Gray Days as 2011 Ends...

As an old year fades and a new one dawns, we're greeted by Montana skies that are gray with fog, clouds, snow and rain -- all happening at the same time, some days! What to do? Get out in it!!

Late morning along the Bitterroot River in Lee Metcalf.

So, we walk through the Lee Metcalf National Wildlife Refuge (http://www.fws.gov/leemetcalf/) on one of the grayer mornings and see mountains, icy water, ducks, eagles, hawks and an eerie sun through clouds.

Ducks up a Lee Metcalf creek ("crick," as many here pronounce it).

Ice, a hint of blue sky and bird(?) footprints in Lee Metcalf's riverbank snow.

Next, it's off to River Rising (http://www.riverrisingbakery.com/) in Hamilton for a warming drink. AND, as it turns out, warming colors. Because right there, on the walls near the barista, are beautiful, colorful handwoven rugs made from durable, washable fibers by Jenny Harrold of the local Skalkaho Rugs! (https://www.facebook.com/pages/Skalkaho-Rugs/148009561915436) 

Weaver Jenny Harrold pictured over one of her handwoven rugs.

We need rugs!!  We look her up on Facebook, we "Like" her posts, of course, and we contact her for a  meeting in her home/workshop. It's another gray day when we take off for her address, on the legendary Skalkaho Highway (http://dangerousroads.org/north-america/349-skalkaho-highway-usa.html). She, her husband and five children, with one on the way, live on the safe end of that road, just a few miles from Hamilton. More about the dangerous part of the road later.

We begin looking through her wares while she tells us that her Mom, in Nebraska, taught her how to weave and still comes out to Montana for the grandkids and the looms.

Jenny at the loom.

Her raw material: balls of selvage edges of fabric that Jenny sources in the Midwest. 

Flipping open rugs in her workshop.

Jenny's nearly nine months pregnant and yet she flips all recent rugs out onto the floor for us to see.

 

The "Hippie" rug is a local favorite.

She's sure to show us the "Hippie," a rainbow-colored rug that's always a big hit at her booth in summer's Hamilton Farmers' Market (http://hamiltonfarmersmarket.webs.com/). We like it, we admit to being old hippies ourselves, but we move on. We end up buying three gorgeous rugs in muted colors for our kitchen, our mud room and our main entry. Then we leave, turning east toward the "dangerous" end of Skalkaho.

A snowy surface, rain and clouds meet us.

We get to a point where this "seasonal" narrow mountain road closes for the winter

.

Snow mobiles and cross-country skiers take over from here. Alex chats up a couple (on the least-noisy snowmobiles that I can remember).

Alex and the 'mobilers.

Then they take off up the circuitous route to Skalkaho Falls (http://www.waterfallsmontana.com/waterfalls.aspx?id=11), where the road narrows, several unsuspecting drivers of automobiles have been lost off its edges and a constant round of repairs is underway.

Snowmobiles may be safest! Good luck in 2012, we think to ourselves; we may even see you up there with our newly rented cross-country skis!