Christmas in Montana

Very foggy yesterday morning, so much so that I could not even see across the road. By 10:30 however, it began to burn off and the sky was SO blue - it beckoned to me and I headed out for a short road trip down the Bitterroot Valley. The mountains reflected the bright blue sky and everything was crystalized by the heavy hoar frost. The cattails alongside the road looked like rock sugar on a stick. They were back-lit by the sun and so beautiful - unfortunately there was no place to pull over safely to take any photos of them. Too bad, would have been a great shot!

I turned off at the Stevensville junction, stopped near the bridge and got some photos of the Bitterroot River and the mountains. It wasn't too terribly cold, although I did have to keep my camera tucked inside my jacket periodically, to keep it from freezing up on me.

As the day went on, the weather actually turned out to be fairly pleasant. I think it got up to around 25 degrees, and with the sunshine, lots of the ice melted quickly. Walked around the destered streets in town for a short while, then headed back home.

On my way back out to the highway, I stopped at the gate of Fort Owen to get a few more shots of the Bitterroot Mountains. As I was standing along the fenceline (only about 15 feet off the highway), a guy came driving up on his "gator" and asked if he could help me. I told him no, I was just taking some pictures, and he sat there looking at me with a sort of suspicious look on his face, and I wondered if he was upset at me "trespassing". While Fort Owen is on private property, it is also a state park, and therefore has public access. Moron...

Heading back toward Missoula I saw several small flocks of turkeys along the road, and back into Lolo I was hoping the buffalo were near the fence so I could get some pictures of them in the snow. But they were not, so I continued on my way.

Stopped at Kona Ranch Road and pulled into the river access parking lot, parked the rig and headed down to the edge of the Clark Fork River. The pine trees were thick with snow, so much so that the branches were drooping heavily. There were small "puddles" of ice in the river, which was moving at a pretty fast pace. The bridge must have recently been painted, for it was a bright orange (sort of reminded me of the Golden Gate - at least it was the same color), and was a striking contrast to the blue water and bright white snow.

A short walk along the river bank and I headed up toward the road and out across the bridge, where it was tricky footing. On the other side in the beaver pond, a flock of about 40 or 50 Canada geese were resting. The sun warmed the icy cold water, creating a light steam that rose behind the geese, and a few deer wandered along the bank. Looking south I noticed some heavy clouds closing in on the sun so I headed back to the car. By then the temperature was beginning to drop considerably and I headed home to my warm flannel "jammies" and a bowl of hot soup.

All in all a good way to spend Christmas day!