Flathead Lake to Lincoln

6/25/2019

Flathead Lake was like glass on Tuesday morning.

The facilities here were minimal, but clean and stocked.

We're heading southeast with a goal of arriving in Big Timber tomorrow afternoon. Here's a map of today's route.

Our first stop was at the National Forest Station in Condon where friendly rangers gave us all kinds of info. Ended up spending an hour there. We bought a section map and enjoyed checking out camping areas as we headed south on Montana 83.

Just after 11 we pulled into the Holland Lake National Forrest Campground. Stopped to look at the small lake surrounded by high peaks with at least two waterfalls. We decided to leave the one site open for someone else tonight. It was still early and we could go farther.

The ranger in Condon told us of an expedition where volunteers are welcome to help catch birds in a net at Seeley Lake. They birds are then counted, banded, and released. Walked a mile at noon meeting the team as they were emerging from the woods. We really needed to be there at 0900 to participate.

Our consolation prize was seeing a loon with chicks on the lake.

Just before 2:30 we pulled into the small town of Lincoln, Montana. The town's Hooper Park had a sign for overnight camping.

They have a small bathhouse with showers and the women’s even has hot water. At only $10 for a night we decided to settle down here.

The library is next to the park and leaves their free wi-fi on after hours. There is a nice sitting area outside. Inside they had lots of information about Lincoln and the surrounding area.

One brochure mentioned Blackfoot Pathways-Sculpture in the Wild. Just down the street from our campsite, it proved to be an interesting set of large sculptures set amongst big pine trees in a beautiful park.

This sculpture, based on a sawdust burner, had an interesting patina. Lit from a skylight and via solar powered lights...

...it contained a workspace and a gallery of prints portraying the history of local logging.

The next large installation was a castle named "Tree Circus" made of bent sticks. The technique looked very familiar. Sure enough, it was created by Patrick Dougherty, an artist that lives near us at home in North Carolina.

Photographing "Hill and Valley" I had to move around to frame it so that a man talking on his phone was hidden by a tree.

Once he hung up,  the man approached us and asked how we liked the sculpture.  He was actually the artist, Steven Seigel, from New York. On vacation in the area, he stopped by to see how his work had aged since being installed in 2014. He said that the park is owned by an Irishman who commissions a couple of new pieces each year.

30,000 pounds of newsprint around 28 lodge pine poles. That's a lot of newspapers.

The park was worth the visit and had many more sculptures, all quite different from each other.

Reversing course we filled up our gas tank on the way back to Hooper Park to make dinner.

That evening we actually stayed awake long enough to see the sun set over the western hills.

We thank the residents of Lincoln for their hospitality.