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.