Storm Lake (8,200 ft.) to Goat Flats (9,200 ft.)

Late September, and the weather is still holding, so after stretching our legs yesterday along a 5 mile stretch of the Continental Divide just outside Butte, we drove up to Storm Lake.

The weather was cold (0 Celsius) but clear as we started from the Lake.  As we got underway we saw a Great Northern Diver in flight for the first time--a good omen.

Even better, the larches were in peak Fall color. It was almost 3 years ago that we traveled to Lake Louise in the Canadian Rockies to see them--how nice to now have them in our back yard.

And it's a BIG back yard. Luckily the trail was in brilliant shape and the weather held.

As we reached the pass just at the tree line, we started to run into some snow, but we forged on. . .

 . . . and were rewarded with a beautiful u-shaped glacial valley . . .

. . . and yet more snow as the landscape turned to alpine tundra.

Even more than 4 miles in, the Pintlar wilderness goes on and on. Lots of peaks to bag in summer! 

The Last Best Place

It was almost 100 degrees when we landed at SLC, so we held out little hope of relief from the Florida head we had endured in August. But our luck was about to change, beginning with randomly running into our friend and colleague from MN and NZ, Loree, at the airport. 

It was still sweltering when we pulled up the driveway in Warm Springs. . . but what a driveway!

Even better, a cool front came through, and brought Autumn with it. And Fall means migration, so we loaded the spotting scope into Babe and drove one whole mile to the Arco ponds, where we saw buffleheads, horned grebe, blue teal, common and hooded mergs, goldeneye, scaup, gadwall, wigeon and redheads. Oh yeah, we also saw a herd of 200 elk on the hills just behind.

One of our favorite local trails is Lost Creek, which closes during the winter, which is too bad because it would be an absolutely amazing backcountry ski--last winter, we drove out to it the night before the park closed and saw mountain lion tracks.

Another favorite is Thomson Park in Butte, which is an absolute gem. We were accompanied by our friend, Milan, on the 7 mile hike to Blacktail. Below is the view from the Beaver Ponds trail lookout back towards Mt. Haggin.

 

Venturing back across the Great Divide, we visited Lewis & Clark Caverns Park, where we saw two new birds, Townsend's warbler and Cassin's vireo. The photo below was taken from Greer Gulch lookingsothwest towards the Jefferson River valley and Tobacco Root mountains. 

Sailing the Bay of Islands

The Sensation, a 34 foot sloop designed by Bruce Farr and built in 1986.

We were fortunate to have the company of Loree and Kevin, good friends from Minnesota days who have made the shift to Aorearoa as we have.
















After getting a feel for the boat on open water, we headed to Motuarohia Island for a swim in Cook Inlet and lunch. This was the first of many encounters with the super-yacht Evviva, equipped with its own helicopter, and which we had spotted in Wellington Harbour a few weeks earlier. 

After another quick sail, we found a secluded little bay on Urupukapuka Island, which is free of pests. It is full of bird life, including rare hihi and tieke, the latter of which we could hear from the boat. A dip in the clear, warm water was followed by a walk on the island, including a visit to a cliff top pa site. That night, we watched in awe as the Milky Way filled the cloudless sky above, then fell asleep serenaded by morepork.

The next morning, we visited a little sail-in restaurant on the opposite end of the island, where we stopped for a snack and fed the snapper leftovers from the dock.

We spent the next two nights in Okie bay, where little blue penguins and gannets fished the waters around us. In between, we headed out to the iconic hole in the rock, a rollicking blue water sail in a 20 knot Southerly, which continued to howl through the night. After a bit of rain and a few squalls, the weather settled into a fine Fall pattern for the remainder of the trip. The gentler Southeasterly breeze allowed us to sail the entire length of Rawhiti Inlet under the jib on a single reach. Rounding back into Opuia, we passed the historic Waitangi Treaty grounds.