Volunteers take on Heart Lake trail maintenance

One of the more popular hikes in Lolo National Forest follows the South Fork Trout Creek to Heart Lake and then Pearl Lake in a cirque basin.

The trail is a gradual, continuous climb of about 1,110 feet over the 3 miles to reach the first lake. The trailhead is easy to find on a well graveled road about 15 miles from the Trout Creek Campground. 

Once there, people will find a vault toilet, a couple of hitching posts for livestock and ample parking. 

Covid made this a popular trail in the Great Burn with out of state hikers and a scan of the license plates indicates they remain faithful. Between hikers, horses and winter, the trail gets beaten up badly but the USFS and other organizations do their best to make it as safe and dry as possible for the adventure.

This past weekend the Great Burn Conservation Alliance held their first of several Stewardship Projects with staff and volunteers working on a new creek crossing near the Heart Lake outlet.  Kate Wilson with GBCA recruited and organized a three-day work party where the trail project was done amongst likeminded people having breakfast and dinner made for them, awesome scenery everywhere, and great swimming in a brisk mountain lake when temperatures were in the 90s. 

A few fished and caught pan fry sized Brooke trout and all of this activity kept the resident mountain goats on alert. Volunteers made a $50 deposit which was returned upon their completion. Some could only work one day, but that’s the beauty of these programs as you help when you can.

The Forest Service also had a team working lower on the trail. Lindsay Civn is originally from Columbus, Ohio but has been employed at the Superior Ranger Station the last year and a half. 

“In my personal opinion, being part of the Forest Service and being a steward of the land is making the trails accessible to whoever needs accessibility,” she explained when asked what the purpose of her team’s work was. “With the resources we have, we are making trails as safe as possible. If people or animals are getting hurt, that’s an issue so that’s what we are doing on this trail through next Thursday. Removing rocks and roots that have become tripping hazards over the last few years. Our Youth Conservation Corp from Superior will be coming out and we’re going to be filling all of this in with rock and gravel and then dirt,” as she points up and down the trail which has obviously eroded. 

The Mission Valley Back County Horsemen had stock pack gravel in canvas manties a week earlier and they will return with more as trail maintenance is on-going. 

“They help us especially in the preseason and they do a lot of campground cleanup with us,” she said. 

Susannah Carter from Winchester, Virginia was working a Pulaski and this is her first year with the USFS after graduating from college a few months ago.

“I wasn’t sure where I would get work so I put in for as many openings that I could find in the west. So here I am in a totally different world,” she shared. 

Chase Woodson graduated from Superior High School this year but has been a seasonal employee with the Forest Service for four years and plans to stay with them. He was digging for dirt about 15 yards off the trail in vegetation so thick you could only see his head as he was hunched over his shovel. 

“Rocks. Mostly rocks here and very little dirt so I’ll start another dig site. The dirt is the last layer (on trail maintenance) so I’m staying ahead of schedule,” he smiles. 

A hitch is a certain number of days where they camp near, or on the job site, working in the field. They were on day two of a six-day hitch camping near the trailhead each night. But probably not before a dip in Heart Lake.

    Lindsay Civn, left, and Susannah Carter with the USFS were doing trail maintenance on the Heart Lake trail Fridy. This was a 6-day hitch keeping them in the field 24/7. (Monte Turner/Mineral Independent)