By Doug Mahugh in pack history — 16 Oct 2022

Isaac in the Highlands

Isaac out for a walk near Hells Canyon Guard Station

Last night Isaac and I spent the night at Hells Canyon Guard Station in the Highland Mountains south of Butte. Originally built as a line cabin for local ranchers in 1906, the cabin has been owned by the Forest Service since 1910. It was first used as a guard station (a remote location where work crews lived while working in the forest), and in recent years it has been made available to the general public as a rental.

As a young pup, Isaac took trips to Fleecer Guard Station and Miller Cabin with Jamie, and he also joined the whole pack in outings to Fleecer and Diamond Butte Lookout over in southeast Montana, but this was Isaac's first time at a cabin without Jamie there to show him the ropes. He had a great time.

Getting There

Hells Canyon Guard Station is just 24 miles from our house as the crow flies, but it takes over two hours to get there because you have to drive around the Highlands down to the small town of Twin Bridges, and then drive an extremely rough dirt road 15 miles up into the Highlands from there.

The route to Twin Bridges along Highway 41 tracks the Jefferson River, which is very colorful in the fall.

Hells Canyon Road is definitely a "high clearance vehicle required" road. In fact, a recent review of this cabin was posted by people who tried it in a passenger car and had to turn around just 5 miles in, 10 miles short of the cabin. There are views of Table Mountain all along the route, looming larger and larger as you approach it from the south.

Isaac enjoying the drive. The first few miles pass through open prairie dotted with granite outcroppings, then the road passes through some forests and private land before arriving at the cabin in Beaverhead-Deerlodge National Forest.

I never explored this southeast quadrant of the Highlands with Jamie, but we passed many Jamie memories on the way there, such as Fish Creek Road and the Beaver Ponds Trailhead.

Left: Jamie out along Fish Creek Road in August. This was the last photo I took of him in the Highlands. Right: Jamie and Alice along the Beaver Ponds Trail near Pipestone Pass in July 2012. This was the place where Alice ran off and disappeared into the woods far away, and Jamie ran after her and eventually led her back to us.

The route to Hells Canyon Guard Station also passes an Isaac and Nancy memory from this summer. Left: the Tobacco Root Mountains, as seen from our drive to the cabin yesterday. Right: Nancy on top of Branham Pass in the Tobacco Roots, when she and Isaac hiked up there this summer.

At the cabin

After an hour of slow rough driving, this was our first glimpse of our destination: Hells Canyon Guard Station.

While I unpacked our gear, Isaac checked things out and decided he'd take the bunk on the left. Then later when the lights went out and I got in the bunk across the room, he decided to join me over there.

This cabin has a great view of Table Mountain (the highest peak in our county), which is also visible from our house but we're on the opposite side of it (to the north). There is a long steep trail to the top of Table Mountain from near the cabin, and I'm planning to try it next summer. We'll probably come stay at the cabin a few times to check out the first couple of miles of the trail before going for it. I'm not certain whether that will be a hike with dogs, but I'm hoping Megan and I can take Nancy and Isaac up there.

Off-leash Isaac

It seems many Samoyed owners have had the same experience we've had with our four (or five including the one I had before Megan and I met): the males can learn to be relatively trustworthy off leash, but the females are too independent-minded to be trusted off leash in wilderness areas. Alice scared the hell out of us that day at the Beaver Ponds Trail when she was younger, and Nancy has made it repeatedly clear in the last year that she can't be off leash in these situations either.

That's why I only took Jamie for these sorts of solo dog cabin outings in the past, and Isaac will likely be my most common companion for them in the future. We can take the girls, of course, but it's stressful to know what could happen if I dropped the leash, and with Isaac, like Jamie before him, he'll come back if I call him with a sense of urgency.

Isaac enjoying some off-leash time near the cabin last night after dinner.

Under the stars

We only had an hour of daylight after we arrived, and then it was time to settle in for the night. The cabin had a nice wood stove, but I didn't bother with that because I thought the temperature wouldn't get much below the 40s. My mistake: it got slightly below freezing. But with Isaac joining me on the bunk we kept each other warm enough to get some sleep between short walks through the night.

Left: the bunk where Isaac snoozed in the evening. Right: the other bunk, where he joined me after the lights went out.

After the partial moon rose, this was the view of Table Mountain from our bunk.

I finally got my first star photo with Jamie's tripod, the tripod I bought after cancelling the trip to Monument Valley that Jamie and I had planned for this fall.

I kept Isaac on leash for our outings in the dark, just to be extra careful. If he heard a large animal out in the woods, I'm not certain I could get him to stay close to me and not go check it out. With Jamie, I was certain I could trust him in that situation, but it took many years before I felt that way. Isaac will probably get there, too, but he's still too young for off-leash time at night in the woods.

Heading home

We went to bed very early, so even with several night outings we were ready to get on the road as soon as the sun came up around 7:30.