Brown Hunts

Tonight I managed an impromptu ride up the Rattlesnake corridor to see how Brown was recovering following his rehab in Oregon. Recall that someone had recently fallen on him during a voyage down the Middle Fork. Brown was now back in his father's arms and ready for action once more. The Rattlesnake got the call.

Just past the three mile mark a man wearing orange and carrying a rifle passed me heading down the creek. I thought to myself this seems a bit early, but carried on up the corridor. It was a bit damp and chilly. The leaves in the Rattlesnake have not quite reached their turning point. It will not be much longer however when the scenery will be spectacular. Riding on I soon came across two men wearing orange standing speaking with a younger fellow who was standing over his bike. The two men had large game carts. The carts held no game, only bags and rifles. The man over the bike was wearing brown and also carried a rifle. "Did you see any game today?" I enquired. "Sure did, but not where we could get them out. He could get them out but not us." They said, pointing to the younger fellow on the bike who I now realized was not part of their outfit. That's the issue with hunting in the Rattlesnake. One needs horses or a bicycle or a lot of patience and ability to make numerous trips to get things out.

The younger fellow said his name was Nick and he'd been in town for about ten years. This was his second time hunting in the Rattlesnake and the game was up high at the moment. He said he thought there were ninety cow tags (I have not checked) and five bull tags for the special season early hunt. We rode together for a mile or two up the creek talking about hunting. He had a cow tag. I asked if he could get one out himself, or if he would ride to town to get his friends? "Not sure. I don't like leaving game in the woods for too long." He replied. Nick stopped to scout an area and I kept going to above the Franklin Bridge, but just below Max's hole (well, one of Max's holes).

The creek is down this time of year. Beescove had no surface water flowing. I waded in flops I tied to the back of the pack. The creek was cold, but felt pretty good. The action was slow on top. There were some caddis hatching and I noticed a few mayflies. I fished for some reason walking downstream. Normally I do the opposite, where the drift is not an issue on smaller creeks. The rod was butter. It was the perfect evening. I finally managed to entice three strikes from a lower deep pool, hooking a nice cutthroat in the end. He was a fighter, though only probably eleven or twelve inches. He made my night.

Red to Blue

During the afternoon I managed to slip away from things and take Red up to the lookout on Blue Mountain. I went first to the lower saddle, marked below.The section below is usually a mess and I was tempted to head up and over Graves, but I had an obligation to pick someone up following soccer tryouts. So I went up to the tower on the singletrack running opposite from below. There were a couple of motorcycles coming down as I climbed. Things were pretty quiet at the tower. Although, there is a very nice camp set up not too far from the point. I saw one grouse. I was hoping to see a few more. Fall is certainly in the air and the leaves are starting to turn rapidly now. It felt good to be in the hills again.

Yesterday was kind of interesting as I spent a brief bit of time at Salmon Lake. I visited with the local hands at the U. Boathouse and asked about the shells hanging nearby. They mentioned that they had not seen them on the water for a very long time.

Thursday MTBing

Tonight I caught up with some friends in the Rattlesnake parking lot [regular TNRers that is] and we embarked on a journey which was to be Snowbowl Overlook backwards. I knew what this meant as we journeyed up the trail, wondering how the wet roots would be heading up the lower Stuart Trail. Well, there was a small bit of grousing [very small] about why this was being done backwards? Ed had his best ascent ever up and over the wet jungle roots. It was great to watch. Wednesday and today I had logged 50,000 meters (erg), which made this little climb kind of interesting. Alden [above] climbed much of the upper section as well. Alden remains Mr Incredible to me. At the turn off from the Stuart ascent, the other TNRers came down the section we were climbing and looked at us like we had a screw loose. We pulled over and let them descend. At the overlook we soon met Bill and Jill who came up the normal route as well (why did we do that again?). It was getting dark and we dropped down above the Ravine trail section and eventually out to the 'snake parking lot. I followed Larry and Ronnie for part of this and Larry bombed the upper section! Ronnie was speedy through the squiggly trail in the dark at the bottom. I kept a safe distance. My photography in the dark is lousy. Most of the photos did not turn out as I turned off the flash. However, one blurry shot of Laurie and Julie turned out ok [below] on part of the ascent. Ronnie picked up some Mirror Pond, chips and a turkey sandwich (which we split) at the Rattlesnake store on the way out. We spoke of skiing and other such things. I owe you big time Ronnie! No debit cards accepted there - been a while - I forgot! I'm tired! Good night amigos.

Fall Ergometer Pull

Yesterday was the beginning of the FTC. Among antelope hunts, soccer tryouts, dryland, fall fly fishing and some mtbing, we will be pulling in the FTC. For us this is about meters, not intensity. We are open to anyone. I plan on updating regularly how the squad is doing.

9-15 to date:

GT 261,468
ET 31,316
TT 19,218
PW 8,279
SP 11,021
TJ 11,013

Quick One

Just got back from a great TNR ride that began in the rain with Aaron, Bob, and Larry and then we found Ed and Bill not too far below Sammy B. It was great to catch up with friends and good to know the Big Sur still works! Wrapped up at the Bridge with pizza. Nothing like a little rain for a motivational ride!!! Thx guys!

One Month of Nada

It's pretty funny what happens to one's cardio with a month of generally nothing other than living the good life! It takes a higher count at the moment to get things done; strength is still there though on the erg. Hamstring's actually feeling pretty well and the wing is certainly back. Read a nice piece in the WSJ this morning on "over exercising." Pretty funny. The week I blew my hamstring I definitely over did it and blew the summer too. Of course, all things are relative. If getting to spend more time with the family in the hills or just plain period then a blown summer really is not that bad after all! It's tough when kids get older and are each going in different directions to different events. Not to mention the work obligations we all have. Finding that balance is important. It also has to be fun or it's a waste of time. I got in a great ride last night in the Rattlesnake with our youngest. Now that was fun!

Canoeing with Bears

"Why are you breaking?" I was yapping over the sound of squealing breaks and a momentary cloud of dust, already knowing the answer. "There's a bear!" LR exclaimed. "So what?" Came the most unwelcome reply. We were descending the Blue Point descent in the spring and a large black bear had been in the trail while the little man was on point. The bear seemed unconcerned and had decided to remain in the general trail area in between the switchbacks as we continued on. It was a large black bear, but the general lesson was continue on being respectful all the while. Bears are part of the deal. I was not sure how that was received. I'm also not sure it was the right message. However, we continued on.Since I was unfortunately out on the Park City race over this Labor Day weekend, we made the decision to do some canoeing. I called it a mtb season following Butte this year. We'll see what follows. LR was looking forward to some time in some new country, so I chose the Middle Fork of the Flathead River and surrounding Glacier Park area for some long weekend recreation. "A hundred bucks?" That was my reply to how much a local operation in the park area wanted to do a shuttle for us from Bear Creek to West Glacier down Route 2. I packed Jake at that point and decided I would be the shuttle giving us the option to take out at any point along the trip. We pitched a tent Friday night not too far from the Burlington Northern tracks which run along this stretch of river. The tracks, running between Glacier National Park and the highway, result in bears occasionally getting killed along this stretch. Early Saturday morning I thought the trains would never cease. It's nice to know a few are still running! It was raining at one in the morning. LR never made a peep. We got up and started paddling. Along the journey, we quickly encountered the first bear. A decent black bear that was climbing the west bank of the river. The bear was minding its own business and left us alone. We ran most of the water, which this time of year is reasonably safe. The canoe has a lot of rocker anyway, which helps too. Fall water equals rocks in some sections which means hike a section to protect the boat. Not too much of this. Someone liked bombing the whitewater sections though! This section of water is one of Montana's most pristine floats. Clear glacial water with cutthroats and grizzlies. The park to the east above the high water mark. It took a little while to get Jake balanced. "Remember, west is the highway." I reminded someone just in case things got interesting. I had recently picked up a very reasonable medium action F.E. Thomas taper bamboo rod on a popular online auction site and decided to bring it along. Managed to get this one at about the price of my old graphite jobs. Following some lunch, I pulled it out and went to work on a section while someone got his feet dry and warmed up.

The fish were pretty finicky and I was not able to provoke a strike. We finally noted a few fish rising below our hole and both of us quickly dropped down to further investigate the matter. The adams actually failed! I tied on a yellow humpy and a beautiful fish rose to the occasion making my day. Things at this point were going pretty smoothly. LR even managed a fine couple of photos. I turned the rod over to the kid to give it a whirl. We worked together on casting in the area and then he solo went to work. However, we were in a slippery section and down he went, falling on the rod. Well, that was that. We put back on the water and I was thinking to myself while navigating from the rear "I wonder if that guy in Portland will be reasonable fixing things or should I say the BN ran it over?" Following an epic lengthy float, we decided to let me take Jake back to the truck and then drive back to the kid. We never saw a person on the river until the take out where some folks from Columbia Falls were tossing spinners. Jake worked out quite well and just missing a significant storm, we were soon on our way to a lake partially in the park and partially out ~ Lower Two Medicine. That night nearby we had another black bear come almost completely into camp, but bugging off when we made enough racket to make it think twice. Sunday morning canoeing we saw a mother grizzly with her cub on a bank. This was a great moment as everything was in control. The mother bear and her cub played on a bank and we got a few photographs. We shortly thereafter headed over Logan Pass above St. Mary Lake. St. Mary Lake is a favorite spot, especially in September when conditions are generally cold and miserable. It was snowing lightly and some folks snapped one off for us after I first did so for them. It seems odd to see so many folks in the park this time of year.It's been a while since we were up there, so maybe things have changed and now fall is the popular time to visit. A friend said the park was having one of its best years. This actually is good news for the park and we bought an annual pass; however, we may have to begin pushing things back a little further yet in the year.

It's nice to see the burn areas so green on the east side. The horses and cattle roaming the highway seem to have plenty of things to graze on. It was snowing on top. LR was counting the number of times we could have honked at nervous drivers crossing over the yellow line and into our lane. Going to the Sun. Always a challenge, but mainly so avoiding the lengthy camper fifth wheels and folks unaccustomed to driving Montana logging roads. We had driven 93 up through the reservation and then along east side of the lake to West Glacier. I wonder if the bear crossing has worked not too far above Evaro? We understand things went pretty well for the cherry growers this year. I pointed out a few fishing areas on the Jocko and said we'd come back to Missoula via another route. That meant of course through the Swan and lower country, where I had recently been canoeing with Wen-Dawg on the back side of the Missions. I pointed that out too after stopping off below at the lower edge of the Swan Lake Wildlife Refuge, where there are waterfowl opportunities coming up shortly. We had peanut butter sandwiches on Salmon and watched another black bear across from what are now the University grounds. Once again, another bear that did not mind us. Is it ski season yet?