Bob Marshall backpack to the North Wall

Jolie and I did a 7 day backpack trip to the north wall in the Bob Marshall Wilderness. We had great weather, no smoke, and completed our longest backpack together (65 miles). Here we are on the first day (the only bad weather morning of the trip) heading up our first 2,000 foot high pass of the trip.

Pretty waterfall below Headquarters Creek Pass

100 feet below Headquarters Creek Pass.

On the other side of headquarters creek pass (far right side of picture). Comming down from the pass was only really strong wind we experienced during the whole trip.

A major score on our first day - found a patch of huge strawberries (huge for wild strawberries) - tasted good on our chocolate dinner dessert.

Bridge over North Fork Sun River - read the sign. Telephone polls in the wilderness?? It evidently wasnt that wild before it got designated a wilderness

No telephone polls here, or trees. One of the burn areas we hiked through. This is along Red Shale Ck. Good thing about burn areas is you can see for miles ... on a hot day the bad thing is no shade. 

Didnt see the black bear that made these prints

Our first view of the north wall - the focal point of this trip. The north wall is 10-15 mile long limestone cliff that is beautiful. Our plan was to camp in this meadow and have this view, but another party with horses beat us here. We didnt want to camp near horses so we headed down the trail a bit to a less scenic but still nice spot.

Sunrise on the north wall near our second camp.

Hiking along the north wall on day 3 on our way to Lake Levale, our 3rd straight day10 mile+ day with 2,000+ feet of elevation gain

More views of the north wall

more north scenery

We saw thousands of gentian flowers during the week.

Lake Levale, our destination on day 3. We spent two nights here to have time to explore and rest up.

On our "rest day" we hiked up to the continental divide to an unnamed pass. We saw two marmots chasing each other at the top so we named it Marmot Pursuit Pass. Lake Levale where we camped is visible at the base of the north wall towards the top of the picture.

After lunch and a nap, we couldnt muster the energy to stand up for a selfie, so here is relaxed selfie (day 4)

Jolie trying to avoid the hassle of taking boots off to cross a stream and instead balancing on shallow rocks.

We stayed in Round Meadow for our 5th night. It is in the middle of a burn area that didnt look so pretty at first, but it was actually a very nice site. Near sunset, the color of the grasses and the burned trees made for a very nice photo.

It was a pretty camp, but it was in the bottom of the valley and it was a very calm and clear night. We woke to 28 degrees. That is ice on our boots from the dew on the grass freezing on our boots.

Day 7, first thing we had to do was take off our boots and cross that freezing cold creek before we warmed up and headed to Route Creek Pass.

As we were just about to crest Route Creek Pass, Lonesome Ridge on the other side just looked so huge (it was) - made for a good picture showing the scale of the landscape

Day 7 was sunny but hot - here is a cool moment several miles before we got back to the car. To make the heat worse - the last 2 miles of trip was along a dirt road with no shade and dust as cars drove past us - sorry no pictures of the dusty road.

A birthday, a (fast) car, and a road trip

A bit out of chronological order, but in 2019 Jolie got me the best birthday present (OK, my own snowcat and skihill would be better, but sticking to reality here): 500 horsepower of Stuttgart fun - a Porsche Cayenne Turbo ... for 3 days!! We took off from Jackson, WY and drove 250 miles through Teton and Yellowstone National Park to spend a few nights at a nice rental house in Red Lodge, MT. On the way we did (ooops did not) break any speed limits. But I can tell you this thing has some giddy-up in its giddy-up.

Here we are at the top of the Beartooth Pass on the way to Red Lodge on a cloudy and foggy day. The return trip was sunny and since we left at sunrise we had the beartooth highway to ourselves - scared myself a few times entering corners!!

Here we are at the start of our hike up to Mary Lake, beautiful lake in Beartooth-Absaroka Wilderness. Saw a Moose next to trail on the way down - fortunately a horse party came by and scared off the Moose otherwise we may have been stuck behind the moose for a while.

Mary Lake

Just an amazing large (8-10" across) colorful mushroom on the trail.

On the way home we had good light so I had Jolie practice for her next career as either a Jagermeister Girl or a Porsche Girl

On the beartooth highway with some fog

Yes, I packed a T-REX suit for this photo shoot in front of the tetons on the way back to Jackson.

Central Montana & Eric's Birthday

For my birthday Jolie and I went to the Livingston area - this is near Elephant Mtn the end of our first hike.

We rented this cabin on Mill Creek south of Livingston. Not much to look at, but it had a back porch overlooking Mill Creek - a very relaxing place to enjoy the birthday cheese cake and the bacon-wrapped filet mignon Jolie made for me.

Our second hike was up to Pine Creek Lake - this is the lower falls near the trailhead. Hike was over 5 miles and 3,400 feet of elevation gain, but it was worth it...

Ahhh... finally made it Pine Creek Lake after Jolie cracked the whip to get my tired butt up the trail

A nice view down the Pine Creek valley.

Our last day on the way home we stopped south of Bozeman for a short hot hike up Storm Castle - great views.

Swan Mountains backpack

In mid July, Jolie and I did a short backpack trip along the Alpine trail in the Swan Mountains (Montana). We saw a LOT of glacier lilies and had planned to get to Trinkus Lake about 20 miles from our starting point, Napa Ridge. However, when you see lots of glacier lilies their is often snow nearby...

... the snow doesnt look to bad here but a bunch of it was right on the trail

As was this snow bank

More snow and a cool double snow bridge near our first camp

and more snow. But the views were beautiful all along the trail..

Great views on way to our second camp

Crevice Lake - our second camp was beautiful but was very windy too.

Morning at Crevice Lake

The wind died down and we had some warm moments - lunch above Gildard Lake. Jolie thought I needed painted toenails for this trip ... hmmmm

One of the more spectacular views

View of Swan Mountain from our third and last camp.

Jolie enjoying coffee and the first sunny and warm morning of the trip.

Biking Going to the Sun Road

Jolie and I made it up to Glacier to hike and ride Going to the Sun Road before it opened to cars in early July - the first weekend of the summer that had good weather. Here is Jolie riding past one of the portals in the stone tunnel on the road (Heavens Peak in the background)

View down the valley from Going to Sun Road

Proof we made it to the top. Weather was about as good as you could hope for.

Aview from near Logan Pass

We hike to the Numa Ridge Lookout in NW portion of Glacier. This is sunrise on Bowman Lake.

The view from the Numa Ridge Lookout

Beargrass and Bowman Lake in background

Once again - Bowman Lake on our way down.

Biking the Coeur D'Alene Trail

Jolie and I biked the Couer D'Alene Trail in May (a 73 mile paved trail that runs across Idaho). We road about 65 miles of it, stayed a couple of nights in Harrison, ID and then biked back. The return trip was much tougher as our butts werent used to long road rides and the wind was blowing in our faces most of the way. This picture is the day we started at the trailhead.

The first day was unusually warm and dry for May - Jolie is enjoying lunch next to the creek

The view of Lake Couer D'Alene from the small house we rented

Middle of the COVID issue, here is Jolie ready to hold up the local pizza joint in Harrison :)