Like my waistline, I've let my blog go. And despite my stellar record-keeping (Instagram), I managed to miss one of our Montana-roadtrips before ringing in 2018. It always felt like we weren't venturing out nearly enough, but as I go through these, and as I get further and further behind, I realize just how far we've gone and just how much we've seen. We're not lucky, wealthy, or anything special; where other families might spend money on new cars, or new tech toys, we spend ours on this. And car parts.Obviously, we weren't pleased to have our first hiking and camping season behind us, and finding places to be outdoors in the beginning of winter can be a bit of a challenge (by winter 2019, however, I hope for us all to have snowshoes). But there is still plenty to see and plenty of places to go, and we discovered that the more we looked for trails and other sights, the more we found them. Imagine that.
Jacob either knew about Wild Bill Lake in Red Lodge, or had just learned about it, but that was where we were headed in early December of 2017. Turns out, we were pretty much the last people on earth to hear of this place; apparently it is quite a popular area to find and chop down your Christmas tree. The drive isn't very far or perilous (unlike our trek to Rabbit Gulch Trail, which we did the week before this), and the lake is just far enough to make you feel like you're in the middle of nowhere, but not so far that you can't make it home before dark. (We, of course, are of the breed who can never get our shit together early enough so we always get home after dark.)
You can drive to the lake, which we might do this summer, but the road is closed and not maintained during winter so that was our "trail," and where we passed several people hauling their chosen Christmas trees on sleds, something I bet Clark Griswold wished he had thought of.
The following succession of pictures makes me laugh. I just wanted a nice picture of me with my dog in a picturesque location, which was apparently too much to ask.
Once Jacob realized what was happening, he stopped taking pictures...
Wild Bill Lake. A popular spot in the summer, not so much in the winter.
The amount of snow makes it look deceptively cold, but it was a pleasant, mild day. Unfortunately, the sun sets earlier and the temperature plummets with it.
Our trek to Wild Bill Lake certainly wasn't our longest adventure, but as I said, it's far enough away to lose cell phone signal, offers the requisite mountain views, renders the appropriately sore muscles, and simply makes you (us) feel good. It would make a very pleasant day-trip, though Red Lodge and the surrounding area can be extremely busy during the weekend and on holidays like Memorial Day and the 4th of July (this place, in particular, is hoppin').
