Spotted Bear River bridge
— — the last bridge before the wilderness.
Not only on a wall.
“A pack bridge at the edge of the Bob Marshall Wilderness, where the Spotted Bear River runs down out of the Swan Range and meets the South Fork of the Flathead. The Spotted Bear Ranger Station sits a short walk above the crossing, and the trail south from here is the standard way into the Bob — fifty miles of river and meadow with no road. The bridge is a deck-on-cable span for stock and foot traffic only. The water below it runs that clear high-country green most of the year. — from the studio
Spotted Bear River bridge, on ceramic.
Each tile is finished by hand in our Knoxville studio. Artwork is slowly infused into the ceramic surface under high heat and pressure, and rests beneath a thin glossy finish. The colour lives in the surface, not on top of it.
Pick any four 4-inch tiles — National Parks you've been to, a Smokies set, the four seasons of one place. $ for a set of , cork-backed, ready to live on the table.
The place, in three passes.
The Spotted Bear River drains the western slope of the Continental Divide in Flathead County, Montana, running roughly thirty miles down out of the Swan Range to its confluence with the South Fork of the Flathead River. The crossing sits near the Spotted Bear Ranger Station of the Flathead National Forest, at the end of the long gravel road south from Hungry Horse Reservoir. The bridge is a pack span built for stock and foot traffic, and marks the standard northern approach to the Bob Marshall Wilderness, which together with the Great Bear and Scapegoat covers more than 1.5 million acres of roadless country.
Both rivers at the confluence — the Spotted Bear and the South Fork of the Flathead — are designated Wild and Scenic, and the South Fork is one of the few major rivers in the lower forty-eight where most of the headwaters lie inside a roadless wilderness. The water carries westslope cutthroat trout and bull trout, both native, and runs clear through most of the season; runoff peaks in June and the rivers usually drop into wadeable shape by mid-July. Catch-and-release rules apply to bull trout throughout the drainage.
The drive in runs roughly fifty-five miles of unpaved road south from U.S. 2 at Hungry Horse, along the eastern shore of Hungry Horse Reservoir, and ends at the Spotted Bear Ranger Station. The road is open from roughly Memorial Day through October, weather and washouts permitting. Most parties past the bridge are pack strings, outfitter trains, or backcountry hikers heading south into the Bob along trails like the South Fork or Big Salmon. There is a small Forest Service campground at Spotted Bear and no services beyond it.