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Snowcat Expedition

My Navigation guy BobP says theres a route in Darby. A bit of a detour but we can still make it in. One we get into town we will fill up all our tanks and cans and then maybe spend the night at a local motel. (BigAl will need a bath I'm sure). I am planning on calling the commerce board and see if they were receptive to us coming into town with the cats. I will also contact the local Sheriff and see what types of accomidations the town has. January should be pretty packed in with Snow this year.
 
Darby has two motels and vacancy shouldn't be an issue in the winter. I'm still thinking access to town will be difficult. You have to come down from Nez Perce Pass into the West Fork of the Bitterroot and out the paved West Fork Road. Even if the gravel road from Nez Perce has packed snow the highway will be clear and dry most likely. Then you have to get out of the West Fork to Highway 93. More bare pavement. Some ditches but lots of hazards. Can I make a suggestion? Check out the West Fork Lodge. They may have a website and phone number should be in the book. I'm at work in Idaho or I'd list it. It is the closest lodging with fuel to where the Nez Perce Pass road comes out. They have a bar and resturant, cabins, rooms, fuel, runway, etc. Perfect place for a snocat get-together and I think it will be a big enough challenge to get there. I have skied, hunted, and snowmobiled some of that country and to try to find connecting forest service roads to skirt the highway would take days if even possible. Road closures, downfall, crossing private land, no ditches;it all adds up to ruining a good plan. I certainly don't want to discourage the trip. I'm just sharing what I know. I've lived there for 22 years and I wouldn't try it. I'd have to look at a good map to see if a route to the West Fork Lodge is feasible. During a raging blizzard of course you could cruise right into Darby. But the day after the roads will be plowed and 20 miles of bare pavement. Let me know if I can help with any info.
 
Sledhuas:
Is that the same road that goes out to Painted Rocks lake ???
I used to have friends that lived there in the early 80's .
Edit :
I just sent off a email to them to ask about fuel , getting by snowcat to their resort ,ETC
 
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Yes Al, same road. West Fork Road on the map. Nez Perce Pass road joins it and there is also a cutoff between the two I believe called Rombo Rd. but without looking at a map I don't know for sure which direction the Lodge is from where either join West Fork Road. I drive by it quite often but never paid attention. A lot of people live up Nez Perce Pass road these days so it is plowed and well-traveled quite a ways up. A fresh snow would cure that, leaving the only trick of getting from it up the paved highway (West Fork Road) to the Lodge.
 
That's too bad. I checked with a friend who lives up that way and he said the owner is having surgery this winter so he's shutting the place down. Would have been a great place to gather. The Wilderness Motel in Darby is at the south end and Bud & Shirley's Motel (with a greasy spoon attached) is at the north end. Three bars, a gas station/convenience store, some tourist shops and other small cafes that may or may not be open, and that's about it for Darby. I'll check my maps when I get home this weekend and see if I can come up with anything else that will help your plan. If you have to leave the machines at the pavement I know a landowner at the intersection of Nez Perce and West Fork Rd. If you plan to try and find Forest Service roads from Nez Perce Rd around Trapper Peak and Chaffin Peak to drop into Darby you might check with the Bitterroot NF office in Darby to see about closures and vehicle width restrictions, vehicle license requirements and all of that garbage. Remember they will tell you NO first and if you ask why they won't have an answer, but will eagerly work to find one. Good luck. I'll watch the posts.
 
I looked closely at a raised topo map and at the USGS Topo and I don't see any cross-country route into Darby from where the Nez Perce road meets West Fork Road. Unless there is a very recent heavy snow at the time of arrival, there is no way to avoid pavement. It was also mentioned about a plow onboard. As I mentioned I have skied and snowmobiled a lot of the West Fork country and it is guaranteed you will traverse open hillsides where the road has completely drifted in. Even on snowmobiles it is too dangerous to try to side-hill the open face in some spots so you have to walk a path first to make a trail. You would certainly want a plow along I would think. If you forge ahead with this I can contact the landowner I know at the end of the Nez Perce and I'm sure she would have no problem with leaving cats there. Her son is a good friend of mine and sold me my first Tucker 15 years ago. And his mother just lives a couple blocks away from me now. A young couple I know rents the place so everything would be safe. As far as shuttle into Darby for food, gas, supplies, rest and spirits, I would gladly volunteer if I am in town. There are no guarantees of that though so a contingency plan would be needed in case. Perhaps a local outfitter with a van or two. Keep me posted. Thanks.
 
Someone once said...
We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard, because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one which we intend to win, and the others, too.
Click to expand...
 
sledhaus said:
As I mentioned I have skied and snowmobiled a lot of the West Fork country and it is guaranteed you will traverse open hillsides where the road has completely drifted in. Even on snowmobiles it is too dangerous to try to side-hill the open face in some spots so you have to walk a path first to make a trail. You would certainly want a plow along I would think.
Click to expand...

I have several mountain snowmobile trails that we have used in the past where we had to walk and pack the side-hill trails before we traversed the hillsides on snowmobiles. If you do not have a cat with a blade your going to do a lot of walking and hand shoveling to make a cat trail wide enough to use on a drifted in side-hill.

You have a local person posting here that knows the country. I would take full advantage of his knowledge prior to undertaking this trip. You should also seek out a back country snowmobile guide in the area and do a preview trip via snowmobile to see what you are actually going to encounter. You can cover a lot more country in a shorter time via snowmobiles. Then you will have first hand knowledge of what to expect and equipment required to make this snow cat trip.
 
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I was going to suggest an exploratory trip by snowmobile first, but I hate to sound too negative about the trip. I know several people have made the trip from the West Fork to Elk City by snowmobile in a long day, spent the night or weekend and returned in a day. I'm sure people from the Elk City side have done the same. I would want an experienced person with me to make the trip for sure. I've heard stories of back in the day when a guy from Darby got back into the Selway on an old Skidoo by himself and broke through ice while crossing the river and made it back home again wearing only cowboy boots. But I've also heard of people making the trip and getting caught in weather with fresh snow so deep they had to tie two snowmobiles together to break trail. Modern snowmobiles should make the trip much easier and a GPS will help find the trail, but there is no substitute for experience. I wish I had more to offer.
 
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