New Year, New Bear Canyon

The end of 2017 was very much like the start of 2018, and even included the same-named trail, though the two could not be more different than summer and winter. Bear Canyon Trail in Tucson leads to seven waterfalls that run for about 30-seconds in the Spring, whereas Bear Canyon Trail in Bozeman offers a steady stream of running water even in the dead of winter. Both trails will either kill you or do you great harm if you step off the trail; in Tucson you'll get your eyes gouged out and/or skinned alive by all of the plant life, and in Bozeman you'll get lost and exhausted in waist-deep snow. Nevertheless, we always manage to have a good time.

The drive from Billings to Bozeman is a doozy, and there is always a good chance the highway will be iced-over as you get closer to Bozeman, but we didn't seem detoured by this as we headed out for a day hike. This was one of the few times we smoothly got our shit together and out the door on time so as not to arrive back at our car in the dark. Finding accessible trails in the middle of winter is a challenge in and of itself, and though they aren't maintained like they are during other seasons, we were surprised at how much trails still get used. On this one in particular, a couple of people passed us on fat-tire bikes, because here in Montana we just ignore winter until it goes away.

Everyone puts on their sweaters in the winter. 

 There is more than one trail, we turned left along that fence then up a decent incline.

 While you're busy worrying about basic survival, one of the challenges of hiking you don't really think about is where to look. Obviously you need to watch where you're going, but you need to look around for wildlife both because it's way cool and for your safety. I was looking off to the right of the trail when I saw something that looked like an up-ended tree stump. I looked a second longer and the stump picked up its head and was actually a motherfucking moose! Most likely a female, she was laying in the snow next to the running water, and either didn't notice us, or didn't care. We had Louis with us who also didn't seem to notice the moose, or didn't care. It was pretty much the coolest experience of my life. Until I spot a bear.

I can't decide if the incredibly deep snow makes the drop-off better or worse. You definitely won't fall down the hill that quickly. 

If someone had told me that one day I'd be on the side of a mountain, in the middle of January, in the snow, by choice, I would have told them to go fuck themselves.

 The best part about winter hiking is how untouched everything is; not any more so than during other seasons, it's just obviously more noticeable when everything is covered in a comforter of snow. We took a different trail back down and came across fresh moose droppings, most likely from the female we spotted. Never has seeing poop been so neat!

We surpassed our goal of getting back to the car before dark, but we were still in Bozeman once the sun went down. And if there is one thing everyone is after hiking, it's hungry (sometimes even a little hangry). We ate dinner then drove the two and a half hours home.

In the Wild at Wild Bill Lake

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. 

West Fork Rock Creek 

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').

An Emerald Lake in the Rough

There was a noticeable gap between going to the Bighorn Mountains and the next time we would hit the open road (not until Thanksgiving), so I was going to write about the normal, day-to-day nonsense that goes on when we're not roadtrippin' because we do have home-lives, jobs, responsibilities, and, like, no money. But the thought of writing about that brought me very little joy so if you want to know about the more mundane, and if you're not a creep, go be my friend on Facebook, or follow me on Instagram. (You're welcome to follow me on Twitter, but I use that mainly to talk shit to Trump.)

By the time Thanksgiving 2017 rolled around, whenever one of us scored some time off, driving into the mountains was our default response. So that's exactly what we did on Thanksgiving Day. But with only one day free, and a shortened one since the sun was setting sooner, we chose to go to what had become our default location, this being the fourth time that we would visit Emerald Lake and the surrounding areas.

The first was also on a holiday, the Fourth of July, where we had a picnic in the empty campground next to the raging river (this holiday also landed smack in the middle of the week). The second visit was our second attempt at camping with the full intention of hiking to Mystic Lake the next morning but ended up being sidelined by some serious hangovers and just drove home instead. The third was - FINALLY! - the hike to Mystic Lake, so our Thanksgiving visit would be the fourth, and the first time seeing the area in another season besides summer. We were too late to see the leaves change colors, but winter has its own sort of rustic beauty, I suppose.

 Oh, you wanted to see what's behind me?

The swans and I, we know what's up. It was just us and two other cars, none of their passengers venturing outdoors, either.

There are only pictures of me because I am the only one who got out of the car, ironically, in order to take pictures. Jacob took this from the driver's seat.

Obviously, cooking some extravagant meal was not one of our priorities on this particular holiday, but we made up for it the next day.

I've been making roasted chicken for Thanksgiving since our little family first started (though this was the first year that I wrapped it in bacon). I've made a couple of turkeys over the years because you're, like, supposed to, but I've made several revelations as I continue to get older and one of them is that I do not like leftover turkey. I love the Main Event; the plentiful plate party on the actual day, and I have been known to choke down a turkey sandwich or two the day after, but what can I say? I like the cock, not the gobble. And my family - those who live at the mercy of my fridge - don't seem to really care about turkey the day after Thanksgiving, either.

Unable to stay away from what has become our quick getaway go-to, we went back to this same area about three weeks later - mid-December - and things looked decidedly different.

 This:

Is this. (Taken Fall 2018)

 With snow on the road reaching about halfway up the tires, we powered through to the trailhead parking lot. It fell heavy and silent, like dusted powdered sugar, and it was, of course, freezing. But everyone was in good spirits, and driving me to the trailhead to Mystic Lake and telling me I can't go on it is just cruel and unusual punishment. So - knowing we wouldn't get very far - we decided to see exactly how far we could go.

The way the mountains are shrouded by the clouds is so eerily awesome.

 The snow was pretty deep, but there were other, some-what fresh, footprints so we followed them and stopped when they stopped. They must have run into the same thing we did in that the snow got very deep, very fast, a good indication that we were heading...up.

 So the only real hiking we did was to the top of the butt-slides.

 Butt-bomb of the butt-slide!

We got our fill of the snow before - a week later - we road-tripped even further and had a very non-white Christmas.