What started out this morning to be a little hike along the top of Weeksville Divide on a favorite trail, USFS trail 345, turned into a short road trip.
There weren’t any new wildflowers in bloom along the divide except this small Mountain Rose which is a small flower, not more than an inch or so across:
Dwarf rose, Mountain Rose ~ Rosa gymnocarpa
After about a mile on the trail I hiked back down to the Jeep and after about ten miles of driving north on the Weeksville Creek road paid a visit to a small stream that has long been a favorite place to catch a limit of small Brook Trout. I didn’t fish today but caught some pretty scenery instead.
You can see why, besides the good fishing, it’s one of my favorite summer places.
It was a pretty drive back home, the highlight of which was getting to see some wild Hollyhocks growing beside a small spring just above the water of Thompson River. It’s the only place I’ve ever found them. Not a bad morning at that!
Trail 345 is about 15 miles long. Extending from Baldy Mountain on the east to Big Hole Peak on the west, it follows the crest of a small divide called different names in various places: Loneman Divide, Weeksville Divide or, on old maps, Buffalo Bill Divide. These photos were taken on June 16, 2017 in the rain along Loneman Divide, about 5 miles east of those in the previous post and a thousand feet lower in elevation.
Trail 345 is always a most pleasant trail, but every five years or so it becomes a trail of the big flowers. These are photos taken along about a mile of the trail as it starts its climb from Weeksville Divide up toward Big Hole Peak.
