Spellbound might be a better word …

… amidst the giant cedars at Ross Creek … hidden in the Kootenai National Forest. You’re getting close when the trees are actually growing in the road. A small ecosystem, moist and dark, about 100 acres they say, with cedars 500+ years old.

Big trees! Giant Western Red Cedars, some 8 feet in diameter, 175 feet tall. Coupled with shade-loving Western Hemlocks, this small area is humid with very large ferns thriving! Nice.

There’s a pathway, less than a mile, that loops around …

… and it’s easy to get disoriented on the loops. Lost indeed.

Places to hide!

Places to gaze upward in delight.

Places to sit back … to listen to the unbroken bubbling of the creek … to mull over the burn marks, hollows, gashes on those giant trees. Places to reflect on early native americans, prospectors, trappers and others who traveled here.

Once called Lightning Creek … I wonder why?

Who made these things? I think I know.