn’t like. We met at the Missoula College parking lot and waited a bit for others who had expressed an interest in coming. When no one else showed we went to the bridge in Roy’s car. Shortly after turning down the Johnsrude Rd., which is now paved all the way back to the bridge, coming around a tight blind curve to the east, there was one of those solar panel lighted signs saying the road was closed ahead. No details. In one section where the road runs below cliffs, what was obviously avalanche chutes had deposited snow and debris on the road, they had been cleaned up, but one section of road was very rough. Nothing else back to the bridge, where we parked in the closest parking lot, there were a few other vehicles, but otherwise not much evident use. We opted to hike east on the old railroad bed. The history of the Blackfoot railroads is complex and best left to the professionals but briefly: the railroads were put in to log the Cottonwood Lakes area on the north side of Boyd Mt. (Clearwater Game Range). The lakes are directly east of Seeley Lake, but Cottonwood Cr. actually runs at the east base of Boyd Mt. and drains into the Blackfoot River, between the mountain and the Upsata Lake Rd. This is the route the railroad followed. Just outside of Potomac there is a field with several old dilapidated buildings in it. 100 years ago, that was a facility for “value added” wood products like sashes, trim boards and such, all from local timber. And sometimes a logging camp. Roy had an old topo map that said this was the Milwaukee-Chicago Railroad.Shortly after starting out a couple with a dog on a leash passed us, we never saw them again. The railroad bed goes through cuts blasted in cliffs, with rock outcroppings on both sides, and open sided sections dropping directly to the river below. These open spots gave us expansive views up and down the river and the mountains to the south. Some forested sections, with a nice carpet of pine needles, were usually flanked by terraces, going down a few feet, from the track bed to the bank edge over the river. On one such bank we saw a Canada goose hunkered on the edge, that watched us go by, but stayed put. We looked for flowers, people had been posting pictures of shooting stars and Pasque flowers, but we saw none.  Not much on the bird front either. About 3-4 of a mile/1.21k in we came to the old Red Rocks concert site, with a fabled nude beach. Though the prominent red rock is across the river, there were some outcroppings on this side, including on the edge of the railroad bed.  The site has 3 or 4 terraces below the tracks, the lowest, flattest spot, probably where the concerts had taken place, was being cut off from the bank by a high water runoff channel, filling with fine sand, making it almost an island now. We had decided to come to this spot then decide what we wanted to do, go on or go back and go west on the trail. We opted to go on to the mouth of Belmont Cr. where the trestle is now gone. It was a little over 2 miles/3.2K to the creek mouth. We stopped for lunch, took pictures and saw a drift of buttercups on the bank edge under some trees. A guy on a trail bicycle came up and we visited briefly, he said the level bed was good for bicycling, but it was a bit bumpy. Steve and Roy would discuss how the two inch/5.2cm gravel stones that made up much of the surface of the roadbed were the worse for bicycles. I had heard rumors that there had been plans to replace the bridge “at the mouth of Belmont Cr.” I pictured a pedestrian bridge crossing here, were the railroad had crossed, as there is a good sized fishing access site on the other side of the creek mouth. And, it was like 100 feet/30.48m from the actual mouth of the creek. But there is also a road bridge a little further up the slope, that was probably what would be replaced. (And maybe where the road was closed.) I contemplated this as I watched some fisher-persons, drop down the 30 ft/9.14 bank on the other side, wade across the creek and climb up our 30 ft/9.14 bank side. They had a nice husky dog with them. As we started back we shortly ran into the husky, above one of the woody terraces, that was running back and forth, stopping in front of us and stopping behind. David and Steve walked out on to the terrace bank edge, to see the fisher-people below. They called to the dog and it figured out a way to get down to the river’s edge.  On the river we could now see two Canada geese, people fishing from the far bank, and encountered another terrace edge party with dogs. In an open spot we stopped to look and see if we could figure out which summit across was Morrison Mt. I was watching for the patch of red rocks that would be a return landmark but missed them and the next thing I knew the gate across the road at the bridge came into view. We saw another drift of buttercups on the bank above where we were parked. It was early afternoon, approaching 50/10c degrees, GPS said just a bit under 4 1/2 miles/7.24k and we headed home, most of us with further engagements for the day.      Leader: Julie Kahl