After my delicious breakfast in Apgar Village, I climbed back into the Hemi, pointed the truck west, and entered my next destination into the GPS: Kootenai National Forest.
I was leaving Glacier National Park behind and heading into an entirely different kind of wilderness. Kootenai National Forest covers more than two million acres across northwestern Montana and is characterized by rugged mountains, dense forests, rivers, lakes, and some remarkably remote country. Unlike Glacier, with its famous roads, visitor centers, campgrounds, and constant stream of travelers, Kootenai felt much more like stepping away from civilization.
My route took me west on U.S. Highway 2. For roughly 45 minutes, the road was relatively straightforward. Then the GPS instructed me to turn northwest. I made the turn. And almost immediately, the character of the journey changed. The pavement disappeared and I found myself on a narrow, single-lane dirt and gravel road winding through the mountains. I was now getting deep into the forest. The road twisted and climbed through the mountains, passing beautiful lakes and following rivers and streams. There were stretches where I could go for long periods without seeing another vehicle. Every so often I would glance at the GPS just to make sure I was actually going in the right direction. There were moments when I thought, Surely this can’t be the road. But it was. My destination was McGillivray Campground, a Forest Service campground on the shores of Lake Koocanusa. As I got closer, I knew I was getting close when I reached Libby Dam.
Libby Dam and Lake Koocanusa
Libby Dam is an impressive piece of engineering hidden in this remote corner of Montana.
The dam sits on the Kootenai River, about 17 miles upstream from the town of Libby. Construction was completed in 1973, and the dam rises more than 400 feet above its foundation. It is operated by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and serves several purposes, including flood-risk management, hydroelectric power generation, recreation, fish and wildlife protection, and water-quality management. But perhaps the most interesting thing about Libby Dam is what lies behind it.
Lake Koocanusa.
The reservoir stretches approximately 90 miles northward from Montana into British Columbia, Canada. Libby Dam is also the fourth U.S. or Canadian dam associated with the Columbia River Treaty, an international agreement between the United States and Canada concerning flood management and hydroelectric power in the Columbia River Basin. The scale of the project is difficult to appreciate from the road. The dam is enormous—roughly 432 feet high and more than half a mile long—and its five generating units have a combined nameplate capacity of about 525 megawatts. But standing there, looking at all of that concrete and water, what struck me wasn’t the engineering. It was the wilderness surrounding it. Mountains in every direction. Forest everywhere. And very few people.
McGillivray Campground
I continued toward McGillivray Campground. This was a very different camping experience from Glacier National Park. McGillivray is a Forest Service campground with 33 campsites, drinking water, vault toilets, a boat ramp, and access to the lake for swimming and recreation. There was no elaborate check-in process. No ranger waiting at a desk. No digital reservation confirmation. Instead, it was essentially self-service. I drove into the campground, found an available campsite, and then returned to the entrance area to complete the paperwork. I filled out an envelope, put my payment inside, tore off the appropriate portion of the envelope, and hung the little piece of paper from my rearview mirror. It seemed almost comically old-fashioned. In a world where I had become accustomed to doing everything on my phone, here I was putting cash or a check into an envelope and hanging a piece of paper from the mirror of my truck. But somehow, it worked. And there was something I liked about it. It felt appropriately rustic. I settled into my campsite.
There was a fire burning at the neighboring site, but nobody was around. I had left a couple of things sitting on my picnic table while I went back to take care of the campground registration. When I returned, the people from the neighboring campsite had come back.
My things were gone. For a moment I wondered what had happened. Then a young man with long flowing beautiful hair from the neighboring group walked over to my picnic table.
He said, “We apologize. We thought somebody had left this here, so we put it over by the trash. I brought it back to you.” I laughed. No problem. In fact, the entire family seemed friendly, and I was glad to have them as neighbors.
Rain in the Wilderness
As evening approached, I could hear thunder building in the distance. The sky was beginning to change. I knew what that meant. Rain was coming. I decided not to take any chances, so I accelerated dinner. I cooked quickly, ate quickly, and began cleaning everything up before the storm arrived. I barely finished. The rain started coming down just as I was putting the last things away. I shut down the truck bed, made sure everything was secure, and climbed into the rooftop tent. Inside, I was completely dry. That is one of the great pleasures of a rooftop tent. Outside, the rain was coming down. Inside, I was warm, dry, comfortable, and completely removed from it. I turned on my light, opened my book, and read for about an hour. Then I fell asleep. There is something magical about sleeping in a tent while it rains. The sound of the rain hitting the tent becomes almost hypnotic. The world outside disappears. And for a while, there is nowhere else you need to be.
Morning on Lake Koocanusa
When I woke the next morning, the neighboring family had already packed up and left. The campground was remarkably quiet. I decided to walk down toward the lake. The body of water beside the campground was Lake Koocanusa, the enormous reservoir created by Libby Dam. In the quiet morning light, it was beautiful. The mountains surrounding the lake seemed to disappear into the distance, and there was very little activity on the water. It was one of those moments when I was reminded that the best parts of this trip weren’t necessarily the places that appeared on the front page of a travel guide. Sometimes they were the places I almost wasn’t sure I was going to reach. McGillivray was one of those places. After spending some time at the lake, I returned to camp and began breaking everything down. I wanted to get moving.
My next destination was Sandpoint, Idaho. Unlike Glacier and Kootenai, Sandpoint would be a completely different experience. I was leaving the deep wilderness and heading toward a real town. There would be restaurants, coffee shops, music, people, and a completely different rhythm to the next part of the journey. I packed up the Hemi, checked everything one more time, and pointed the truck toward Idaho.
The road ahead promised beautiful scenery, so I wasn’t going to rush. I wanted to enjoy the drive. And I wanted to arrive in Sandpoint with enough daylight left to begin discovering what this new place had to offer. The wilderness had been spectacular. Now it was time for a change of scenery.
Sandpoint was next.
The transition from Glacier → Kootenai → Sandpoint is an especially strong narratively: Glacier gives you the iconic national-park experience, Kootenai gives you the feeling of getting genuinely off the beaten path, and then Sandpoint introduces an entirely different chapter of the trip.