Old Highway 2 Hike

One of my favorite hikes is up along old highway 2, the route between the town of Libby and the town of Troy. It was one of the first hikes I did when I came to Libby (in no small part because the trailhead is along the current highway 2 and I could easily access it with my rental car).  When I hiked it the first time I made it up to Shannon Lake, which was super pretty. I may have made the mistake of trying to hike around the lake and almost falling in…. but it was still super pretty :)

On my way down that first time I decided to take pictures of every single wildflower I saw:

The amazing columbines were one of the big motivators for Mom to take the hike. Unfortunately though, only a month later, most were already gone.

The hike takes you up along the ridge looking out toward Troy and down at the Kootenai River just below the falls. All along the hike are these magical seeps coming out of the side of the mountain and interpretive signs about travel back when the hike was the main road between the two towns.  There is even at one point a very old (probably 1930s) car that must have fallen off the road and was just left there. 

When I did the hike with Mom, Dad, and the kids we just made it as far as a nice waterfall that goes across the stream.  Genevieve has been enjoying bringing a sketch book along and using what she sees outside to inspire a series of pictures of different types of fairies. Conveniently for her, there was a bench right by the waterfall, so we all hung out for a bit. I played around with trying to take pictures of waterfalls and Izzy just plain played. :)