On a hot summer day, Lake Como is not a place to go for solitude.
Officially, Bitterroot National Forest say that about 200,000 visitors flock the wonderfully scenic reservoir every year. It’s the most popular recreation area in the Forest Service’s Northern Region.
But Sam Cook, the Darby Ranger District recreation specialist, is pretty sure those numbers are wrong.
“I’ve started saying there is 250,000-plus,” Cook said. “Eighty percent of that use comes from Memorial Day to Labor Day. In the fall, it gets nice and quiet here.”
During the summer, there’s nothing nice and quiet about it.
Sometimes it can get downright noisy in the boat launching area and parking lot when everyone decides to go home at the same time.
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If Cook or one of the other Forest Service employees who work traffic control during the summer are creative, they can manage to squeeze in 42 vehicles with boat trailers in the parking lot. Once that’s full, people end up parking their rigs alongside the road, which can create its own safety issues on a busy weekend.
One the challenges that Cook and others face is when the non-boating crowd decide to look the other way when they pass the signs in the boat parking lot that clearly state this is not a place for them to park.
Starting this year, that mistake will end up costing them a $55 ticket.
“There’s major congestion here already,” Cook said. “If you get up here after noon on a weekend, it’s unlikely that you’re going to find a spot in the parking lot if you’re pulling a trailer. We need to keep the spots we have open for boat trailers.”
In years’ past, the Forest Service crew wrote quite a few warning tickets, but this spring that changed. People in vehicles without boat trailers should look to find a parking spot either on beach side of the reservoir or along the road up beyond the boat launch.
“With the numbers of people are coming here in the summer, we really don’t have any choice but to start enforcing that,” Cook said.
Loose dogs are another issue that visitors need to address.
“Dogs are kind of eating our lunch right now,” he said. “Whether it’s no leash or too long of lead, it can create some big problems.”
Last year, a blue healer on a 30-foot lead bit the hand of one of the camp hosts hard enough to cause some real damage.
“The problem is everyone’s dog is perfect until it’s not,” he said.
The rules say that all dogs have to be on a short leash within in the developed recreation area that wraps around the east end of the reservoir between Wood’s Cabin and the boat parking lot. That rule includes all animals.
“We’ve seen people with goats and cats up here,” he said. “It doesn’t matter if it’s a pot-bellied pig, it needs to have a leash on it in the developed area.”
And then, when those critters decide to leave a deposit, their owners need to pick up the waste and properly dispose of it. The Forest Service has installed a receptacle where people can leave a plastic sack and pick another one up on both sides of the lake.
“We would appreciate people helping us out on that,” he said. “We end up picking up a lot of dog poop.”
Those who visit Lake Como through Labor Day also need to remember to pay their $5 day use fee. Those who forget will likely find an envelope on their window with a reminder of that requirement.
That warning notice system which has been in place the past few years has been successful. Cook said Forest Service employees issued over 450 of them last year and nearly 300 were returned with the proper payment.
For those who prefer to buy a season pass, Cook wants them to know that those can’t be transferred or sold.
“Those passes are meant to used only by immediate family,” he said. “You’re not allowed to sell them.”
About 95% of the fees collected at Lake Como go right back into the area to pay for maintenance and other improvements.
For those who can’t get enough of Lake Como in the summertime, Cook does have an opening for a camp host. The position includes a small stipend and a free camp spot that includes electricity, water and sewage. If anyone is interested, they can call Cook at 821-4298.