Trail Creek Forest Service Cabin

This last weekend I was invited to join my friends Mary, Laura and Kim for a little adventure. We were to hike into the Trail Creek Forest Service cabin off of Trail Creek Road (a dirt road between Emigrant and Bozeman, MT in the Gallatin National Forest). The adventure started out with us driving down Trail Creek looking for the proper road to turn off on. We eventually found it, drove until there was a large drop-off, parked our car and loaded our gear up.
From where we parked it was a short walk to the Trail Creek Trailhead where the hike began. I was very much under the wrong impression of what we were doing. I thought we were taking a 1.9 mile walk down an old road to this cabin. Instead it was a 3 mile hike on an actual trail. Needless to say I was a little un-prepared, as in I had on tennis shoes and was carrying food in a little cooler. (Still brings a smile to my face picturing me carrying a cooler around. Ha!)
The trail was a very nice one through the forest and paralleling a creek for most of the way. Well, I should say most of the trail was nice. There were many sections that were muddy. Very muddy. I was lucky enough to have only had one major fall, which resulted in mud from my knees down, and only lost my shoe 2 or 3 times. One of my friends, Kim, was not so lucky. At the start of the hike she sunk thigh deep!


After some speculation as to whether or not we were on the right trail, we finally found it! The Trail Creek cabin sits on the edge of a small cabin and was built in 1924 for the Bozeman Ranger District. There is a fold out table and 2 sets of bunk beds inside, a nice fire ring and an outhouse. Once at the cabin we all explored a bit, ate dinner and started a fire. I took the time to go relax in the meadow, got my paints out and drew a picture. (It felt great to be drawing/painting, even if the picture didn’t turn out great. For some reason I put my paints, pens and pencils down about 4 years ago and have not picked them up since. Ever since this winter I have had a strong desire to draw & paint again and was so excited I finally did it!)

As it started to get dark we gathered our stuff and headed inside the cabin for Boggle (which always reminds me of Grandma) and Kissmet (a game very similar to Yahtzee) before turning in for the night.

Sunday morning I awoke with the sun and took advantage of the morning peace and quiet. I sat on the front porch for awhile enjoying the mountain views and then took a small walk down one of the old roads which leads to a different trailhead. Eventually the rest of my friends woke up and we headed back out on the muddy trail. Funny how easy it is to walk through muddy trails when you are already muddy and don’t car if you get muddier. Lol! What a gorgeous day it was for a hike too, the sun came out and it was in the high 70s! Once back out to the car we drove back to Emigrant where I left in my car and the other 3 went out to breakfast.

I enjoyed my adventure, but will make sure to do my own research about where we are going next time.