Sky Watch Friday - Centennial Mountains

On the border between the Big Sky valleys of southwestern Montana and the Island Park area of Idaho, lies a beautiful mountian range called the Centennials.  Here the Sunday snowstorm just begins to build up.  Now they are almost totally covered with from two to three feet of snow.  I will post pictures of the Centennials after I get back from my final two days of "roughing" it.

This is the view of Mount Jefferson from the southwest side.  It is a popular place for hiking in the summer.  This mountain range hosts the Continental Divide Trail that mostly follows the summit of these mountains.

Before it snows in the valleys around these mountain, the air has to saturate with moisture.  Then after the storm passes, the valleys are usually fog filled with the higher peaks rising above the mist.

Just another wild day in Idaho.

Snow, Snow, Snow

Back out of the mountains for a day.  Roughing it was cold, windy, wet and snowy.  Monday we woke up to eight inches of snow with more falling horizonally but we still had fun. 

My camera did not leave the truck, so all the animals we saw escaped without their picture taken.  By Tuesday some of the snow had melted, making for some beautiful contrasting pictures.

The leaves are still on some of the aspen, the brush is thick and the animals are still high.  On Tuesday fog rolled in and we traveled out in the desert where we saw three wolves that were about a half mile away feeding on a dead calf they had killed the night before.  Talked to the rancher and he said they had killed 15 or 20 calves this year.  With the snow he was moving his cattle out of the mountains. 

After a day at home, we will be back in the mountains tomorrow and Saturday for two more days in the Wilds of Idaho.  More snow is predicted on Friday and Saturday - more cold and wet feet.

If Walls Could Talk

I spent last night and today hiking and exploring the edge of the Big Desert where it meets the Targhee National Forest.  Any excuse to get out in the wilds is good enough for me.  Other than the animals and birds I saw, two old cabins dominated my thoughts.  If only their walls could talk and tell me about their history with their occupants.

The first one is just the walls of a small cabin on Crystal Butte about a half mile from the timber.  It is overgrown with sage brush, but I did find a pile of broken glass bottles and rusty tin cans nearby.  There was also an old crushed wash tub there also.

After "roughing" it out in my unheated camp trailer with tempatures below 20 degrees, listening to the elk bugle and the coyotes howling, I traveled to the Davis Lakes area where I found this old cattle linesman's cabin.  It was in much better shape, but still in bad shape.

The front portion on the cabin, almost half of it, was a coverd porch to store enough fire wood for the occupants.  Inside the old burned out wood stove is filled with thistles and mushrooms, a storage area for pack rats.

While the hand squared logs inside are chinked with mud and saplings cut in fourths with nails and spikes used as hangers.

The front of the cabin looks over Davis Lake #3 in a sagebrush flat with fingers of pine trees on each side of it.

As the sun was setting with another storm rolling in, I wondered just how many untold and forgotten stories these cabins could tell me if only they could talk.

With a week off from school, I plan on roughing it three or four days hunting and more exploring in the wilds of Idaho

Sky Watch Friday - Mount Moran Sunrise

This week as a cold front rolled in, Mount Moran created picturest shadows from the rising sun.

Check other beautiful sky watch pictures at Sky Watch Friday.