Bass Creek – If a Trail could be an old Friend
If a trail could be an old friend Bass Creek would be that trail. We have hiked it countless times, and every time it is thoroughly enjoyable with the right amount of effort required.
Hiking in the Jewel Basin, Montana – Mount Aeneas and Noisy Notch Loop
From the summit, we hiked down the steep backside to Picnic Lakes, and then following the Alpine 7 trail, we crossed through Noisy Notch and back to Camp Misery (watch Vida’s scholarly explanation of this name). A jewel indeed! The Jewel Basin is nestled atop the Swan Range above the Flathead Valley, and it is […]
First “Real” Hike of 2019! Bass Creek
Finally, finally…we are out and hiking again with the whole crew (Vida, Jeff and myself), and for the first “real” hike of 2019, we put on the YakTrax and hiked to the Selway-Bitterroot Wilderness boundary. [sgpx gpx=”/wp-content/uploads/gpx/Bass Creek 331.gpx”] We started the day at the Larry Creek trailhead as the deeply rutted ice-packed road to […]
Hiking the Cube Iron/Silcox Roadless Area, Northwest Montana
Joined by Vida and Haines, we hiked a loop route through the Cube Iron/Silcox Roadless Area. This particular route has been on my hike bucket list for 20 years since I first discovered the trails on a map. This loop starts at the Four Lakes basin trailhead and climbs at a good pitch to Cabin […]
Solitude of Snow – Hiking Alone
True solitude comes when the snow is falling silently in the mountains of Montana. Hiking to the top of a point in the ridge above Missoula is a challenge in the knee powder of the most recent storm.
Rick Bass, the Pacific Northwest Trail, and His Yaak Delusion
In his recent opinion piece in the Missoula Independent, Rick Bass intentionally makes a series of errors, widespread smears, and outright untruths about the Pacific Northwest Trail (PNT) as it winds (yes, winds Rick, more on that later). Bass’s oppositional rhetoric to the PNT even disinters the ghost of famed grizzly bear researcher Chuck Jonkel […]