I’m grateful for every day, but today the entire USA gives thanks together. What am I grateful for? Glad you asked! My new creative career as an author All my wonderful readers! My husband, the Amazing Sleeping Man The rest of my family My Team Rubicon family My friends and community here in Montana and around…
Category: Life in Montana
Hiking Chaffin Butte
We usually hike the Bitterroot Mountains. With fall bringing cooler temperatures, we can hike the Sapphire Mountains across the valley and enjoy seeing them in all their glory. Chaffin Butte is very short but steep and strenuous. The trail is rocky and doesn’t have nearly enough switchbacks; my hiking poles came in very handy on the…
Winter Is Coming
GoT reference? No. Winter in Montana reference. We’ve changed the furnace filter, pulled the hoses off the outside faucets, and today, we burned slash. The Amazing Sleeping Man calls it “Praying to the Snow Gods” and I prefer a more practical approach. No matter what, winter is coming. The mornings are below 32 degrees F,…
Fall Hiking – Blodgett Canyon Overlook
Fall in the Bitterroot Mountains is magical. The colors are bright and beautiful, the temperatures are perfect for hiking, and the crowds are gone. Not that it’s ever that crowded here, but it’s even better now. We hiked the Blodgett Canyon Overlook trail on Tuesday. It’s a mere 1.5 miles and 400-foot elevation gain, with…
Hiking Sweathouse Falls
One of the best things about living in the Bitterroot Mountain–a beautiful hike is never far away. Yesterday, the Amazing Sleeping Man and I hiked up to Sweathouse Falls. It’s a fairly easy hike, 2.5 miles with less than a 1,500 ft elevation gain, but it’s lovely. The biggest challenge of this trail is starting…
Backpacking the Lee Metcalf Wilderness — Beautiful and Humbling
‘1, 2, 3…’ This hill is so steep, my pack feels like a thousand pounds pressing me towards the earth, and I’m blowing like an ancient racehorse desperately trying to recreate his youth. I’ve been reduced to counting my steps just to keep moving. Maybe counting steps is better than the earworm plaguing me so…
Ghost Trees
The Bitterroot Valley is usually referred to as the ‘banana belt’ of Montana. A few times every winter, high pressure decides to camp out over us and we turn into the freezer of Montana. Inversions fill the valleys with fog and wood stoves make the problem worse. The only way to see the sun is…
Living in the Woods: A Privilege and a Responsibility
I am lucky enough to live in the foothills of the beautiful Bitterroot Mountains. It’s a privileged position–and like most privileges, it comes with responsibilities. I firmly believe one of those responsibilities is to make our property as ‘firewise’ as possible. I use the term ‘firewise’ because there is no way to make a forested property…