Week 3

 

The Quest for snow

Lolo Peak. 

Good afternoon friends and stalkers alike.  Today is Monday, June 25th, 2012.  I spent the last week in the town of White Sulphur Springs.   It was actually a pleasant little community that had a hotel with a hot tub this time. Oh, and wifi.  Its funny to me that these towns are considered "Tree City USA"  when they only have 10 street trees.  I guess they had plenty of newer plantings in their parks and such.  But trees on the street are always  tough to convince people they need them. The usual response to that is  " I like trees, Just in the neighbors yard..."  There is my rant about the latest cow town venture.  He is some of the more interesting photos I took while in W.S.S.:

Here is a couple views from W.S.S. that I felt like sharing. The landscape still grabs my attention even after 4 weeks of being here. I'm starting to really like what montana has to offer. To there is no "happy medium" of the YOOP, Wisconsin, and Montana.  And if there were, FIBS would probably ruin it anyway... haha

 The  picture at left is my very first hot spring I have been to. They are pretty interesting and smelly.  The sulphur stinks and also corrodes the metal around there Black instead of the usual rust color.  Kinda crazy looking. I didn't get and pictures of the pools. But they are like normal pools that stick. One is 103 degrees and the "hot" pool was around 107. Damn hot.  Let me tell you, I felt the heal effects of the spa.... haha.

The Cemetery in W.S.S. was absoutley beautiful from a forestry stand point.  over 200 evergreen trees and some were just huge.  It may be creepy to some to be counting trees in a cemetery but in reality there are just beautiful parks with dead bodies occupying the earth.  Here you can see for yourself.  Funny. I came across a head stone that had STOYANOFF on it. Never even seen a name that came as close to mine before. Sheep raunchers also...

So here is one of the idea so a cabin if i ever build one.  Simple but yet has some character.  It also turned out to be a pretty nice snapshot... If I may say so myself. 

Here is a beautiful victorian house that really was out of place in this cow town.  For sale if any of you wanna move to small town montana.

This is Giant Douglas-fir.  Beautiful for a cemetery.

Now on to my miss-adventures around missoula.  This week I tried to reach the summit at Lolo Peak which is just out of missoula about 15 miles.  I was pretty eager to get close to my goal of reaching 10000 Ft in elevation.  The peak at lolo is around 9000 feet.  The trail to the top is over 4 miles one way due to the amount of switchbacks (zig-zag trails to the top). Since my roommate all had plans for the weekend I decieded to take Luka, my roommate dog and my valuble hiking companion.  The trail started with billy goating my dodge up 8 miles to the trail head.  The road was like driving to my cabin, except it was steeper then hell on both sides. Probably just enough room to get two vehicles by.   the elevation of the trail head was about 5700 feet above sea level.  The hiking trail was narrow with a few down logs. Quite a bit of horse poop too. It's funny people ride beasts to the top of these peaks, but i guess make the beasts do all the labor.  I came across a couple different forest types on my way.   The first three pictures from this hike are of some thick balsams around 6000 ft.  The canopy was thick enough to blick most of the sun and also GPS signal. 

At about 7000 feet the forest composition started to change and started seeing more pines and an ocasional patch of snow.  Luka was estatic to see some snow, I bet it was satisfying to cool down with all that hair she has.  She was rolling and running around like it was Xmas again.  I was also like a kid in a candy store. To bad I would never beable to get the FOFO us there to ride... Bummer.  but the snow kept on getting deeper and wider. But since i came this far I wanted to get to the summit.  Little did I know that just below 8000 ft was a glacier. haha. 

So eventually the trail was completely covered with snow, so i tried to just climb up the snow, hoping I could see where the trail continued. But to no prevail. I didn't really mind because the scenery was amazing and i was sitting on a stash of snow that I hope will be there untill i can go back and make the summit.  Hopefully the pictures I'm about to show do the steepness and the beauty of this peak its justice. 

Soo steep you could ski with your shoes on it. Gotta go back soon

Here is what I'm dealing with... Try and find your way through that...

Here's my heavily modified jansport that has been with since 06'. Complete with Binocs and a 9mm.  haha. Dakine, Eat your heart out. Add couple wraps of paracord and she is ready to take on everest even if I can't make it past 8000ft.

<--------Me!!!!

My personal highest elevation To date.

I'd like to go through and post some pictures this week of any that I feel should be shared. I know I'm missing a bit and would also like to spot light my roommates... I'm sure they will be thrilled.

Until then, God speed!!!