Big Creek | St. Joe National Forest, Idaho

There seems to be a big creek in every state... maybe every county. Here we have a Big Creek that runs North in to the South Fork of the Coeur d'Alene River and another one that runs South in to the St Joe. River. We've done trips on both Big Creeks now and this is our second trip into the Bronson Meadows area. Last fall we hiked south down in to Bronson Meadows, then back north all the way in to town. For this trip we were going to hike into Bronson Meadows from south and then loop around back down towards the St Joe River. The forecast for the trip was wet. When we got to the trailhead it was raining... hard. We sat in the truck and waited it out and it eventually cleared. We geared up and hit the trail. No more than 20 minutes into the hike it started raining on us again. What can you do... The trail started out as a double track ATV trail, but once we got to the top of the hill it changed to single track. The trail was in great shape. The trail is shared with motorcycles so they were most likely the ones who had cleared it. We hoped that the rain would keep all of the riders off of the trails. Once we started down the hill the skies cleared and the sun came out. The trail was very easy to follow and looked like it gets some use. It took us down right along side of Big Creek before we started the climb up to where the cabin was supposed to be. We figured that it would be a good place to camp for the night. The cabin looked like it hadn't been used in a while. The building seemed to be in decent shape, but it seems like the rodents have taken over and it would take some serious cleaning before I would consider staying in it. We're hammockers anyway, and the only thing that would get me to not sleep in my hammock would be if I couldn't hang it somewhere. Yeah, it's that comfortable. The next morning, it was raining so we lounged in our hammocks for a while. Eventually we had our coffee and set out for Cemetery Ridge. The trail was good and so was the climb. Once we reached the top it was down the other side and in to Bronson Meadows. We tried avoid the creeks for a while, but with the rain coming down and the endless crossings we eventually gave up on having dry feet. We had lunch at a campsite that we stayed at in the fall. It's a great campsite, and I wished we could've stayed there again, but the milage didn't work out. We left that camp and started out back down towards the trailhead to complete the loop. For the whole trip I was pleasantly surprised at the trail. I never know what to expect, but the trail was interesting and in great shape. It continued to rain and we continued to have stream crossing after stream crossing. The miles were starting to add up as we made it to the road walk. I knew when I came up with this loop, that there would be a long stretch of road walk that we would have to do to complete the loop. We were tired when we got there and the few miles we did on the road sealed the deal. We were ready to take any camp that we came upon, but we never saw one... so we just kept walking. Finally there was a wide spot in the road. We took it -- we had to. We were done. None of the trees were ideal but we found 4 that we could make work. We had a fire down the road a little ways and we settled in. Not the best camp, but it still felt good to be there and be done hiking for the day. It rained hard throughout the night, but the next morning the sun was out and we were up and at it early to take advantage before the weather changed its mind. There wasn't much exciting to talk about the on the road walk, it was a road walk. Before we knew it we were making the final climb back up to the truck. All and all it was a great trail and a great trip. We might be back to this loop someday. ©MountainWanderer 2019. All rights reserved. This video may not be used, reproduced, distributed, or broadcast by any third party (including media outlets) without prior written permission.