Backcountry trip into the Selway-Bitteroot Wilderness

This past weekend, Christie and I had a really nice camping trip down along the Selway River, only a couple hours from here.  She was on horseback, but the horse that I was going to ride didn't want to get into the trailer, so I got to hike the whole way.  It actually turned out to be a good thing, because I am not used to hiking in the backcountry with a heavy pack anymore, so I figured this would be good warm-up for my trip with Mike and Caroline in Glacier in a few weeks.

I think for the rest, I'll just let the pictures tell the story (with captions, of course).  For some of the pictures, you will need to look closely and pay attention to the caption to know what you are looking at.  There are a lot of pictures on this post, so I made them all small sized to make them fit better.  To see them closer, just click on them, and the full-sized image will pop up.  (To exit, either press ESC or click outside of the picture box).

Another great shot, looking back down the river.

Here is a really cool creek coming off the mountain.

We had a lot of really great views of the river along the whole trail, which followed the river the whole time we were on it.

Much of the trail seems to have been cut right out of the mountain side.

Another great shot of the river.

I thought this creek was really cool because of all the waterfalls, especially the one at the very top.

The water was very clear almost all the way down.

There are sandbars and beaches all along the river, and the sand was very soft

This was Christie's view for most of the trip.

This crazy mule doe came about 30 feet from us while we were eating lunch.  Curiosity might kill her in a few months.

There were a bunch of groups rafting down the river, which really made me want to do it.  Unfortunately, the Forest Service only lets one group go per day, and you have to reserve your spot about a year in advance.

Can you see what's going on here?  That snake is eating a frog whole!  And the frog was awake for the whole thing!

Another great shot of the river!

Blue just checking out the scenery.

Look closely- you can see the osprey in her nest.  She was squawking at us while we were going by even though we weren't even close to her. 

We saw a couple of these on the trail.  Can you tell what it is?  It is a little rattle snake.  It was very tiny, I bet there are some big ones out there in the fall.

Spots like this on the river really make me wish I could raft it.

And spots like this.

We saw lots of frogs and toads on the trail, too.

This was our campsite for the night.  Right on the river, with the sound of the river rushing all night long.

The driftwood on the beach was very dry and gave us an awesome fire for the evening!

Here is a small mule buck that was also curious, but much more cautious that the doe we saw earlier.

Another spot that makes me want to go rafting down the river.

Here is another mule buck we saw, but he didn't want anything to do with us.

I think this might be the same doe we saw the day before, still getting very close to us.

Here is a group of boaters that is just leaving their campsite for the day.

You can see the dark spots on the beach where they camped the night before.

There were a ton of butterflies on the trail, mostly congregating around horse poop.

Sorry for the weird arrangement of the pictures.  Probably the first complaint I have so far of the Blogger is how annoying arranging pictures are.  They snap to the weirdest places and the when I add a caption, the arrangement gets all screwed up.  But anyway, enjoy the pictures!