Clearwater National Park

After Lewiston we headed down the Lewis and Clark Highway (12). What a beautiful area! We drove along the Clearwater River and Lochsa River. Every turn of the river seemed to hold a fly fisherman. It was an amazing sight to see them casting in the sun light in such a pristine natural area.

We stopped several times to go check out the water. It was so clear, it was remarkable. As we entered the Clearwater National Forest, we began seeing trailheads everywhere and these really cool wooden walking bridges across the river into the woods. We ended up stopping at the Visitors Center at Lolo Pass to get directions to the hot springs and decided we had to camp in this area. It was too beautiful to just drive through. We found a camp site along the Lochsa River. In Clearwater you can actually camp wherever you can fit.

We got up early the next morning and hiked up to the Jerry Johnson warm springs. There are three natural pools and we stopped at the first one. I’m glad we went early because there was only one other guy there. The hot spring was actually right on the river. The only thing keeping the hot springs water and the cold river water from each other was a couple of large rocks. We sat up there for probably an hour and half before we started to see a lot of hikers. We did have a really nice older couple come sit in a small pool by us. They enjoyed the pools naked, which was fine with us, except the old guy kept standing in front of us trying to talk with his hands on his hips and his back arched, I couldn’t stop laughing but I did maintain eye contact.

After the hot springs we jumped around in Lochsa River. We did see a huge trout, but it was dead. Other than that we only caught glimpses of small fish. There were also tons of caterpillers, they were black with yellow spots and really fuzzy. They were actually even swimming across the river. They were either a Yellow Spotted Tiger Moth or the Spotted Tussock Moth. Either way, they were fun to watch.

I definitely would love to come back to this area again and recommend it to anyone.