Black Butte Time for my annual trek to the Gravelly Mountain Range in southwest Montana.  I love this area, especially in July when the wildflowers all bloom.  The flowers only last a few weeks at this altitude so timing is everything.  The mosquitoes and flies, however, last all summer.

There's not usually a lot of animals at this altitude - around 9,000 ft - but this year I spotted a few elk, deer, and grizzly bears.  I was just settling down by my campfire when I heard something in the trees nearby.   Next thing I know a deer pops out and walks right by me.  A few minutes later another one.  Then all was quiet.  About an hour later I heard something again and swear for the amount of noise I was hearing I expected a T-Rex to come out of the trees but it was just a few deer.  Amazing how much noise their little hooves can make!  They wandered back through my camp later that night after I had gone to bed.  Hearing random footsteps outside the tent always gets the heart pounding!

Gravelly Range Wildflowers The next morning on my travels I stopped at a spot just a few miles away from camp to take a look around when the thought crossed my mind that this was the only spot in the entire mountain range where I have seen a grizzly bear.  This area is prime grizzly country with many sightings reported throughout the year but I had only ever seen one.  Just as I finished that thought I spotted something moving in the tall grass below me.  It was a grizzly roaming around and eating some of the wildflowers.  Now I was relatively safe viewing from a distance atop a steep cliff so I just stayed where I was and enjoyed watching the bear.  After a few minutes I lost track of the grizzly and started scanning the area, trying to locate it.  that's when I spotted a second grizzly!  No wonder the first bear moved out of the area, it probably heard or smelled the other grizzly and decided to move away.  I thought it was a little ironic to see the bears in the same area as my previous sighting a year or two before.  I'm just glad that I saw the bears in the morning and not the night before.  Hearing those deer in my camp made me paranoid enough!

Since the bugs were extra annoying in the Gravellies I decided to take a little side trip for my second night of camping and headed a little further north.  I still had to deal with tons of mosquitoes buzzing around and deer wandering through camp but at least there wasn't any bears (that I know of). 

Branham Cirque