Backpacking SW Montana

Hello from Montana Lil B’s! Today we finished our backpacking adventure, hiking into the Tobacco Root Mountains to arrive at beautiful Hollowtop Lake!

On the first day, we loaded up our bags and set out on the trail, led by our leader of the day, Ceci! We hiked a mile up a steep trail to our beautiful campsite right along the creek. After a delicious dinner of chicken and broccoli cheddar rice, we headed to bed in preparation of the next day. On day two, we woke up as the sun was rising and hiked 3.5 miles uphill and through the woods to an amazing alpine lake, Hollowtop Lake. Once we arrived and had lunch, we played lots of games and Maddie showed us her skills narrating fun storytelling games! 

The next day we had a rest day at Hollowtop Lake, and despite the dense fog, some rain and cool weather, we still had a busy day. We worked hard on our skill beads. Talia got her hard-earned fire bead, and Gabi and Laila studied our topographic maps to earn their navigation bead. Delilah made her own shelter out of branches for her shelter bead, and Valentina learned how to purify water for her water bead! 

We also held our Alpengirl talent show, where everyone performed their skits they had been practicing for days. Olive, Tatum and Talia performed a hilarious skit that had everyone laughing, with Bailey working hard as stage crew to help with costume changes. Laila, Gabi, Amelia and Bea also performed an impressive hand game called “Lemonade”. But Ellie stole the show with her original song and self-choreographed act called “Chicken”, which made everyone laugh! 

Today was our last day of backpacking and we packed our bags, said goodbye to the beautiful alpine lake and hiked 4.5 miles back to the trailhead. We then headed to the local natural hot spring pool, where Maddie had a blast enjoyed the warm water and cool water being sprayed from above. Tonight we have had a runway show to model the Alpenwearables and browsed the Alpengirl Camp Store and are enjoying our pizza party and awards ceremony, with help from our leaders of the day, Bea and Laila. We are all sad to leave camp tomorrow, but we will all cherish the friends and memories we’ve made at Alpengirl!