Montana Skies

The last time I was up here, there were fires everywhere and the skies were that nasty orangey-grey. This time the fires are in Canada pretty much, so Montana is spared.

After hosting my nephew for a few days, Pedro and I drove up to Montana to take the kid home and to hang out with my brother, Tanner, and the rest of the family. Pedro got to meet my sister-in-law Laurie for the first time. We had a nice long visit with them.

On one of the days, we drove up into the mountains to go hike and hang out at a lake. My niece Bruce couldn’t come with us because she had to work.

Before we got there, we came to a waterfall, which of course we had to get out and inspect.

Another neat surprise was when we drove past some bighorn sheep climbing a hill next to the road.

My brother, Tanner, knew a short cut to reduce the length of the trail. He had discovered it during hunting season. That meant we drove within only a couple miles of an outstanding lake. After traversing cross-country for a short distance (hoping Tanner knew what he was doing), we found the trail and made our way toward the lake. We passed a couple of tiny lakes that Tanner’s dogs splashed in and drank from.

Then we arrived, and it was a beautiful spot.

We spent hours at the lake, fishing and exploring, and I even climbed into the water. The day was not that hot, but the water was surprisingly warm for an alpine lake. The dogs are not swimmers, but they did love splashing around the shores and barking at the fish they could see through the clear water.

With us exploring different parts of the lake, Tanner and Brandon climbed over to where Pedro and I had been sitting, to see if fish were biting over there. They found a bird on its nest that had been below our rock ledge and we didn’t even see it.

When we were finally done at the lake, we headed back down the trail. The smoke from the fire lingered on the edge of the sky all day, but stayed blue above us. We could tell it had grown significantly since starting that morning, and the valleys were filling with smoke by the time we returned to lower elevations.

During our trip there, we visited with their friends, we swam in the Bitterroot River, we did some target practice shooting out in the woods, we got to see Tanner’s enormous landscaping project when he built a huge pond in their back yard last year. It’s coming along well with various plant ideas around the shores, and a great little deck with pergola, and koi in the water that managed to survive the winter and predators for a whole year now.

The final adventure was our last night there: we attended a concert outside of Missoula. That will be in my next post. 🙂