Swan Lake trip

Jolie and I made a quick trip to Swan Lake to hike and kayak. We hiked Bond Lake trail up to the ridge of the Swan Mountain Range. This is a great waterfall on Bond Creek.

This is Trinkus Lake, a bushwhack mile above Bond Lake. The Swan range ridge is in the background.

After a long hot hike, ice cream, then a dip here in Swan Lake, dinner on the beach, and then watching sunset from the beach

There were a lot of lily pads on the south end of the Lake - made for some nice pictures

more lily pads.

Bob Marshall Wilderness backpack

For 4th of July Jolie and I did a three day,32 mile backpack trip in the Bob Marshall Wilderness near Seeley Lake. The beargrass was spectacular - this is a shot of it at Upper Holland Lake

Our first camp was a site we saw four years ago on a day hike, it is a great isolated spot right next to a stream with a cascading water fall. We packed in an adult beverage, guacamole and chips for our happy hour on the edge of the creek.

Like I said, the beargrass was spectacular

We saw black bear prints on the trail for about half the trip.

Beargrass near Gordon Pass, Ptarmigan Mtn in the background

More beargrass near the end of the trip. It was a hot hike down - jumping into Holland Lake at the end was fantastic - then onto town for huckleberry shakes!

Hiking Bridger Peaks

Jolie and I spent a weekend hiking two peaks in the Bridger Range near Bozeman in late June. Day one was up to Ross Peak in the background.

Wildflowers were spectacular at Ross Pass. There is a rocky scramble route to top of Ross Peak in this picture, but I was too chicken so we found a grassier, safer and longer route

View from Ross Peak towards Bozeman and Madison Range in the distance

Jolie at the top of Ross Peak - total climb of 3,600 feet. From the top we could clearly see five different mountain ranges (Bridgers, Tobacco Roots, Madison, Crazies and Absarokee's)

A bouquet of wildflowers Jolie picked for our center piece at forest service cabin we rented for the night

Large snowfield on the way up to the saddle beneath Sacajawea Peak, our destination on the second day.

View of the route we took to get to the saddle below Sacajawea Peak (out of view on the right)

Happy at the top of Sacajawea - we took the long way down (Jolie was happy the whole way, Eric not so much when we had to climb an extra 500 feet on the way out - but there was ice cream waiting for us in town, so all was good!)

We saw this curious mountain goat near the top of an peak adjacent to Sacajawea, Naya Nuki (yes, that is the correct name).

This guy was rubbing himself in the snow to get rid of his winter coat.

Glacier in the spring

Jolie and Eric spent a chilly weekend in Glacier to hike and bike ride Going to the sun road. This is a chilly lunch stop after hike to Sperry Chalet

Most of trail was dry but last 1/4 mile had about 4 feet of snow

Avalanche Lily's along the trail

Had to cross this old avalanche slope on way up to chalet

The beargrass was spectacular this year

Sunset from our camp on Lake McDonald

We made it to Logan Pass on our bikes, but the weather wasn't as nice as predicted - it was quite chilly at the top - not much time for pictures. 6 feet of snow at the pass.

Casey Peak hike

Jolie, Eric and Polgara hiked up to old lookout on Casey peak, south of Helena

Polgara got a little tired on the way up and could barely stay awake at the top

The lupine were spectacular along the trail

Spring in the Tetons

Jolie and Eric spent a May weekend at the "barn" in Driggs  to do some spring biking  (and spray weeds) - here is a sunset shot from the barn

Picture of sunset on the barn

Saw these bright red paintbrush on the trail

Wildflowers were great in Big Hole Mtns west of town (Tetons in background)

View of Tetons from trail