Clark Fork River Trail | Lolo National Forest, Montana

The spring hiking season is underway!

This time of year we're always wanting to be done with the snow. This year was no different. We were looking for places we could go where we could actually hike without having to use snowshoes.

We ended up at a trail that I tried to do the year before, the Clark Fork River Trail. It was about 9 miles one way and offered us a snow-free trail.

We hit the trail mid-afternoon just looking to make it in a few miles then setup camp. The trail was beautiful! We found a nice spot in a cedar grove and spent the first night.

We only went in a few miles on the first day so that we would have the majority of the trail to hike for the next 2 days. We spent a fair amount of time at camp the next morning before we set out. This trail was just what we were looking for. It was mostly flat with some decent hills in between just to keep it interesting. We hiked to the end of the trail, then turned around and started back towards the trailhead. We found a nice grassy spot to setup in for our 2nd night. It started raining on us in the evening and kept it up most of the night.

By morning the rain had finally let up and we spent another lazy morning slowly packing up. It hailed on us briefly as we left camp, but it didn't last long. Up to this point we hadn't run into anyone on the trail in 2 days. The nicer weather brought everyone out on our last day. It was great to see people using the trail. We ran into a jogger, mountain bikers and motorcycles on our way back.

On the hike out we were finally hitting our stride. The trail was easy enough that we were hitting mid-season hiking speeds. Before we knew it, we made it to the trailhead and the trip was over. This is a trail that we will be back to, and could very well turn into an annual trip.