"We were raised at the intersection of great trout rivers in Missoula, Montana."
~the narrative voice of Norman Maclean from A Rivers Runs Through It
The last 100 miles of the trip from our house to Missoula is the most anticipated journey that I make every year. You drive through Lewistown and on to Great Falls along Montana Highway 200, with the Judiths, the Little Belts, the Highwoods, the Bear Paws and the Snowy mountain ranges appearing as distinct spots on the horizon to your north and south. Technically and visually, though you are traveling across the prairie for 350 miles. When you approach the Rocky Mountain Front near Simms and climb Rogers Pass, you are suddenly and truly in a mountain realm.
You are also at the headwaters of the Blackfoot River. The last 90 miles of the journey take you through some of the most beautiful scenery in Montana. Certainly not the most rugged in terms of the raw wildness found in the Bob Marshall Wilderness and Glacier, but a continual beauty throughout the valley that is seldom experienced. Coming off of Rogers Pass, the valley opens up to willows and brush as the waters gather and form in to a flowing stream.
The valley is never overhwelmingly wide. Mountain slopes skirting the valley are filled with ponderosa and lodgepole pine, much of which is being decimated by the pine bark beetle. Careful reading of the growth habits of the hardwoods on the valley floor lets you locate the river even when the highway ventures far from it. It is a valley whose history is filled with mining, logging, agriculture, unabombers, and now: cooperative conservation.
While the Blackfoot valley is exquisite on its own terms for natural beauty, my favorite part is the story of the Blackfoot Challenge and the beauty of the human spirit. The Blackfoot Challenge is a watershed group that formed here in 1973 to represent a variety of public interest groups and restore the river to its full potential. Private landowners (ranchers, retirees, outfitters), government entities, corporations and non-profits all take part in both meetings, steering committees and hands-on restoration.
I love the idea of watershed groups. I love that people can work together to find common ground in a setting such as the Blackfoot River valley, can work to rehabilitate a watershed, can maintain economic prosperity, and can live side by side all while recognizing that a healthy ecosystem benefits us all, no matter what our beliefs. Cooperative conservation doesn't always work so well. Sometimes it isn't very pretty. What matters, though, is that people participate and progress has been made. If only all cooperative conservation efforts had as many success stories as the Blackfoot Challenge...
The Blackfoot River runs for 132 miles, starting near Lincoln and ending at Milltown where it spills in to the Clark Fork River, a waterway with its own sordid history and just as many (if not more) success stories resulting from the cleanup of Superfund sites related to early 20th Century mining in Butte, the richest hill on earth. Just after the two rivers merge, they flow through the Hellgate Canyon on the northeast corner of Missoula. They meet up with another great river, the Bitterroot, just another few miles downstream. People rely on these great trout streams for recreation and economics. Fly fishermen, irrigators, rafters, industry. It all matters. It can all co-exist.
I tell people I travel to Missoula every year for a football game, but really I think I travel there to be reminded of my values and beliefs. To be reminded of the good that can come of working together and recognizing your neighbor's needs. I need to be reminded that it all matters. It can all co-exist.
On a day just before a blizzard, when the winds are high and the snow which has just begun falling is blowing, it was easy to imagine what Everest might be like. And like Sir Edmund Hillary noted on his trip to the top of the world, I went "because it is there." And also because I am tired of being a prisoner from the cold.
The rock features are amazing. They change every year as wind and cold and heat erode the rocks and soil. Small rocks tumble off of their mothers and down the hill. New rocks seem to emerge from the depths of the earth. It's an absolutely captivating place,
and it has been for generations. Even Danish Cowboy's ancestors couldn't resist the call of the rock hills.
The rock hills are far enough away from our home that Tucker Dog rarely, if ever, ventures there. It was a whole new world for him, too. Rabbits to chase, rock chasms to sniff and explore.
And not only is the view amazing, so are the rocks as snow drifts and swirls around them, the moss on them more brilliant now than during the brown months of autumn when I typically explore the hillside.
I'm not an official geologist, though I do own a rock hammer and keep a rock collection squirreled away so that no one will make fun of me. These rocks have historically been called lava rock by locals, but the more accurate term is porcellanite. It is a type of sedimentary rock similar to chert with a smooth, conchoidal, almost lava flow appearance at times. The rocks are then theorized to have been "fired" by the underlying coal seams which caused them to develop an appearance not unlike porcelain. The underlying coal seams which burned are now called scoria with angular fractures and a much lighter density.
The colors range from light and dark shades of gray to orange to red to black. While the rocks are incredibly dense, they are not immune to the powers of wind. The hillside was covered with a fine red dust as winter winds had beat the outermost layer of the exposed rocks to a fine powder.
We weren't gone for long as the blizzard was quickly approaching and I discovered that I, like most other human beings, couldn't walk a straight line to save myself. And the house was quickly disappearing in the blowing snow.
And when we got back, Tucker took a picture of me, too, so that we could prove to the world that I do go on some adventures, albeit small.
And then take our third date a few weeks later. We met in Billings, Montana for the weekend and he took me out for dinner and you guessed it, a rodeo. As we walked up to the Metrapark Arena, I commented on the cool statue out front. "Oh, that's a nice statue of a cowboy. Anyone special?" Although I didn't know it at the time, Danish Cowboy probably wanted to hide in a cave. "That's Dan Mortensen," he replied. "He's been the top saddle bronc rider in the world blah-blah-blah times. Everybody in Montana knows who he is." I then further tested our young relationship during the rodeo by remarking loudly how cruel I found the tie-down calf roping to be.
And you always cheer for the ones from Montana. Always. Even if you've never heard their names before.
And the hometown girls? We cheer the loudest for them and although I've never met her and although I'm not a native, I'm glad she calls our little town her original hometown.
Danish Cowboy abandoned me this past weekend to go to Missoula (again) on a guys football-watching trip. I had a most wonderful time watching rodeo, taking random pictures of the television and wrapping presents for the family back East after I got the rugrats in to bed. I enjoyed the rodeo and I most certainly enjoyed running out of Scotch tape. So I used packing tape on the packages for my 5 year old niece. I am so funny.
Actually, I traveled west to further my education. See, I had spent two years in Washington, D.C. working for a large 
Another fine reason to travel to Missoula, and the whole point of this little adventure, was to attend a University of Montana Grizzlies football game. These people tailgate in any and all weather. The valley may be filled with smoke from wildfires in early September or it may be covered in snow with the temperature hovering at 15 degrees Fahrenheit. But the show will go on.
And what a show it is! I doubt that there are other stadiums that are more scenic than Washington Grizzly stadium. I doubt that there are other places where your seats can look off to the north and you can daydream about the Rattlesnake wildnerness area, located just a short bike ride from where you are sitting. I doubt that there are other places where you can look at those mountains and trees, knowing that they extend uninhibited for many miles to the north into what is known as the 
But wait, we didn't come here to daydream about mountains!
As a grand finale to this little opening number, we were treated to a flyover by two privately owned military jets. And I discovered that no matter what your feelings are towards military actions, this sort of thing gives you a sense of pride and makes your heart swell with emotion.
Apparently they also played a little bit of football that afternoon. However, my eyes had frozen over at this point and my toes were numb. What was that, do you ask? "Did we win?" Of course we won.
And the loneliness was quite marvelous. I woke up to this view up Mount Sentinel every morning, took short hikes in the mountains around town with the distinct aroma of pine sap boiling in the hot, dry, August afternoons. I woke up to snow on Lolo Peak the day after Labor Day. I settled in to a routine of school and research. I was content to be on my own, enjoying school, wondering where life would take me. And then Danish Cowboy showed up.
But I continued with my studies and we had a long-distance relationship for 1.5 years until I graduated, making the trek from mountains to the prairies (or vice versa) every two to three weeks. And I continued to love Missoula and ride a bike everywhere I went, as is custom in these parts.
And perhaps most important for me, it is an inspiring little town, a hotbed of grassroots activism. Activism for open land and land trusting, acitivism for Community Supported Agriculture, activism for sustainable logging, and activism for being your own person and expressing your beliefs and having them accepted. Perhaps not agreed with, but accepted. I love it here.