It's the People You Go With

The Staley family spends as much time as possible in the outdoors, but for Kris Staley the experience is more about the people you spend the time with than where you spend the time. Kris did not always love the great outdoors as much as she now does. The outdoor adventures themselves sold Kris on the outdoor experience. The Staleys hike, cross country ski and kayak.  Kris relates some of her family's outdoors experiences below:

Favorite hike:

Our favorite hike is also a lot of other people's favorite hike, because it is always so busy! But that would have to be the highline trail in Glacier park....it is fairly flat so not too hard, but a total of 12 miles, 8 flat until you reach the Granite Park Chalet, then 4 downhill, which is a little hard on the knees. The views are just the best, and there is always plenty of wildlife to view as well as beautiful wildflowers.

Memories and funny stories:

 I think we make funny memories every time we are together....doing pinatas in the dark while camping, slung over a pine tree, accidentally leaving someone at the bathroom and locking them out of the cabin....tipping the kayak over with gear everywhere....being entertained by other hikers who have such different habits than we do....watching Paige and Tanner walk out to an iceberg and climb on top in freezing cold water...watching Brian and Tanner ski down snow banks in their tennis shoes and roll out of control...(thankfully these things end up being funny later instead of tragic!)

Wildlife:
 I think we have seen just about every kind of wildlife, thanks to Brian's keen vision much of the time. We have seen many moose, big horn sheep, mountain goats, mountain lions, of course many elk and deer, but the favorite spot is always bears. We keep a running total every time we go to Glacier and this past year we saw over 20 bears, mostly black bears thankfully. We saw a black bear very close on the trail, on our trip to Crypt Lake, and several on our Ptarmigan Tunnel/Iceberg Lake hike last summer. At one point we heard rustling in some bushes and stopped and right at our feet popped out the most darling little baby black bear, which you initially think how cute, followed immediately by, "oh no!", so we slowly backed up, and we heard the momma bear coming, and Brian and Tanner got out their bear spray, but yelled at her and she circled around out of our way. We also got a great look at a momma grizzly with 3 cubs on this same hike, but up the hill a ways off, thank goodness!

Close calls:
 Last year we sat down in some rocks to eat lunch on the Hidden Lake Trail in Glacier and a female mountain goat brought her baby to within a few feet of my face/head while I was eating my peanut butter and jelly sandwich....obviously, I think someone had fed her before, but looking those horns in the eyes was a little frightening as I kept imagining getting a head butt for my food....she eventually moved on.

Thanks to the Staleys for sharing some of their outdoor adventures.  I am considering the Crypt Lake hike!

Around Town

Today’s smattering of rain reminds me again about the challenge of finding dry places to enjoy the outdoors in early spring.   Quite often, my hiking partner and I opt to walk around town this time of year.   Gail and I have started near the Capitol and walked on one of the quieter streets to the downtown area.  After a break for lunch at the Parrot or Benny’s, we like to resume our walk by heading to one of the oldest residential areas of town.  We walk up South Rodney and walk around the Cutler, Pine, Division and Sparta Street areas.  Even though the homes in this area are not built in the grand style, the historic markers are full of little-known facts and information. Maybe this walk doesn’t sound enthralling, but we are over fifty and, therefore, easily entertained. 

One year when I had school children home for spring break, I had the brilliant idea of taking everyone roller skating on the sidewalks in my old neighborhood.   This activity was fun as long as we skated along the sidewalks east to west.  When my brain went backpacking and I led everyone down a North/South street with a steeper incline, our fun came to an abrupt halt.  We came out of the ordeal with a few skinned knees but no broken bones.

Another spring break when we were hemmed in by mountain snow, the kids and I toured cemeteries.   When I mentioned this to my older sister, her mouth dropped open and she favored me with her, “I’ve long suspected your elevator doesn’t go all the way to the top” stare.  Maybe our family is odd in a Dr. Frankenstein sort of way, but the children enjoyed going to cemeteries where their ancestors were buried.  Since we could visit on week days, groundskeepers were available.  We found that groundskeepers are geniuses at quickly finding the graves that we had spent hours unsuccessfully trying to locate on weekends.  We took pictures of the graves to preserve our “finds.” 

With a little off-beat thinking and snacks, the outdoors are fun even during the icy, muddy spring.

Trail Food (GORP)

Recipe of Roseann Warren

3/4 to 1 cup of each:
Raw Spanish peanuts    
Cracked cashews
Pumpkin seeds
Sunflower seeds
Soybean toasted halves
Filberts

Add:
1 3/4 c. rolled oats
1/4 c. bran
1/4 c. honey

Add raisins and dried date bits to suit taste. Very lightly roast peanuts and cashews in 325 degree oven for 30 minutes, stirring every 10 minutes. Put oats, bran, and honey together and mix well.  Then heat 10 to 20 minutes in 300 degree oven.  Be sure all ingredients are absolutely fresh.

Hiking Partners

The other day a friend was talking to me about a hike on snow shoes that she took with her husband.  She had enjoyed the experience about as much as she enjoyed being zapped with a cattle prod.  I could sympathize.  Sometimes our nearest and dearest, as much as we love them, are not our hiking partners of choice. 

My husband hates hiking.  He is a contractor.  Because he usually works out in the elements doing hard physical labor, he always would pick watching March Madness basketball in an easy chair with an enormous bowl of popcorn over hiking or cross country skiing.  In his mind, these activities have the added disadvantage of not involving engines of any kind.  For my husband, anything worth doing outdoors is only worth doing if you’re riding something with an engine.

Once, I made the mistake of planning a Memorial Day hike on the Ridge Trail for the entire family.  The Ridge Trail can be an enjoyable hike.  Starting at the Park City end of the trail, the hike is mostly downhill after a steep elevation gain at the beginning.  Since a large part of the hike is on a ridge, the views are expansive and beautiful.  And at the end of May, the flowers are breath taking – or they would have been if I had been able to stop and look at them. 

I said, “Let’s hike the Ridge for Memorial Day.”  My hubby heard, “I have a seven mile death march planned for Memorial Day.”  We drove over the bumpy road and unloaded people and packs at the trailhead.  After the backpacks were doled out, my husband tore off down the trail with a mile long stride, covering ground at a speed that would have made Mario Andretti green with envy. The two teenagers ran up the trail ahead of him and maintained a half mile head start on the rest of us.  While the three younger kids and I brought up the rear, I checked to see if there was cell phone coverage.  My physical state balanced with the pace my beloved had set made a 911 call seem like a probable outcome.

We marched on with all the speed and determination of Olympic marathon runners.  After a few miles, a bend in the trail revealed an interesting plant.    “Look!  A flower!” I gasped. “ Could we stop?  I want to look it up in my book and take a picture.”   My better half glanced at the plant for 1/60 of a second and pronounced, “Humph. Doesn’t look like anything to me.”   He sped off down the trail as I fished my camera out of my pack and snapped a quick photo.  I later compared the photo to my flower book and found that this plant of no interest was a monument plant which blooms only once every 20 to 60 years. 

The death march continued.  After a while, I spotted a beautiful high meadow, “This would be a great place to eat our lunch,” I said.   Exasperated, my mate informed me we were not that far from the end of the trail, only three miles or so.  On he marched until we finished our hike.  We were two hours ahead of schedule.  The younger kids and I collapsed onto a bench on a not-at-all-scenic spot by the trailhead and wolfed down our lunches while my Hubby waited for us to get into the car.  I shoved coats and packs into our vehicle, turned to my life’s partner and snapped, “Next hike you are staying home.”

Flower Books

Any parent hiking with several children who plans on always reaching the hiking destination is delusional, especially if the trail is more than a mile in and out.   When I first returned to hiking, my five children had invested hours training me about what I could expect from preschoolers.  Their training was brutal but successful.  When hiking with the kids, I packed snacks, lunches, water, a camera, and flower identification books.  I grabbed a school backpack for each child and divided all our supplies between the backpacks.  Meanwhile, the kids fought over who got to carry the backpack with the M&Ms.

The flower identification books I brought were to keep me entertained and stop me from whining and being cranky on the hike.  I figured it might be years before I completed any hike, so I might as well keep myself busy learning about wildflowers while we out.  I loved it!  Wildflowers were everywhere, and they were gorgeous.  Opening the book and trying to identify them provided a time for rest and something to do as we dawdled along.  Stumbling on beautiful plants concealed in the brush and reading about them in a book was fun akin to finding hidden treasure.  Years later I was astounded by how many wildflowers the kids could identify.  I may have been a complete failure in teaching my kids to keep a clean room, but they do know a shooting star, Indian paintbrush, and a rabbit foot crazy weed when they see one.  And they know not to eat the rabbit foot crazy weed which, you must admit, is useful information.

The flower books I use the most and like the best are Dr. Dee Strickler’s three volume set: Alpine Wildflowers, Forest Wildflowers, and Prairie Wildflowers.  These are my favorite because the pictures are large and easy to see.  It was disappointing when I went to replace one of my worn out flower books and found these books were out of print.  Donald Anthony Schieman’s book Wildflowers of Montana is a current flower book that I use and enjoy.

A Different Era

     Until he was nine years old, Steve Welch lived in a house with Spring Creek in his front yard and the entire Blackfoot Valley for his backyard.  “We didn’t go on ‘hikes’ really.  Being outside is just what we did. We played outside, drank out of creeks, and hunted for gophers.  We were always outside.”  

     When Steve was nine, his parents bought a house in Lincoln. The new house had the advantage of having indoor plumbing and being within a quarter mile of the Blackfoot River.

      Living in the pristine Lincoln area taught Steve and his siblings respect and reverence for the land.  “We had the run of the entire Blackfoot valley. We just knew we should respect the land.  We knew we should respect other people’s property. There was only one posted “No Trespassing” sign in the whole valley.  We live in a different era now.  There are two reasons for that: 1) there are a lot of people moving here from out of state and buying land.  2)  There are too many people who abuse other people’s property.  They litter and don’t show respect in other ways.  I don’t blame people for closing off land when that happens.”  He says there are more people and more pressure on the land now.

      Steve has had some great adventures living the outdoor life. At age twelve he remembers riding bikes with a friend into Heart Lake to spend the night.  Heart Lake is located in what was called, at that time, the Lincoln back country.  The area is now the Scapegoat Wilderness.  Apparently, they picked the wrong time of year for a trip to the lake.  The mosquitoes were so bad that he and his friend gave it up and rode their bikes out in the dark.  The trail into Heart Lake is seven miles long.

     Steve has seen a fair amount of wildlife during his outdoor adventures, including bears, moose, a wolverine and many others.  Once while hunting up the Buffalo Horn in the Gallatin, Steve jumped a bull elk.  The elk spotted Steve and sped away.  After its departure, Steve noticed a mountain lion that was about 40 feet away, calmly observing him.   Possibly the lion decided Steve wasn’t a very tasty morsel because it strolled off after a few minutes.

     Another time, the Welch’s were canoeing on the Clearwater River when they spotted a bear out for an afternoon swim.  “He was diving into the water, floating, rolling over, and playing.  He had a big smile on his face,” recounts Steve.  His experience in the wild has led him to the conclusion that animals have unique personalities.  

     It was a pleasure to talk with Steve and learn of a few of his experiences and perspectives on the Great Outdoors.

The Trail by Hauser Dam

Hiking in early spring can be problematic because of ice and mud.  Hiking on ice can be dangerous, even with the metal cleats that can be attached to the bottom of boots.  I detest hiking in mud.  Hiking when it is muddy makes hash of a good trail.  When the mud dries, the trail is an uneven mess and is ruined for everybody until the trail is flattened again by hikers.  Depending on conditions, this can be a very long time.

A March hike that I like is just across Hauser Dam.  Drive past Black Sandy Campground on Hauser Lake and continue to the end of the road, parking at one of the wider spots immediately before Hauser Dam.    To get to the trailhead, you walk across the dam itself.  The trail starts on your left just after you cross the dam. 

This hike takes you down the canyon below the dam to a Fishing Access Site near Nelson.  In years past, there were signs warning of rattlesnakes along this trail.  The last time I hiked here the signs were gone, but I always watch for rattlers.

The hike to the Fishing Access site is not long, probably close to a mile or less.  This hike is enjoyable in March because the trail is easy, flat and in a warm canyon next the Missouri River.   This stretch of river is shallow and calm, so we always see ducks, geese, and other water birds.  Bringing binoculars and a bird book is fun if you are so inclined.  I have never been overly aggravated by ticks on this trail since most of it hugs a steep, rocky mountain.  Because much of the trail is built of rocks, I like to wear high topped, sturdy hiking boots, rather than tennis shoes or a low hiking shoe.  The rock-built trail is usually very dry unless you pick the day of a snow storm to hike.

Since the trail is not very long, my hiking partner and I have walked through the Fishing Access site and walked down some of the roads near it.  One of the roads leads to the Big Log Gulch Trail and the Missouri River Canyon Trail.  When we walk along the roads it is usually early spring, so we stick to the middle of the road and don’t bushwack because of the ticks I mentioned in my last post.

So, where do you like to hike when it is icy and muddy?

Camping near Boulder in early April. 

Time for Ticks

Today is the first day of spring, believe it or not.  Around this part of March, I start keeping an eye out for ticks.   Once I researched ticks, minimally.  I didn’t find data to answer even half my questions about them.  Either ticks aren’t a subject researchers want to explore (understandably- yuck!!!), or I didn’t look in the right places.  Because of my lack of information, I don’t know much about what makes ticks tick.  Still, it makes sense to me that their behavior could be triggered by the amount of daylight like other species, and that is why I start checking for them in March.

Regardless of what makes ticks arise and awake, my friend Gail has told me some interesting tales about them.  One winter, she pulled ticks off her laundry in January.  Another year, her husband brought one home after hunting in November.  I remember my Dad, who lived at York until age 14, recollecting that he pulled ticks off the horses in February.

And speaking of York, and without any research to back me up, I maintain York and Nelson are the tick capital of Lewis and Clark County.  One warm sunny March afternoon Gail and I decided to hike the Big Log Gulch trail near Nelson.  The trails near where we live were still snow covered and icy, so the  lower, dryer Nelson area seemed like a good choice for an outing.

 We had been hiking for a half hour or so when Gail said, “We haven’t seen any ticks yet.”  We started looking down at our pant legs to discover we each had about ten ticks on each leg.  Then we glanced at the grass along the trail, noticing a tick on almost every blade of grass within sight.  Some days our common sense takes a hike before we do, so we kept going for a couple miles until we reached a spring.  By this time we were covered with hundreds of ticks.  Oddly, my dog, Max, didn’t seem to pick up nearly as many ticks as we did, although he scraped every bush and tree and rubbed up against every bit grass.  He was running everywhere, while we hugged the trail.  Perhaps there is something to be said for hiking in a fur coat. 

In any event, I remember ending the day standing in my underwear at the trailhead while my hiking partner pulled tick after tick off me.  For some reason, she didn’t want me and the ticks riding in her truck.  I guess we get fussy as we age.  I went home, took a bath and found two more ticks floating in the bath water.   After dinner, I asked my husband to inspect my hair.  He didn’t perform the task with enthusiasm, so I ran a fine toothed comb through it and found two more ticks.  The old saying, “I went through it with a fine tooth comb,” never made more sense than it did that day.   

The moral of the story is two fold:

                                              1)  Watch for ticks, starting in March.

2) During “Iffy” spring weather, the ticks like warm      sunny places just as much as you do.

Back to the Great Outdoors

Birch Lake - Jewel Basin

This blog is about :
Where I go
What I’ve learned, and
Where and what has been fun in the Great Outdoors.

After thirteen years and five babies, including a set of twins, I returned to the Great Outdoors. As any Mom knows, the Great Outdoors and small children not only don’t always mix but can be an explosive combination. So for thirteen years, between 1977 and 1990, I relinquished the outdoors for mostly indoor, or at least in-the-yard, activities while my five children grew. A friend and I ran and biked together, but rounding up a hoard of five children and a less than enthusiastic husband to head to the creek for fishing just did not work. Listening to children scream about bugs, falling in the water, and slipping on rocks was not the kind of outdoor experience that left me refreshed. Trying to keep youngsters from putting their hands in gopher holes, climbing up precariously stacked boulders, and wandering off was nerve wracking. And then there were rattlesnakes, scat of all kinds, and cows: LARGE cows AND bulls, grazing on National Forest land.

One day I sat in the school parking lot waiting to pick up my school children and longingly studied the mountains forming the back drop of my children’s school. I thought about how lucky I was to live here and wondered how many people would love to live within fifteen minutes of a national forest. I daydreamed about the hikes I took in the hills behind our house when I was growing up, remembering how the rocks, trees, and plants on wild land were beautiful and unique. I missed being in the open spaces. I realized I wasn’t getting any younger, and I didn’t want to postpone living my life waiting to get thinner. I only had one life to live, and I wanted to live much of that life outside. I wanted to have some fun, exercise, and fresh air. I was going back to the Great Outdoors.

The decision to make the effort to have fun in the Great Outdoors is one I've never regretted. I've learned and laughed. I've been terrified, awe-struck, cold, content, stranded, blissful, tired, bug bitten, and overheated. I've made great friends and great memories and hope to make more great memories. So here's to the Great Outdoors!