Into the Cold

It's supposed to go down to -2 degrees here in the Bitterroot Valley next Tuesday night. Right now, it is sunny but a bit nippy, with afternoon temperatures in the 50s -- just warm enough to finish raking, mulching and bagging our MANY maple leaves. But on a recent really warm day, friend Mel Holloway and I went on a photo safari to catch a glimpse of winter.

We are greeted by a dusting of snow at lower elevations of Skalkaho Road.

On the diagonal -- a tree hit by ice, snow or old age at a campground on Skalkaho Creek.

We turn off and start climbing on Skalkaho-Rye Road, and I'm so glad that Mel's '92 Nissan Pathfinder has a full tank of gas, 4 new tires, 4-wheel drive and a great driver behind the wheel. (Can you tell that I love pictures of empty mountain roads?)

Higher still. Are we only in a black-and-white world?

Nope. Suddenly there's color -- in trees holding onto their leaves and a glimpse of blue sky, beyond.

And we stop near the top, where shapes and textures make for a magical landscape.

We make it to the top and, boom, the sun starts to wash over selected peaks.

Off in another direction are clouds over eyebrows of pine slashing across an old burn in the forest.

Roadside red twigs grab my attention on the way down.

And then there's a grand finale. Instead of turning toward home, Mel heads up to Skalkaho Falls. He'd been there the day before, when there was no snow. Now, there's plenty!  Here is Mel, tiny figure at lower left, with tripod and camera snapping the tree-shrouded falls. His photo ends up on several admiring Facebook pages.

Hall. O. Ween

It all started the evening before Halloween, with a street full of impromptu witches on bikes. Not a great picture, as I was in my car with a hastily focused iPhone, on my way to a meeting.  But the Ravalli Republic captured these witchy ladies cycling through Hamilton. It's the second-annual such parade. Women friends and I plan to join the third witch-a-thon next year. Anyone got a pointy black hat that they don't want?

Heather, our neighbor across the street, put on temporary tattoos and tutu and hosted a pre-Halloween party.

We ate and schmoozed: Heather, left; Shelley (Queen Bee); Alex (prisoner); and Katrina (Holstein) with Arlo (baby bear).

Jeff, Heather's husband, was an eerie, um, train conductor?

My favorite snack at Heather's -- spider-sugared brownies.

Our own spider! Ready to receive visitors on the front porch.

Our friend Rob handed out lots of our candy. He's a bagpiper by trade and insisted that his costume was not a dinosaur but, instead, the Loch Ness monster. See the Scottish tam attached to his wee dino-head??

One of our scarier trick-or-treaters (temp. tattoos, a la Heather? Must be a trend.)

Perhaps the cutest duo of the night!

Rob was a Halloween rock star! He not only handed out bags and bags of candy but he also played his bagpipes for the crowds. Our friend Mary sat at the picture window, sipping wine and counting children. Her notes say we got 560+ kids!

Walk to the River

We live six blocks away from this -- the Bitterroot River, still wearing its fall colors.

Or, as a Montana gardening friend of mine says, "Colors have lasted for weeks longer than I ever remember.  It is glorious!" We walk to the river and, indeed, fall this year is glorious.

We look northwest from the river trail. More beauty.

A pair of sunlit cottonwoods highlight the far bank.

As we get closer to town, the river trail becomes more citified -- still beautiful.

We take a seat and look at Blodgett in the distance. It's our favorite craggy granite peak.

And Alex, who spent childhood summers climbing around Blodgett, snaps a picture. It is ready for its close-up.

Not Holland Lake!

We set off northward to camp one last time this year. Our destination was the much-anticipated Holland Lake, about 50 miles northeast of Missoula, with mountain views and a vintage '40s lodge serving family-style food. The Website said they were open through October.

They weren't. We camped at the lake, above, instead. It is not Holland Lake...

Here's Holland Lake! Just seeing it was a thrill, with stunning, snow-capped views of the Mission Mountains...

...and even a long driveway that gave us peeks at the peaks!

We stopped at a boarded-up/winterized lodge and walked around, moping a bit at our bad luck. We should've called! I did call, after the fact (to what turned out to be a California number), to ask about the Website's mis-information -- plus the roadside sign's "Open through October" -- and got a rather terse "I'm not going to answer that." But there was an entirely different, very warm response from a concessionaire for the adjacent Holland Lake campgrounds. She apologized for any vagueness on reserveamerica.com. "It was snowing when we pulled out of here," she said.  If the Indian summer that appeared a week later had been well forecast, she added, she might have stayed open. We'll be sure to book a campsite with her next spring!

We drove a few miles south toward Missoula and found Lindbergh Lake and a U.S. Forest Service campground. No one was there. But it was open. We took up two parking spaces in order to have a van-side view of a fire and the lake.

 

 

The beginnings of our fire.

Lindbergh Lake, to the front of us...

...And a beautiful fall view, behind. Not too shabby for last-minute accommodations in Montana!

Autumn Again (woohoo!)

I've gathered random images to celebrate today -- the first day of fall!

This tall collection of antlers that we came across just outside the National Bison Range said "autumn" to me. In truth, spring seems to be time that horn hunters, as they're called (see Montana Outdoors) gather for official collecting of shed deer antlers. The antler tree that we saw earlier this month looked architectural and barren, like a beautiful tree free of its leaves in late fall. 

I find that black kale, also called dinosaur kale or Tuscan kale, is absurdly easy to grow here. I have such a huge couple of plants that I harvest every other week, wash, remove stems, blanch for a couple of minutes, throw into a bowl of ice water, drain and plop into freezer bags for mid-winter soups, quiches or frittatas.

When we got an early frost this month, we covered all tomatoes and basil plants with old row-cover fabric
 left over from last winter. Some tomato foliage got hit but the fruit survived.

We drive up Willow Creek for a picnic and see a few patches of wild shrubs turning the reds and yellows of autumn.

A wildlife crossing is a feature that we often drive under north of Missoula. It looks brown and fall-like to me. We've never seen a critter crossing.

One of the pristine ditches that carries water for summer irrigation in this high-desert town looks especially lovely on a fall evening. Ditches soon will get drained for winter.

Sunflowers and other fall blooms come to me as a gift from a neighbor. JoAnn got them at the Hamilton Farmers' Market. I add eucalyptus from a previous bouquet and instantly am sorry. This gorgeousness doesn't need them. Oh well.

And my tomatoes -- heirloom Cherokee Purple, Black Cherry, Amish Paste and medium-sized ones called Stupice -- are still going gangbusters. Today's first-day-of-fall harvest joins yesterday's pickings in our mud room/laundry room because space in the kitchen has plum run out! It's a "Little House on the Prairie" around here, but truly, who knew that vegetable gardening in our little in-town micro climate in Hamilton, MT, could be so much fun?!

Labor Day's Come and Gone

Who wouldn't want to take this road on a lazy Labor Day weekend?

We drive RocketDog (aka our restored 1990 VW Westfalia) toward Anaconda Pintler Wilderness in advance of Labor Day.  The mountains there are just one of several ranges that surround a huge caldera named after a Montana river called the Big Hole. It is big. It can be gorgeous, especially on graveled side roads. It also is the site of a Nez Perce Indian massacre, and a sad-but-beautiful national monument stands tall there.

The Big Hole River.

Shelley and Rob, our camping buddies, wade in on the first day and try a few flies.

Part of Rob's fly collection.

We snack and sip wine after no luck with the fish, but Shelley spots something in trees across the water.

See the black-and-white dots in the beetle-killed trees, right of center? It's a pair of eagles. They perch there for a good while. We scope them with binoculars. (Here's where I could use a longer lens!)  We snack some more. The bug kill from climate change actually helps us see these magnificent birds. But what a price to pay for a good view!

Back at camp, skies become cloudy as waders drip dry...

...and salmon steaks from a grocery store join grilled fresh veggies from the garden to take the place of trout. Shelley and Rob have come prepared!

RocketDog takes up one side of the campground (boy are we glad to have the awning to move camp chairs under when it rains.)

Rob and Shelley tent-camp across the way.

At night, campfires crackle in front of us (and all around at other campgrounds, in the background).

We pack bear spray the next day to hike into true wilderness. We see no bears. Horsemen and an Akita, plus an eagle in flight, a hummingbird, woodpecker, nuthatch, native squirrel make appearances. All is quiet on this western front.

An opening along the trail gives a glimpse at the beauty of wilderness.

And, as I write this I realize that today, Sept. 3, is the actual date 50 years ago that Lyndon Johnson signed the Wilderness Act. Wow. And hooray!!

That night, we feast on a quick tomato sauce -- with Black Cherry, Cherokee Purple, Stupice and Amish Paste tomatoes, seed-started from my garden. They cook down in olive oil, salt and pepper, with some of our basil thrown in. All of this gets served over pasta. Later that evening, kids playing laser tag in the woods and generators on larger campers help ruin the mood. So much for no-host, no-reservation campgrounds.

We happily head home the next morning, but not before admiring the Big Hole valley once more.