Jumbo

Mt. Jumbo is one of the broad-shouldered treeless (and homeless) mountains that back Missoula. It's a 10-minute walk from our frontdoor to the base of the mountain.

Did I say treeless? Oops. Here are two.





The plott hound sniffing the wind.



A cold morning. Yesterday's skiff has melted off down low. The trail runs on to the north for miles.

BC in BC

With me unemployed and Laura looking at a three-day weekend, we decided to get out of town. We went to British Columbia.

We drove past the Missions.



And then Flathead Lake.



We camped at a still-open state park near Eureka, a half-hour shy of the border. On Friday morning, under lightly-snowing skies, we crossed into Canada and went to Fernie.



We toured downtown and took a short hike before heading over a quite snowy Kootenay Pass to Salmo and then on to Nelson, where we gave in and spent $74 on the cheapest hotel we could find. I love BC, but man, is it expensive. The cheap combo meal at A&W is nearly $10, and gas rang in at about $4.40 a gallon.

Pretty place, though.



In the morning we headed up to Whitewater ski area, which was closed but sporting a few inches of new snow and a parking lot half-full with locals skiing, hiking and sledding. Laura took a short cross-country tour while I skinned up to overlook Ymir Bowl.



Parties toured higher. There was about a half-meter at the base and a meter or more at 6,500 feet -- enough to ski, but not enough to venture into the rocky bowls.

This party went halfway up The Nose before dropping in.



With it still snowing lightly we went back to Nelson to visit its great coffee house, Oso Negro. Nelson is truly a spectacular town but we did not want to blow more money on sketchy hotel rooms, so we drove back to Whitewater, this time in heavy snow, and camped in the parking lot. The wind blew all night long.

In the morning we headed down to Salmo and then up Kootenay Pass, the highest "all-use year-round paved road in BC," or so the sign at the summit stated.

With light snow and low visibility our few ours on the summit was more a tour than a ski, but I did get in some turns.



We crossed into Idaho south of Creston, stopped for a coffee in Sandpoint, and took a swing by Lookout Pass, which had just opened for the season.



Back home by 7, happy and tired.

Waiting for Winter

It seems to get a few degrees colder every day. We've had snow every few days now for the past 10 days, but always less than an inch and it always melts off pretty quickly.

The job hunt continues, but there's only so much to apply for. That means plenty of time to hike.

Attempted to follow the Mt. Jumbo ridgeline to Sheep Mountain yesterday. All we found were deer and a trail which disappeared. But I think now I know where to go ...

Rattlesnake from Jumbo



Lower Rattlesnake National Historic District



North summit of Sentinel Peak





Missoula on a snowy morning

So Long, Scarpa; Hello, Bitterroot

Before we went to South America last year I bought a new pair of telemark boots. My old pair was still in good condition but was nearly nine seasons old. The problem was, if anything went wrong in South America I knew ahead of time there was no place down there to pick up something new or repair broken telemark gear. So in July I went to REI in Houston and picked up a new pair of Scarpa T2 boots for $569. Yep, I paid full price.

(Stuart Peak; 11/9/09)



The Scarpa plastic boots revolutionized telemark skiing. They first came out in the early 1990s. At about that time I bought a pair of Heidelberg leather telemark boots at a ski swap in Salt Lake City in 1991 and used them for just two years before getting a used pair of Scarpas at a different ski swap. I used those boots until 2000, when the plastic tore. I sold both the leather boots and the old Scarpas at a ski swap and picked up a new pair of Scarpas at REI for $359 (yep, I paid full price again) in Salt Lake City while on my way down to Elk Meadows to go skiing for Utah.com. Those old blue boots were fantastic.

(Sheep Mountain: boots, Plott hound, backpack; 11/9/09)



This summer, when we returned from our trip, I placed the old Scarpas on Craigslist in Houston, and got exactly one queery (from, it later turned out, a guy in Vermont). When I pulled the trailer up to Missoula from Houston I stuck the old pair in with the other baggage at the last minute. If nothing else, I figured, I could sell them for a hundred bucks or so.

(Bear Creek; 11/7/09)



I stuck the boots on Craigslist once I got here and again got no response. Then on Saturday came the SOS ski swap at Big Sky High, and I figured I ought to consign them there. So on Saturday morning Laura and I drove over, waited in line for a few minutes, and signed them up for the Sunday sale. SOS takes 20 percent, so I priced them at $120. Then, we went to the Bitterroot.

(Near Hamilton; 11/7/09)



The Bitterroot is a valley, river, mountain range and string of towns, all of which begins about 10 miles south of Missoula and runs for some 50 miles south to the Idaho line at Lost Trail Pass. I'd applied for a reporting job in Hamilton, the biggest town in the area, and we wanted to check out the area some more. So we got a coffee and headed south on US 93.

(Laura in Bear Creek, Bitterroots; 11/7/09)



Once you get past the turnoff for Lolo, the highway is marked every few miles with brown signs. The signs either point to the left, where there are access points along the river, or right, where there are roads heading to the base of the mountains. We picked a random trailhead called Bear Creek and followed the road up a few miles until the trailhead.

(Near Hamilton; 11/7/09)



The Bitterroot Mountains are fairly easy to describe. They are massive, both in scale and physical size. They are untouched: there are a few trails which pierce the canyons and then, like the one we took up Bear Creek, seem to wither away. And they are practically devoid of people.

(Bugs at work in Bear Creek; 11/7/09)



The bulk of the mountains lie in the Selway-Bitterroot Wilderness Area. Along with national parks, the creation and support of wilderness is one of the great American inventions. Managed by the federal government and owned collectively and equally by all Americans, wilderness areas are free to use by everyone and anyone, with two real caveats: you can only hike or ski in, and there can be no permanent structures. (I wonder how many people decrying America's "socialism" these days also think about national parks? Would they destroy national parks, too?) The Selway-Bitterroot contains 1.3 million acres. It is separated from the adjacent 2.4-million acre Frank Church/River of No Return Wilderness by a dirt road with a 600-foot right of way. And the Frank Church directly joins the 205,000-acre Gospel Hump Wilderness.

We hiked for four hours in light snow before reemerging at the truck. We drove through Hamilton (nice) before heading back to Missoula.

(Sheep Mountain, Rattlesnakes; 11/9/09)



On Sunday we were up early and at the ski swap by 10:30 a.m. We were not there nearly early enough, though. The swap opened at 10, and I learned later that 600 people filed through the doors in the first 10 minutes. Already, by 11 a.m., we were poking around the dregs of the sale. I picked up some ski area trail maps and some stickers and we decided to go. There, on the telemark table, were my lonely boots.

I had started thinking a lot about my boots, and was pretty sad to think about selling them. I had skied with them in some of the most amazing mountains in North America: Rogers Pass, Banff, Kicking Horse, Whistler, Whitewater, Lolo, the Cascades, Lake Tahoe, the Sierra, the Stansburys, the Wasatch, the Smokies (!), &c.

(Sheep Mountain, Rattlesnakes; 11/9/09)



Home from the swap we had lunch, cleaned around the house, went on a short hike, and at 5 I went back to Big Sky High to pick up my boots. I looked through piles of sad unsold gear -- and piles, and piles, and piles. Where were the boots? I went back again and looked. Nothing. Finally I went up to the sales counter and showed them my receipt. The girl there flipped through a stack of receipts and held mine up. "Yep," she said, "someone bought 'em."

How about that?

Stuart Peak

Since the sun does not rise here until after 8 a.m., it's pretty easy nowadays to do a dawn patrol. I took the day off from job hunting and hiked Stuart Peak.

Stuart Peak is a midlevel peak in the Rattlesnake Mountains National Recreation Area and Wilderness. The Rattlesnakes are a group of high peaks which back Missoula to the north. The entrance to the area is about 5 miles from downtown Missoula.



About a half-inch of sloppy snow dropped the night before in Missoula -- which translated to close to an inch at the trailhead, which is at about 3,500 feet.



The first 3 miles are wide and easy, then the climb begins in earnest.



It's dense forest much of the way, though you do get some views.



The summit is at 7,900 feet but I turned around about 600 feet shy of that when I ran into deeper snow, dense fog, strong winds



and big bear tracks.



I celebrated a successful hike with stickers!

16 feet of Nissan, 15 feet of trailer

Laura got the good news last Thursday -- she was hired by the school district, and would start work on Monday.

With that major hurdle out of the way, and nothing promising job-wise for me in the near future, we decided this was a good time for me to go to Houston and get the truck and trailer.



Buying a one-way ticket on short notice left us with few options. On Saturday we left the house at 5.30 am and drove nearly three hours -- including up and over the Contintal Divide -- to Bozeman, whose airport looks like an upscale ski lodge.



I flew from BZN to IAH via a six-hour layover at DIA. The flight to Denver took us over Yellowstone and the Wind Rivers and featured a great view of the Tetons. My parents picked me up in Houston, where for once the temperature was NOT 95 degrees, and we had a late dinner at Taco Cabana. I spent the next day packing and unloading and reloading the trailer when I realized there was too much weight on the tongue.

I left Houston on Monday and again went to Bryan, Waco and Fort Worth. It got dark way before the Panhandle but as there were no campgrounds I wound up pulling into the KOA in Amarillo -- perhaps the most expensive campground on Earth -- at 11.30 p.m.

I was up the next day and out by 8. Wanting to bypass Raton Pass, Monument Hill and the mess that is Denver I went north from Amarillo through Stratford and Boise City and entered the weird depopulated world of the plains. Living in the West I'm well acquainted with what appears to be abandoned towns, but in the West you are never that far from a thriving town even when in what appears to be a dead zone. In the plans, however, all you get is dead zone; there are no resort cities to buck the trend. Texas and Oklahoma were particularly bad for deserted cities; in Colorado, meanwhile, there seemed to be more emphasis on redevelopment and downtown beautification.







From Lamar I headed north to Limon and took back roads to Fort Collins, where I joined I-15. After raining all afternoon the rain turned to snow in Cheyenne and started to come down heavy. I spent the night in the truck at a rest area in Chugwater.



The next morning, with light snow falling but the roads cleared, I went to Caspar and then to Thermopolis and Cody before driving into the spectacular Absaroka Mountains at Red Lodge. I spent one final night in Columbus before making it home to Missoula in the early afternoon.



Laura did not like pulling the trailer, but once you get into the West, where there is more space and fewer people, I found it to be almost enjoyable. I set the cruise at 60 and idled along into the sky. Not a bad week. And now our home has furniture!

Montucky

August: Life becomes single-focused and practically monastic. Ride in the morning. Job hunt all day. Ride in the evening. Make dinner with the parents.



My ride is just about the same every day: 16 miles out and back to the hamlet of Thompsons. The job hunt is just about the same every day: I've carpet-bombed the Interior Northwest with resumes and applications. Dinner is often different but often the same: we don't call it "Mexican food" we just call it "food."

September: More of the same, though it's not as hot. I used to think of my afternoon rides as "rendering the lard," now, 90 degrees feels like autumn.



The job hunts plugs along, though we gradually narrow where we apply to. I made a list of top tier towns -- places which have everything we'd ever want -- and a list of second-best towns. Missoula was a top tier town, and luckily it had the most job prospects.

But job hunting 2,000 miles removed from your goal is difficult, at best. Laura and I decided that if Missoula was the place, then we just ought to head out there. Then, in one day, we both got nibbles on jobs in Missoula. In one crazy 72-hour period, during one of Atlanta's signature downpours, Laura packed the truck and trailer and got them both out to Houston with but one mishap: a flat tire on the Southwest Freeway during rush hour.

We spent two more days in Richmond arranging things before shoving off north by west in the Altima (leaving the heaving truck and trailer in Richmond). For the first two days we followed the route pioneered during our winter ski trips: Bryan, Waco, Ft. Worth, Wichita Falls, Vernon, Amarillo, Dalhart, Clayton, Raton, Trinidad, Denver. We spent the first night in Amarillo and were up before dawn the next day. We saw the mountains at Raton, sampled the good-old Colorado in Trinidad (not to be mistaken for the new Colorado, which might as well be a different state) and saw snow in the Central Rockies. We had each applied to jobs in Boulder, Ft. Collins, Longmont and Loveland and we checked those towns out. I found them to be just what the accolades say: clean, quiet, well-planned and eminently livable. And also: kind of boring and rather suburban.

From Ft. Collins we headed into Wyoming and camped in Sheridan after checking out Buffalo, where I was offered a job I turned down. Finally, on Sunday we crossed into Montana and idled through Livingston, Bozeman, Butte and Deer Lodge before entering Missoula.



I'll always remember the first time I drove into the Salt Lake Valley: it's a magnificent event. Driving down Hellgate Canyon to emerge in Missoula is a level or two less intense than that of Utah, but still memorable: the city set against yellow hills, sparkling afternoon sunlight, and the mountains all around.

October: Our home for two weeks was the Misasoula KOA, which was fine unless it was raining, snowing, windy or very cold. We again fell into a routine: up with the sun, breakfast at the picnic table, shower and dress up, and into the job service, where we'd spend a few hours on the job hunt. We'd break for lunch and poke around town for a bit before heading back to the job office.

We took a weekend to go to the nearby Swan Valley.





We both got job offers which we both turned down -- mine was in a pretty small town not far from Canada, and Laura's was at a nonprofit here in town.

Then it snowed.



We took this as our cue to check out of the KOA, where we were the last campers left and where we'd worn the grass pretty thin, and into a very livable apartment, which was no more expensive than camping, really.



Hopefully, we'll get some furniture soon.

There's lots going on, but not a whole lot to report. Stay tuned. Meanwhile, here's the Bitterroot River above the confluence with the Clark Fork to keep you company.