Up The 'Root

By Tuesday we had had enough of Missoula's city lights and our storage unit and so resolved to head up the 'Root for some hiking in the great canyons of the Bitterroot National Forest/Selway-Bitterroot Wilderness. (The Bitterroot River flows north, so you actually drive south from Missoula, up the Bitterroot Valley). By turns we did Kootenai, Bear, and Blodgett creeks/canyons (camping at Kootenai and Blodgett), all of them off the beaten track, all of them running roughly east/west beneath high ridges and walls of metamorphic rock. Printz Ridge towers some 4,000 feet above the trail at Blodgett. All the trails follow a creek, and many lead to high Alpine tarns or lakes. Also Idaho. The weather was just what you'd hope for in mid-October Montana: clear, cool and crisp, and the fall colors were great.

A climber (top, middle) in Kootenai Canyon

Kootenai Creek

In Bear Canyon...

A little waterfall...most of these trails are on the south sides of the creeks, and canyons, and thus receive very little sun light this time of year

Sunny north ridge in Bear Canyon

Ditto; note spire on the left of the ridge

And larches at their most golden; in Bear Canyon we had the good fortune to see Jean Steele, one of the best board members and board chairs I had at Humanities Montana... 

Autumn color on Blodgett Creek

At the tiny campground at the beginning of Blodgett Canyon, the Bitterroot's most spectacular

The pictures say it best

Lunch break

Big arch on Romney Ridge

Looking further up the canyon from the pack bridge

Among the larger of Printz Ridge's scores, no, hundreds, of pinnacles

Pretty incredible place

PS...so I was walking up the canyon again Saturday, and, on his second pass, got a shot of a sports plane buzzing the canyon

Pretty neat place

Missoula, Fall, 2015

Missoula is a great place to live--some of our very best years were here, 1995-2008; and, of all the places we've lived, it's probably the one place we'd consider returning to should we ever settle down. But it's not so great to visit. Unless of course you've lived here and have friends and memories, and can appreciate all the many charms and quirks and overall goofiness of the place. ("Missoula. A place. Sort of"). We've been here nearly two weeks on this visit, staying with friends, with Uncle Sam (Walton), and others, mostly going through our storage unit in East Missoula, culling, donating, selling on eBay and Craigslist, and getting ready for a garage sale...well, a sale on the grounds of Ole's truck stop on route 200 in East Missoula. We'll be here another week, at least, but will finally do some fun, recreational things soon.

At our favorite campground in Missoula, on Mullan Road; I
always try to park right under the "no overnight camping" signs,
which are universally ignored both by management and the many
RVs passing through; the place is actually famous, in some
peculiarly Missoulian sense, as the subject of the High Plains
Films documentary This Is Nowhere
(http://www.highplainsfilms.org/films/this_is_nowhere),
which I remember laughing at, years ago; and now, here I am,
there, nowhere, blogging about a garage sale at a truck stop...

Skull trees...something new to me...out near
Phillipsburg, where

We bought a used snowmobile trailer, another of Vicki's
screamin' deals, although it looks like it's going to require a
little work...

At our storage unit in East Missoula, loaded up for the
Saturday "yard" sale at the truck stop

Before

After; well, after the trips to ReStore and
Goodwill, after the sale; we did OK, and
particularly enjoyed seeing other people
haul the junk away; plus there's still more
for eBay and Craigslist

Among our more interesting customers

Closer up; look for our Smokey Bear bobble-head on eBay

Seems like wherever we go, Google is there to assist with the
documentation

Cascade Canyon

And another day, we took the boat across Jenny Lake and hiked up old friend Cascade Canyon...

Our boat, the Beaver Dick Leigh (named for trapper/mountain
man  Dick Leigh, who guided the the 1892 Hayden Expedition;
Jenny Lake is named for his wife

Cascade Canyon divides some of the principal peaks and
massifs of this tiny range; here, Storm Point, Ice Point, and
Symmetry Spire, on the north side

And here, on the left, the Grand, and Mt. Owen

At the head of the canyon, Rock of Ages (cleft for me); check
out the ridge, about 2/3's to the left, for the arch/window; at
this point, reports were coming back of a bull moose on the
trail; all the hikers with their assault cameras hastened on
to get photos; we have seen enough of these animals, close
enough, and so we turned back...

North side of the canyon, the south side of Hanging Canyon,
and many pinnacles

Back side of Teewinot summit and Crooked Thumb

Large animal scat

Looking up Valhalla Canyon, surrounded by
the Grand, Teewinot, and Mt. Owen; 
waterfalls, "perennial" snowfields...

Up closer

Us, in Cascade Canyon, taken by a nice couple from Red
Lodge, who've been doing the Tetons even longer than we
have

Sunday morning we awoke to squalls and decided to head on
north through Yellowstone to Montana; more squalls at Old
Faithful and a monumental traffic jam en route to Norris
shortened our Yellowstone visit to a drive-through from West
Yellowstone down the Gallatin; and we finally arrived in the
Bozone in mid-afternoon; back, finally, in Montana!

Taggart and Bradley Lakes Hike

Another day we did the hike up to and around Taggart and Bradley Lakes, two glacial lakes that lay at the foot of the Grand Teton, 5-6 miles with modest elevation gain. We'd done the hike before, in the 70s, but the whole area was engulfed in a wildfire in 1985 that rendered it unappealing. Thirty years later, the trees are back, not yet mature, but enough to be beautiful and to strengthen one's faith in recovery and regeneration. If one lives long enough. The reflections of the Tetons in Bradley Lake were a special treat.

Nez Perce, the Middle Teton, the Grand, Mt. Owen, and
Teewinot, from the beginning of the hike

Distant but interesting symmetry...

Looking up Avalanche Canyon toward the South Teton

Taggart Lake

Reflection in Bradley Lake; interestingly, I didn't see this,
eating lunch by the lake, until I looked through the camera...

The Grand Teton, ditto

Teton view from Taggart Lake

Regrowth...no seral forest here

But fall color all around

We Return To Our Regularly-Scheduled Programming; Or, An Anti-Clockwise Circumnavigation Of Jenny Lake, 2015

So we left the Green River Lakes area, not without incident, and headed out toward Hoback Junction and then Jackson, and lunch at Bubba's, and then an over-night at the Gros Ventre campground and then a removal early the next morning to Signal Mountain campground, our base of operations in the Tetons for this visit. Surprisingly, in later September, the Teton campgrounds are still pretty full, especially the closer-in ones. After setting up, we drove to very old friend Jenny Lake, and did the 7-mile walk around the lake, counter-clockwise, with afternoon light and beautiful weather.

The incident: driving out of the Green River opening...

I have dealt with cows before, one or two in the road, but
never a whole big unescorted herd; but then I remembered my
New Zealand training and experience with sheep...just wade
in slowly, 3-5 mph, and they will move...stop, and they will 
stop

"Share the road, human!"

Cascade Canyon view from Jenny Lake: Teewinot, Mt. Owen,
Storm Point, Ice Point, Symmetry Spire, Mt. St. Johns...

Teewinot, the Grand Teton just peeking out,
and Mt. Owen

As we approach String Lake, Mt. Moran; note protruding black
diabase dike

Symmetry Spire, with its prominent cleft

Cathedral View from String Lake outlet:
Teewinot, the Grand, and Mt. Owen

Eureka!...the unmarked and unmaintained trail
up to Hanging Canyon, from which one climbs
Symmetry Spire, Mt. St. Johns, and numerous
other peaks and spires; a trail I hiked a bit in
the 70s and 80s

Now on the south side of the lake, Symmetry Spire and Mt. St.
Johns

Makings of a good trail

Ascent Of Warbonnet Peak, 1982*

In 1982, our young family lived in Minerva Park, a northeast suburb of Columbus, in a really nice big house on a 1/3 acre wooded lot, Vicki a teacher/librarian in Westerville, and I a freshly-minted Ph.D. in philosophy, working as assistant to the chancellor of the Ohio Board of Regents. (It's a long story). Rebecca was 8 years old and Rachel 2. As a teacher, Vicki had her summers off. As a state employee, I had the standard two weeks. So, more than once in a July or August, we would load up our VW camper Thursday night, and Vicki and the girls would pick me up at 5PM Friday at the corner of Broad and High, and we would take turns driving straight through to Jackson or Pinedale or wherever. We would do family hikes and horse rides, see the attractions, go on float trips, maybe meet up with friends or relatives. And I would do some solo climb or other, sometimes successful, sometimes not. In 1982, we drove over to Big Sandy Opening, Vicki and the girls stayed in the camper, and I walked in to climb Warbonnet and see the Cirque of Towers from above. It was planned to be a one-day walk-in/walk-out, and that is how it turned out, although it was a longer day than planned, and I did much of the walk-out in the dark.

Warbonnet in 1972; it's the the tall plumed one of your left
as you cross Jackass Pass walking in; the easy route, up the
back-side, abandons the trail in the vicinity of the Sundance
Pinnacle and then walks and boulder-hops its way to the top;
not a trail...you just keep walking and hopping toward the
highest thing you can see

The day started off fine but then clouded up and ended up
dark and stormy but with no precipitation nor lightning;
"it was a dark and stormy night, but with no precipitation
nor lightning"

Climbing up Warbonnet's back side

Pingora and the Cirque from above

Panning around

Lonesome  Lake; so for the final summit push, I took off my
pack and ice axe, and trudged on up the last few hundred feet,
crawling the last few because of the wind and exposure; I took
some pix, looked around, and then worked my way back to
where I thought the pack and ice axe would be; not there; not
anywhere I looked for the next two hours; finally, I gave up and
started back down as the daylight dwindled; fortunately there
was a granola bar and some water and a flashlight in my belt
pouch; I was back to the camper and family before midnight,
sadder but wiser; a score of summits and attempts later, I have
never again parted from my equipment; oh, it's a really nice
old-fashioned Stubai "Nanga Partbat" ice axe, Austrian, hickory
shaft, if you find it...

*from the Sherouse Family Digital Archives