Old-growth stroll: Sprunger-Whitney Nature Trail south of Swan Lake a walk through time
By MICHAEL JAMISON of the Missoulian
SWAN LAKE – Everything about the Sprunger-Whitney Nature Trail is old, but for visitors it’s a stroll through a whole new world.
The two-mile loop wanders through old-growth forest on an old Indian trail that later was the old Swan Highway. The first to walk these woods were the Pend d’Oreille and Bitterroot Salish people, who trod the trail for thousands of years before Lewis and Clark arrived.
It’s the kind of trail that a lot of people are looking for, said Arlene Montgomery. You don’t have to climb a mountainside. It’s perfect for families and kids. In fact, local schools take field trips on the trail, keying on the many interpretive signs and plant identification tags to learn about old-growth ecology.
The gateway for the getaway is the Point Pleasant Campground, a half-mile south of mile marker 64 on Highway 83.
Montgomery and her group, Friends of the Wild Swan, helped establish and build the trail, which is named for Elmer Sprunger and Jack Whitney. Both men were longtime residents and conservationists from the Swan Valley.
From the parking area, check out the bulletin board for information about what’s to come, including the plants and animals that make the forest home.
Then scramble around the barricade that closes off the old highway and make a quick stop at the first interpretive sign. It tells about the native people who are believed to have hammered out the route in centuries past, the Indians whose seasonal travels took them across northwestern Montana and out onto the plains east of the Continental Divide. In the Swan, they gathered berries, hunted and fished all popular pastimes for modern-day residents and visitors as well.
Beyond the sign stretches a level trail through open country, leading quickly beneath the diverse canopy of old-growth trees. Larch, ponderosa pine and birch stretch above what Montgomery calls a typical Swan Valley forest from a century ago.
The trail soon steepens just a bit, bordered by a carpet of green peppered with plant identification signs. Toward the top of a short hill, the view opens up again, with a large clearcut on the left.
Beyond the cut, the trail veers off the old roadbed, back into the forest for a gentle meander into lower riparian forest not far from the banks of the Swan River. There you’ll find a sign telling the tale of lightning and wildfire, and how those forces have helped to shape the forest over time.
Skirt the edge of another clearcut and the vegetation changes a bit, as the route drops into a wetter bottomland. Down there, Montgomery said, the trail has a nice meandering feel to it. Along one of those meanders is an interesting old nurse log, she said, a fallen tree sprouting with new life as it decays and feeds the next generation.
Past the log, the trail tracks onto an abandoned spur road, following it just 100 feet or so before diving off to the right for a quick uphill through the woods.
Here, Montgomery said, are big beautiful larch, the kind of trees most people imagine when they think old-growth. And shaded by those big boles is a pleasant surprise – a sculpted bench, just right for taking pause to listen for songbirds or munch a lunch. It’s sort of a fun thing to come upon in the woods.
Once rested, cross the soggy bottom on a log bridge and keep your eyes open for a special bear tree, its bark scored deeply by scratching bruins. It’s a short walk from here back to the trailhead, completing the two-mile loop.
The land, Montgomery said, is owned by the state, and her group pays a lease fee that helps support public school coffers. It is one of a few patches of low-elevation old-growth forest left relatively untouched, and the interpretive signs along the way tell the story of its importance as habitat for not only critters and big trees, but also for fungi, mosses and lichens. Bring a bird book and plant key, she advised, because the species diversity along the trail is rich.
It’s a perfect hike for a short afternoon, she said, adding that you could spend a lifetime under the canopy and never experience all there is to see.
Getting there
Turn west off Highway 83 into the Point Pleasant Campground, 7 1/2 miles south of Swan Lake, about a half mile south of mile marker 64. Follow the signs to the trailhead.
