2013 Recap
While searching through 5 years worth of pictures getting this website up and running I revisited many of my past adventures – some more exciting than others. But that gave me an idea to start off this blog with a quick recap of a few of my more memorable trips of 2013.
The general theme to my camping trips this summer was rain. Lots and lots of rain. It didn’t matter where I went or what the weather forecast was when I left home; every destination welcomed me with a variety of storms. I tried to make the most of the situation and packed up early only once. My reward for toughing it out was the variety of wildflowers that I saw early in the summer. My trip into the Gravelly Range over the 4th of July was beautiful. The Gravellys are famous for their wildflowers and this summer was exceptional. There were fields stretching in every direction packed full of purple lupines, red paintbrushes, pink geraniums, yellow sunflowers and about a dozen others that I can’t even name. I had never seen so many wildflowers in my entire life. Sadly a picture just can’t do justice to such a sight, something like that needs to be seen first hand.
This summer was also memorable for a few “firsts” for me. I saw a badger in the wild for the first time. This feisty little guy (or girl?) went into a full defensive posture as I slowed down my truck to get a better look. I was glad to be in the truck and not on foot as I’m almost certain it would have attacked me. Another first for me was an encounter with a Great Grey Owl. I had never seen an owl, any owl, in the wild before so I was especially excited to have this encounter. I was out, about 30 minutes before sunset, trying to find a suitable campsite for the night when all of a sudden something obliterated the view out the windshield of my truck, swooped over the hood and landed on a signpost approximately two feet in front of my truck. I first thought that I had hit some poor animal but then I realized that it was an owl that had flown right in front of me. I quickly reached for my camera, took one quick shot of the owl, it turned its head around, got spooked and flew away. But it didn’t go far, just a few yards to a more suitable perch in a dead tree. I quickly changed lenses on my camera and started shooting. After a few minutes I got brave and got out of the truck to get a different angle, afraid that I would scare it away at any moment. But it stayed perched in the tree and was amazingly tolerant of me as I shot some more pictures. As much as I was enjoying seeing this creature I knew that he/she needed to hunt down some dinner and I needed to hunt down a campsite while there was still a few glimmers of daylight. As I was drifting off to sleep that night I could hear, faintly, a “hoo, hoo, hoo” call not too far away.
I was able to cross a couple of photo opportunities off of my bucket list this summer as well. The first being a gorgeous sunset with Pilot and Index Peaks silhouetted against a yellow and crimson sky. I got a little carried away though – I knew that this was a once in a lifetime opportunity to capture this sunset from my perch along the Morrison Jeep Trail – and I took close to 100 pictures with different angles, exposures, everything I could think of to make sure that I could come home with some great shots. Another opportunity came late this fall when I happened across two fairly large bull moose. This pair was wandering together through a meadow adjacent to a highway and had quite an audience. At first they were just walking and eating but as they got closer to the road they turned to face one another and started to fight! It wasn’t a serious fight to the death but more of a play fight for our (myself and the other folks who had stopped along the road) benefit. I was thrilled to have this battle playing out right in front of me especially since this summer yielded very few moose sightings.
I can only hope that 2014 brings some new adventures as I continue to explore the backroads of Montana.