Chilco Mountain National Recreation Trail, Bayview, Idaho
Words From The WildGive your attention to what you want to grow.
Because how you spend your minutes determines the content of your days.
And the content of your days becomes the essence of your life.
If you want to cultivate joy, do more of what brings you happiness. We only have now, so live your nows accordingly.
I’ve never had so little physical activity. I’d like to say that I would be embarrassed if it was my fault. But it’s not my fault, and I’m still embarrassed.
“The content of your days becomes the essence of your life.”
The shame I carry for having cancer and not being unaffected by it is illogical and not something I want to settle into. I don’t want shame OR cancer OR my inability to carry on as though my body isn’t a warzone to be the essence of my life.
Writing helps. My mission to put my feet on every trail in 100 Hikes of the Inland Northwest and write about them helps. So, while I have been down, I’ve been writing away about trails I’ve already explored.
Revisiting past adventures while impatiently waiting for new adventures has become excellent content for my days.
Chilco Mountain is a repeated past adventure that will continue to be an adventure. I used to hike it with my children and I still revisit that location just so I can sit in my memories of little boys being unimpressed and not matching my enthusiasm to be hiking, of them disappearing from my sight and worrying that they got lost going off trail, to finally breaking out of the protection of the forest to scramble the remainder of the way to the peak and then everything is right. Even little boys who have seen countless magnificent things while exploring the US all their lives find joy in sitting on top of Chilco Mountain, seeing their world in a beautiful way.
Chilco Mountain is just over an hour from Coeur d’Alene, near Athol, Idaho, in the Idaho Panhandle National Forest and Coeur d’Alene Mountains. A beautiful 4-mile round trip hike can take you to North Chilco Peak, where there used to be an old fire lookout and now there are remains of the building. If you’re up to the entire adventure, you can begin at the same trailhead and get a full day workout of nearly 3,000’eg and 15 miles to South Chilco Peak. Both are rewarding adventures to hike or backpack.
Chilco is hike 31 in 100 Hikes in the Inland Northwest, with these details: The maintained trail climbs and switchbacks through timber for 1.8 miles until it reaches the ridge running north from Chilco mountain, one of the highest peaks in the area at elev. 5,635 feet. Here the trail splits. Go left .02 mile to the summit of Chilco mountain, site of a dismantled fire lookout. Enjoy, then backtrack and take the other trail fork and switchback down the west face of the mountain. The trail drops to Chilco Saddle, where off-road vehicles often approach the ridge, then climbs to South chilco Mountain, elev. 5,661 feet…A fire lookout was built on South chilco in 1915 and abandoned in 1939. Chilco had a lookout and a cabin built in 1948 and dismantled in the late 1950’s.
