Monarch Mountains
The Monarch mountains define the eastern shore of Lake Pend Oreille. Their thickly forested heights rise sharply more than 3,000 feet from the shore of the lake and undulate as a series of inverted V’s to the eastern horizon. Forest Service roads wind across their slopes and ridge tops to aid in the harvest of timber and provide a network for recreational access.
Since moving here I had wanted to explore these roads and so set out from Clark Fork this morning driving south towards Lakeview. Little did I expect to spend the next eight hours driving rough roads and for most of that saw only one set of ATVs and no other vehicles. The roads were rough but not hazardous and remarkably free of snow.
One gets glimpses of the lake through the dense forest but my most profound impression is the sheer vastness of the forest, the impenetrable steepness of the terrain. How difficult would be any attempt to walk these mountains without road or trail.
The northern end of the lake where I live is relatively flat. As one travels further south, however, especially on the eastern shore, the impression is stunningly different. At some point I began to question if this is really the same lake, the character of the terrain changed this much.
There were spectacular views along the way though mostly glimpsed through dark forest. These warm sunny days are more for enjoying than photographing.
I spent the day lazily exploring and stopped to eat lunch at one point in the quiet forest near Kilroy Bay and made a sound recording of the forest there. Some birds and the wind brushing the treetops on a sunny afternoon.
Just past Granite on Granite creek I stopped as the light was getting better in the afternoon. I walked down to the creek at what looked like an old placer mining claim on the stream bank.
I leave you with another soundscape from this location and some images. There are different small waterfalls on the left and right. Listen with headphones to see if you can pick out the difference.
