NW Montana

Welcome to NW Montana, in the corner culde sac  between Idaho and Canada. We are camping at KOO-CAN-USA lake, about 100 mile long lake on the Kootenai river from the Libby, MT dam well into Canada.
The very nice Rexford Bench NFS campground is filled to the brim with huge 5th wheels, ski and pontoon boats, water toys galore pulled by BIG American trucks, most with Canadian plates. Ohh, did I mention the generators? One neighbor last night was projecting a star wars movie for the grand kids til 11 pm, and the other was listening to their own personal concert broadcast from their behemoth to their camp chairs 30' away.
Hard to believe we drove 2 full days to escape to nature.

Being on the lake is a respite from the heat wave, the last few days being in the mid and upper 90s. This is hotter weather than Glendas Mom is experiencing in Mineral Wells Texas, the whole length of our country south of us. We are regularly having an evening swim to cool down and watch the sunset from the beach.

We did do some exploring, this time with a water fall theme. There are mountains here, though not as dramatic as further north in Canada or over east in Glacier. There are quite a few small to medium falls in this area, in addition to the falls on the Kootenai River.
The river is quite large and the falls actually cover a third to a half mile. This is a falls you can spend a good part of your day exploring, as the trails weave in and out to many various cliffs and overlooks, with many secluded places to dwell and absorb the power and immensity of it all.

All of the other falls are smaller, and more intimate. The forests in some of these areas have huge cedars, hemlock and larch, along with fir, white pine, and some aspen, cottonwoods. We are typically the only one there for a spell, and some times our whole hike.
A first for me, as the last water fall you had to wade across the stream and actually swim to see the whole falls. Shockingly cold and refreshing experience on a hot and dry summer day.

The air is hazy here, probably from fires, though does not  smell smokey at Rexford. We did happen into a small fire down below us in the distant valley and the local Hotshots maintaining it. The road must have closed while we were in hiking to a falls.

We are watching for ripening thimble berries, raspberries, and huckleberries. Seems early, but did find a few thimbleberries. In pursuit of the elusive huckleberries, though my novice research suggest we will have better chances higher up than our current 2000' elevation. The route takes us up, up, up to 5000 ft in a couple of days......