This is turning into one of the funnest summers I’ve had personally in quite a while. The past few years, with the transition from farming to our new dot-com incarnation, plus house building and myriad other projects; recreational time was in kind of short supply. Things are beginning to settle into what passes for a routine for us, though. That still includes lots of work, but also a healthy measure of play. So, let’s see; started off with a packtrip to Cowboy Heaven in late June, followed by an off-trail hike to Cameron Lake in the Madison Range. Oh, yeah, and a few other miscellaneous day hikes in the Mads, my current choice du jour for elk scouting.

The long weekend of the Fourth was an unqualified blast, starting off with a free concert by Hank Williams, Jr., Los Lobos, and Sheryl Crow in the park in Livingston. It was televised live by ABC as part of a Happy Birthday, America celebration, which made for some odd breaks in the performances, but hey, for the price who could complain! Actually, the free tickets were limited to several hundred, and we didn’t get any ourselves, but no big deal. We had ringside seats on the bridge directly across from the stage. With the Absarokas looming in the background, and bluebird weather, it was as fine a way to spend the afternoon as I can think of. Sheryl rocked! Los Lobos is another personal favorite, but they only played La Bamba (which they must be coming to hate) plus a handful of fairly mellow songs of their new album. Dang, man, those guys can rock as hard as anybody, and I wish they’d gotten a chance to. Hank’s music isn’t really my thing, although he seemed most popular with a few of the folks around us, including one spectacularly idiotic half-drunken redneck who leaned toward the point of view that there are two types of music; country and western. He actually suggested that Los Lobos ought to go back to Mexico! Hmmm…. I thought they have been called "The Greatest American Band". He also seemed quite taken with "Sharon" Crow’s leather pants & halter top, although her music just wasn’t in the same league with old Hank… Anyway, he was only a minor distraction and actually kind of amusing. Getting mad at idiots is a waste of time.

The next day we loaded up the pickup camper and headed out for some previously unexplored (by us, obviously) destinations in the Pintlars. The Anaconda/Pintlar Wilderness Area lies south and west of Anaconda, and north of the Big Hole valley. Nice country. Nicer now than it was a hundred years ago! After our return I did a Google search to see what was on the net about the area and came across a really interesting and kind of horrifying report by one Albert E. Cole, a long-retired Forest Service employee who spent several brutal winters, along with his wife and baby, in the High Rye cabin, from 1916-22. He was keeping track of timber sales to the Anaconda Mining Company, or rather keeping some estimate of board feet as they clearcut everything in sight to feed the smelters. The environment wasn’t a big concern of the mining companies, as he reported "This material was badly deteriorating from smelter fumes, trees were dying. Sulphur fumes were killing the timber and arsenic fumes were killing livestock in the Deer Lodge Valley, in Mill Creek, and over the divide into the Big Hole watershed." My gosh, sounds like a lovely situation!! You can still see the aftermath on the slopes of the Mount Haggin Wildlife Management Area south of Anaconda. Some recovery has taken place in the interim, but there’s lots of stumps out there that indicate the area was previously forested. Now those open slopes provide good winter range for wildlife, and fortunately animals are no longer dying from arsenic fumes. Anyway, Cole’s account is at http://www.fs.fed.us/r1/bdnf/cabins/high_rye_cabin.htm. In case you think your job sucks, reading it’ll make you feel better. His was absolutely nightmarish, with rat-infested accommodations, influenza epidemics, arctic weather, and isolation, not to mention arsenic fumes, of course….

So, I’m certainly not lamenting the demise of the Anaconda Company, and now that area abounds in scenery & recreational potential. We camped the first night at Pintlar Lake, and broke out the float tubes. We caught a good number of brook trout, but were especially thrilled to connect with several nice-sized grayling. The Big Hole drainage is one of the only remaining strongholds for these rare natives in the lower 48, and they obviously migrate up the streams that drain the abundant lakes that dot the Pintlar Range. The next day we toured around the upper Big Hole valley, which is as about as scenic as country gets! We checked out Mussigbrod Lake, although didn’t stay to wet a line. The lake looks nice, but the campground didn’t light our fire (poor choice of words perhaps, as a forest fire burned to within a short distance of the campground a couple of summers back). So, we continued our explorations & wound up at Lower Seymour Lake. The campground there is nice, as is the lake. We didn’t find any grayling there, just hordes of smallish brookies. Most interesting, to my point of view, was a pair of beavers that seemed quite entranced with our float tubes and swam about us as we fished.

I always like studying maps when we’re out & about, and a potential trip that piques my interest is a tour through the high country of the Pintlars, from Lower Seymour Lake to either Pintlar or Mussigbrod Lakes. That route takes in a host of alpine lakes, and is going on the list of upcoming explorations. Of course, it usually takes at least a year for items on that list to make it to the top, and right now the next ventures in line are climbing the Sphinx, and a packtrip exploring some seldom-visited locales in the southern Madison Range up around Expedition Pass.

Speaking of explorations, though, in my aforementioned map studies, I noticed a possible alternate route for our return. A Forest Service road departs from Interstate 15 right by the Continental Divide south of Butte, and winds through the Highland Mountains to the east, coming out by Pipestone Pass. It’s actually part of the Continental Divide Trail system, and I now concur that parts of it are more of a trail than a road! Actually, it wasn’t too bad, and is immensely scenic, but sections are somewhat ill-suited to travel with a heavy pickup camper. So, if you do, make sure the items in your cupboards are secured, or you’ll be sweeping up broken glass as I was. While thus occupied, three pickups went by heading west. I hopped out to say hi, & inquire if the road ahead got much worse. The trucks were apparently occupied by the ranchers summering cattle up there, and let’s just say they were not friendly. They didn’t stop or offer a greeting (a grievous breach of rural etiquette, IMO), but just glared at me like I was a tourist or maybe just plain stupid! Unfortunately, at that point I wasn’t 100% sure I could disagree…. Shortly after, though, we encountered a couple in a regular passenger sedan with California plates, heading the other way, who flagged us down & looked even more concerned than me. After comparing notes, we decided we could both make it & went on our way (I hope they’re not still up there somewhere!). The road shortly improved, as did the scenery, or maybe we were just able to relax enough to enjoy it. We saw a pair of moose at Moose Meadows, which greatly bolstered our faith in mapmakers, as well as a bunch of cattle who appeared far more tranquil than their owners!

And, finally, at a barbecue a couple of nights back I coincidentally met a guy who it turns out is one of the people who have been parasailing off the west slope of the Bridgers behind our place. Not only that, his partner has a commercial parasailing operation, and has just gotten the necessary permits and such to offer flights with his tandem parasail. Those will be a popular thing, I think, and offer a great way to raise the adventure quotient on a fishing trip or other vacation. Stay tuned for details. We’ll get a web page up with details after we get some photos, or in the meanwhile just e-mail us if you’re interested.