LOLO — As it flows from Lolo Pass to the Bitterroot River, much of Lolo Creek follows Highway 12 in a fairly straight line. Until last year, that was definitely the case for the stretch by Earl Tennant Campground in Lolo National Forest.
Then, a restoration project changed the path of the creek right there. The team behind it hopes the changes flow downstream.
“Essentially, Lolo Creek was squeezed between the hill and the highway and the pasture,” said Rob Roberts, a senior project manager with Trout Unlimited. “It was super straight. We call it a bowling alley. Therefore, it had super simplified habitat, not good for fish, not good for wildlife.”
This stretch was diverted about 100 years ago, along with several other miles of the creek, during the construction of Highway 12. A collaborative project spearheaded by Trout Unlimited built new bends in the creek near the old Earl Tennant Campground last year, aiming to improve the area for fish, wildlife, plants and people.
They repurposed an old ranger station pasture into a new, more natural path for the creek. The project started with fish biologists from Lolo National Forest and turned into a team effort between the forest, Trout Unlimited, Lolo Watershed Group and Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks. Crews were in the creek from July to October 2025.
“Basically, what we did was re-meander the stream, create big bends and really lengthen out the stream so rather than going straight from point A to point B, we took a really circuitous route,” Roberts said. “The stream banks itself we build out of kind of like a cake, layers of rock, gravel, and brush, willow cuttings, vegetation and then we just layer. So, what you see now is this very natural looking stream.”
Roberts said this creates more complex habitat for fish, wildlife and plants, as well as recreation opportunities for people. It was also designed to help with flood and erosion control and store water for drier conditions in side channels and wetlands.
“What we're trying to do here, besides build a new stream for fish, is kind of store water naturally, right?” Roberts said. “So water right now in the spring, it floods into our side channels and wetlands, it soaks in, and that water is going to release later in the summer.”
While the restoration was completed in the fall, the project’s goals are not over yet.
“The other idea was to kind of be an example project for people downstream. A lot of the stream has been channelized. There's a lot of problems with bank erosion where people have private land,” Roberts said. “So this is sort of like a more natural, softer approach that tries to work with the river rather than against it.”
At the end of last summer, some stretches at the other end of Lolo Creek went dry, leaving fish to die and people to worry who rely on the creek to irrigate, fish and recreate. Roberts said this restoration is a small piece of the creek’s possibilities.
“This project itself is not going to solve all the problems for Lolo Creek, but this concept, if replicated downstream, could start to lead to later season flows that improve the situation,” he said. “So we're hoping to work with other people to do this and then just provide an example for alternative options and see how we can improve Lolo Creek in the future.”
