Bass Creek Backpacking

Hey there everyone,

We finally got to enjoy a bit of backpacking on a warm June day! W went to Bass Creek located in the Bitterroot Valley. It was a gorgeous hike in a forested valley. We climbed almost 2,000 feet total. We hiked in 9 miles or 5 hours to Bass Lake. See the pics.

Pretty flowers carpeting the ground. Ok, now there's snow and we start wondering if we'll be camping in snow.

We've made it! You can really tell but the wind was blowing so hard it was hard to stand up.

We found a tent site that was relativly sheltered.

After a little nap we climbed up a ridge and had these wonderful views:

Here's some shots the next morning before we headed back down. Did you notice the ice still on the lake?Breakfast in the morning:
A view back up in the morning. It took us about 3 1/2 hrs to hike back out. It was a great trip!

June Fun

So we've been having a little outdoor fun in June and it about time to share some photos!

On Father's Day we decided to take a drive in the afternoon and ended up here:

We saw some of these:

And we enjoyed some panoramic views of the Mission Mountains:

The little town of St. Ignatious:We also did a day hike with my friend Jennifer on Kootenai Creek. Gorgeous hike along the creek most of the way.

I almost stepped on this snake! (luckily it's not poisonous)

Pretty wildflowers along the trail.

Our next hike was to the top of Mt. Jumbo in search of bitterroots. (click the word to go to dictionary) It is our state flower.

Here's me at the top of Mt Jumbo and Missoula is in background.

Here are some shots of the bitterroots, pretty, huh?

Well that's enough for one post. Stop by again soon, I'll be posting more including our first backpacking trip of the year.

By the way, if you've gotten the emails and know our situation, you should come and visit soon since we may not be heer that much longer! ;-)

MTN bike ride

Hey all look what we did the other day. This is a short 20-30 min ride from our front doorstep! I'm still getting used to the mountain bike. Luckily there is a nice wide path that we can take way back into the wilderness area. Erik's idea is that one weekend this summer we will load our backpacks, ride the bikes up to the wilderness area and then set off on a 2-3 day backpacking trip. Sounds like fun!

We've also been hiking and running around town, no pics. It's still cold and rainy alot here so we haven't ventured out to do any camping yet, maybe this coming weekend.

What else are we up to?

We went to Erik's works annual Retreat at Fairmont Hot Springs. See last year's post. It was ok this year. We left early but on the way home we did a scenic drive here: winter wonderland!

Isn't it pretty?:

Well at least it is for those of us who love the beauty of snow covered mountains! ;-)

What else do we do in our spare time you ask? Collect and work on bikes! At least Erik does. ;-) Here we are readying the bikes for another spring/summer/fall of commuting and hiting the longs and uphill rides. Erik bought himself parts for a new mountain bikes since he found out the one he's been riding was too small for him. SO I get that one and he gets a new one. Here we are putting a carrying rack on the back of my "new" bike. See now I can run errands anytime! ;-)

Mind you, I did do alot of the work I just had to ask for a "little" help from Erik, really! Then I snapped his pic! A great shot of the top of his head! LOL!The finished product! Let's go to the grocery store, after I find those bungee cords!Rio's got the bird's eye view. Opps now you can see our boxes piles to the ceiling in the garage! Can you tell our place in MT is less than half the square footage of the place in MN? I'm thinking of a garage sale this summer....One more pic, I'll probably regret putting on the web. I got new glasses and my sis in TX wanted a pic of them. So I snapped one. Now I hadn't showered or even gotten out the pj's yet. But here's a peek at the new glasses. Do you like them? Mom helped pick them out when she was here visiting.

Spring is here

So late time I left you Mom was coming for a visit. We had a wonderful visit. I had the four days off that she was here and we got to spend lots of good quality time together. We had lunch, we "antiqued" and both found some cool stuff, we went on a scenic drive on a day that it wasn't quite clear enough to see the "scenic part"! (oh well) and we had dinner ever night with Erik. So I didn't take many pictures because Mom took lots. I had her send them to me but I'm having just a little trouble opening them (don't worry Mom I'll figure it out.) So I'll show you those pictures later.

Other things we've done this spring is we started hiking again! This post shows that start of our hikes last year. I love it, mostly because I love all the pretty flowers in the Spring. Our spring has been much like the Midwest and been unseasonably cool. Today is our first day of 60's in a row. We hit 60 and 70 before but it was always for one day then it's be back in the 40's. Anyway, back to hiking. There is still a lot of snowpack in the mountains so we stuck around town and hit some of the more popular places that have had good snow melt. "In town" we get much less snow than at elevation and it melts quicker and it's much drier.

We went to Blue Mountain a few weeks ago. You'll remember our hike there from this post

Here we are in the parking lot, very excited because it was a 70 degree day!

Here's one of the views on the hike: The pic just doesn't capture the mountains very well!

See we hiked through a little snow! Hey, what's that in Erik's hand?! No look at the hand in the back , the one he's trying to hide.....

Hey, here's that cute couple who keeps popping up on the blog all the time. And aren't they also wearing some of the same clothes they always wear. (Yep, you caught us again in our hiking clothes and my red MN Wild hat!) In the background is a little of Missoula and the surrounding mountains.

Then a week after that we went on a hike in the Rattlesnake. That's really close to where we live. It's a great place to hike and Erik LOVES to mountain bike there. It's a bit too challenging for me to bike.

Here I am. The area behind me used to be an old ranch. You could still see bits of the foundation in some areas. Now it houses a HUGE colony of prairie dogs, you could see them running and squeeking their allert signals. Sorry they were too quick for me to get a pic of.

Erik's always in front of me.....

It was an overcast day. It even sprinkled some snow on us. Here's the best "vista" shot I could get.Well that's one update. More too come!