Magruder Road Corridor

We next were heading to the Bitterroot National forest south of Darby, Montana. On highway 43 between Fishtrap and Wisdom the K2R2 joined its third cattle drive. One of the cowboys rode up to Rebecca’s window to tell us how much he liked our “rig”.

Checking in at the West Fork Ranger station we found out that the Magruder (Murder) Corridor was only open up to Paradise from the east. This is the corridor that Rebecca had read about and we had so hoped to be able to drive. We headed instead south to Alta campground and the home of the oldest surviving ranger station in the country, a rather small log structure that was built in 1899.

We decided that we would go ahead and drive the portion of the Magruder that we could and we weren’t disappointed. In Darby the next day we ate breakfast and resupplied our stores in preparation for driving the Magruder Corridor.

After checking out the campgrounds along the way it became obvious that they were not the campsites we were looking for. We turned around at Paradise to look at some of the dispersed sites that we passed on the way in. The first one we investigated was down a tree lined rutted road that snaked its way through the thick forest understory. The K2R2 made a sweeping turn in a hairpin washout that opened into a meadow by the Selway River. We simultaneously gasped, “This is it!”

For the next three days and two nights there were no flies, mosquitoes, varmints, or rain clouds to penetrate our lives. A huge fire burned all day long without even the smoke being a problem. We did not hear a single man made sound the entire time. Purifying water from the river replenished our tank and bottles like we had done along the Wise River. Adding to the magic we were surrounded by hundreds of butterflies that came out both days as the warmth of the sun bathed the surrounding meadow in a radiant light. When you walked through a cluster of these delicate creatures that were massed on wet muddy areas on the ground they exploded into the air in a riot of colors, random motion, and flapping wings that elicited a smiling giggle. 

It was hard to leave on the final morning but we needed to get on our way so there would be time to follow in the footsteps of Lewis and Clark across Lolo Pass and cross into Idaho.