Trail Overview
Gold Creek Trail is a good trail to check out when in the Willow Creek area. The trail is an eleven mile out and back that has a maximum difficulty of a 3/10. For full width vehicles, this trail is only open from June 16 - October 14. To find this trail you will need to take the "Lower Willow St Clair trail" and then the "Willow Mountain to Burnt Fork Lake Hiking Trail". Between those two trails you will find the start of Gold Creek near mile nine. At the beginning, you will see a triple road fork. Take the middle road to start on Gold Creek. The first half of the trail is mostly smooth with very few rocks, potholes and washboards. The trail is also mostly wide enough in this section to pass oncoming vehicles without much issue. Additionally in this section you will find a few great views of the Bitterroot Valley and the Bitterroot Mountains near Victor Montana. As you continue, you will find that the condition of the road slowly gets rougher the farther you go. It also gets more and more narrow. Towards the end you will pick up some light paint scratches from overgrown vegetation and trees in a full width vehicle. Although the trail gets more rough towards the end, there are no real obstacles, most rocks are 8 inches in diameter or less and although there are some deep and abrupt potholes, there aren't an abundance of them. The end of this trail is a gate that stops you from entering the TDF Ranch. This is where you will have to turn around and head back for the Willow Creek area to the South.
Difficulty
The trail starts very easy with almost zero rocks, potholes and washboards and is wide enough to maneuver around another vehicle. As you continue, the trail surface becomes more and more rough. There are more frequent rocks up to 8 inch diameter. There are some potholes that are pretty significant. The trail becomes narrow with some ledges and overgrown trees that will give some light scratches to full width vehicles.
