Moments in Montana: August Arrives
I’ve been a bit behind on life lately. Since the Glacier trip it seems like all I’ve been doing is driving around for work, getting too little sleep, and drinking too much coffee. I have one more week of work left before I head out east for school and I can’t believe the summer is already coming to an end. There have been plenty of ups and downs, highs on top of mountains and lows in the smoky valleys. The latest batch of adventures may not be as exiting as the glacier trip, and there were many unplanned circumstances that messed up my schedule more than I would’ve liked. While I am excited to start my last year of college and see all my friends again, I will miss the beauty of Montana and the freedom of running in the hills.
Because I can never seem to get this photos in order, they are not chronological but I’ll address them top left to right and down as normal.
View from hiking in Two Medicine for work (right before we bushwacked up and down a very steep hill)
Fun bug, katydid?
Persicaria amphibia - water smartweed
Morning light on a hike
Sedum lanceolatum-stonecrop
Cute lil’ polygonum whose name I’ve forgotten
Hiking up Volcano Reef in the rockies
More views from the hike!
Gentiana calycosa - explorer’s gentian
Funky limber pine (Pinus flexilis)
Ahh look at those rocks! Volcano reef is definitely up there in my favorite hikes from this season, and the bushwhacking wasn’t bad at all on this one
Prairie habitat for seed collecting (Penstemon procerus)
Trail from sadly failed hike towards Sphinx mountain
Bear Canyon rocks
Beautiful stream on the way up to Heather/Emerald Lake in the Gallatin National Forest
Bear Canyon again, showing off the creek this time
Sunrise from my friends house in Bozeman
Heather Lake! So pretty
And Emerald Lake, also gorgeous
Huge mushroom!! Amanita of some sort?
Sarah and I mid trail run up to the lakes (11 miles total)
Finally had a rainy day plus a beautiful rainbow!
Lupinus polyphyllus - large leaved lupine
Precarious stream crossing
Phelum alpinum - alpine Timothy grass
Sunrise on the way to work
Hiking up the Blackfoot meadows
Trail run on Helena Ridge
Parnassia fimbriata - grass of parnassas
Funky caterpillar friend
The actual order of events started with work last Monday driving up and camping at Summit campground near Two Medicine and doing some survey work and rare plant monitoring in. We had gotten a lot done on our last trip so we only had a few surveys left. We did find some of our rare plants and some fun random aquatics like the smartweed. Animal encounters were limited to cows and birds this time.Since we were just camping for a night we did a group potluck dinner of tacos and had a two hour ~ marathon of Cards Against Humanity which was quite fun.
The next day wrapped up our surveys and then we had the long drive back to Helena, which marked the third time in a row driving that route for me as we had just been up at Two Medicine the day before on our Glacier trip.
The next day was rather boring with a long drive up to the Little Belts and wandering (aka driving) around looking for Penstemon procerus (little flower penstemon) seeds to collect. My legs were dead by the end of the day from the six + hours of driving that day and hiking less than two miles. Ugh. Not the ratio of driving:hiking that I like.
Thursday was much better with a trip up to the Rockies to hike / bushwhack up to Volcano Reef for an Erigeron lackschewitzii survey and more seed collection. The hike was on a trail for the first portion with some stunning canyon and rock wall formations. The bushwhacking was more like “shrub-stepping” over Acrostaphylos uva-ursi (bearberry or knikknikk) and Pinus flexilis (limber pine). The views were gorgeous and it was nice to get a solid 7-8 mile hike in.
Friday was a disappointing day. I had a rough start to the morning and drove (ugh) 2 1/2 hours to get to Sphinx Mountains in the Madison Range. It was a total fail. The route was supposed to be a nice 10.5 mile hike that I was considering trail running but when I got to the trailhead there was no map and I didn’t have anything downloaded or a paper copy or service. There was an intersection immediately and it must have rained recently because everything was supper muddy. I went one way then thought I was headed the wrong direction so turned around a went up the other route. I was the only one on the trail and once I saw bear scat on the trail I decided to turn around. As much as I wanted to do the hike (it’s supposed to be beautiful) I did not want to be the next News Headline “Solo female hiker gets eaten by a bear”. Ugh. Not a happy camper. I was angry with myself for turning around, for driving so f*in far out of the way for a failure of a hike, and that I had another 1 1/2 hour drive to get to Bozeman.
I stopped at Bear Trap Canyon Trail for a quick (not great) run before making it into Bozeman. The Sweet Pea Arts Festival was happening that weekend so I got tickets and watched half of a Shakespeare play and wandered around looking at art and listening to music. I managed to meet up with my friend Sarah who lives in Bozeman and she was nice enough to let me crash at her place.
Saturday was a much better day. We had a relaxing morning and went thrifting before heading up near Hyalite Reservoir to trail run 11 miles out and back to Heather and Emerald Lake. It was so beautiful!! This route was also one of the few we’ve been able to actually RUN instead of hiking up and jogging down. (Though it was more like jogging both ways but oh well). I tripped twice and got stung by a wasp but the great company, the amazing views, and the best weather we’d had in months (clear, hardly any smoke, and a high of 84) made the run incredible.
We made a Costco stop for snacks on the way back and I discovered on Strava that some of my crazy a** friends in Vermont had decided to run 24 miles in 24 hours (1 mile on the hour every hour) WITHOUT TELLING ME! Now, I’m not someone who gets angry easily but these girls are my best friends and normally we do all the crazy adventures together or at least let each other know what we’re doing for backup and encouragement. So I got a little pissed.
Now Sarah and I were planning on just going to the music festival later on and she was happy with chilling at home for a while … so I went on an angry 6 mile run around to catch up to my friends. They were at 17 miles (they started at 3 am EST and it was 5 my time 7 theirs). After a quick pasta dinner I ran another mile at 7 pm to get over to the concert venue and chilled for a while until 8 pm rolled around. Unlike my friends in VT, I do not like to pull all-nighters so I chose to do a modified version of this challenge and ran another 4 miles to get to 22. Oof that set was rough. After listening to the final show, I ran the final 2 miles back to Sarah’s place to get to 24 and was finished by 10 pm.
Would any of us recommend this challenge to anyone? No. Were my friends in VT stupid to start this challenge at 3 am after doing a 4 mile sunset hike the evening before? Yes. Was I stupid to join after already running 11 miles with 2000 feet elevation gain? Probably. Did we do it anyways? Yes.
So that was the Saturday excitement. Sunday was much more chill with way to much coffee and pastries that resulted in caffeine jitters and a newfound love of lavender lattes.
This update has gotten longer than I expected so contrasts if you’ve gotten this far in reading about my chaotic life and props to you if you decide to continue.
To continue my rambles, this last week at work has unfortunately been more driving than hiking. Monday was half office half field work but we did find a cool lupine and a weird copper wire near a mine down a gulch….still not sure what that was about.
Tuesday was seed collection for Penstemon procerus and Elymus glaucus around random points in the forest with some Juncus hallii (Halls’ Rush) monitoring.
Wednesday featured a staggering 5+ hours of driving (thanks construction and gravel roads) getting to and from the Elkhorns for more seed collection. We didn’t see any elk but we did see two moose which was cool. We did a near sprint hike at the end of the day to try to make it to one area for seed collecting but we had to turn around since we agreed to help deliver meals for a group of firefighters in quarantine that day.
Thursday was much better with a long (11-12 mile) hike to the Blackfoot Meadows doing more surveys and seed collections. Hot but the wet meadows were beautiful and I packed a kombucha as a treat which was a wise choice.
And now we come to Friday where I have come to the point where I am so sick of driving I don’t want to leave my camp or town even though I’m experiencing anxiety around the fact that this is my last weekend here and I should “be taking advantage” of my time here and getting out and exploring as much as possible. Well to the anxious side of my brain, please remember that I am human and this past week have basically run myself to exhaustion from long days behind the wheel, living through heat and smoke, and staying up way to late reading.
Anyways, I am hoping to squeeze in a few more fun things during my last week in Montana but just reflecting back on this summer I am stunned by how much I have been able to do and so grateful for this job that has allowed me to travel and hike and experience the vast array of nature Montana has to offer. I am so happy that I was able to work specifically in my field this year on the botany crew and am very excited to see where my career working with plants takes me.
I spent more of this summer alone than I expected, though all things considered I think I did a pretty good job socializing with co-workers and new and old friends when I could. I am so grateful I was able to connect with pals from high school, college, family friends, people I’d only talked to on socials or though mutual friends, and the amazing group of runners in Bozeman I was able to join for a few routes. Seriously, if you’re ever in the area check out the Bozeman Running Club! The organizer, Kyla, is amazing and everyone I’ve meet though the group has been so sweet and inspiring.
This is the closing chapter to the Montana series, at least for now. Next adventure? One more week of work then 2600+ miles east to Vermont. See you soon!
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