Return To Missoula, 2017

We had some time constraints and a big agenda, so we made a three-day dash from the Peninsula to Missoula, a thousand miles, by way of I-80, US95, and then US12 along the Middle Fork of the Clearwater and the Lochsa River. We actually won at Winnemucca, thanks to Vicki, and the landscape became interesting after Boise, if a bit on the dry side. But we enjoyed seeing a variety of old haunts and old friends. The Lochsa is our favorite approach to Missoula, although any of its several approaches is beautiful.

The Lochsa is a tributary to the Middle Fork of the Clearwater,
(a tributary of the Salmon, then the Columbia) both big
beautiful rivers, Scenic and Natural, etc., both quite
low, despite the heavy snowfall of the previous winter

The Lochsa was so low you could have waded right across--
unthinkable in the spring or earlier summer

Why its a tributary of the Clearwater 

A favorite old haunt, Jerry Johnson Warm Springs

A storied place

Among Missoulians (remembering you, Earl and
Collen)

Wilderness bridge; temps were in the 90s, but people were
still crossing over to have a look

Another old haunt, which we visited in every season during our
Missoula years; snowmobiling to it was occasionally a challenge

Our table

The ever watchful help

Another old haunt

Killed-Colt Creek, before it becomes the Lochsa; big-time
Lewis and Clark country, the bicentennial of which was a major
investment for me professionally; De Voto was a major
historian of the west, and quite a personality himself