Missoula and Glacier NP Trip Report – Photo Heavy
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It’s been a little over a month and a half since I got back from my first trip to Montana. Fall has been busy, but I was finally able to get my new images processed and posted to my website. Below is my trip report with a sampling of images.
I have to give HUGE thanks to Joel Thompson, who helped me immensely with planning this trip and giving me good solid info about the entire area, rivers, and fishing. Also, thanks to some of the other guys (Lee, Aaron, Neal) who also supplied info for trip planning.
My wife and I did lots of things on this trip, so photography and fishing had to share the time with sight seeing and other things. Unfortunately, I didn’t get any fishing pictures, although I did set up my SLR and give it to my wife to snap some shots of me…so those are the only images from our fishing excursions.
With that said, let’s head to Missoula:
We left Texas and landed in DIA
On the way to our gate
Food (sort of) shot
Cruising across country from nearly our southern border to the northern border
We landed in Missoula just after a big thunderstorm passed through the area
After getting settled in Missoula, the next day we drove a scenic drive up to a little B&B nestled in the mountains outside Philipsburg, MT. Can’t say enough about how nice the folks at the Bighorn B&B were. We arrived on Labor Day, and our hosts were having a big party and invited all of their friends from miles around in the neighboring valleys, for a potluck get together. They told us to come on and join them for dinner. We did, and quickly made some new friends and enjoyed everyone’s company.
After dinner, we went for a drive exploring Rock Creek Road and saw a cow moose off in the willows. She was too far away to get a good pic, but I did get a couple of images showing the beautiful Montana country side
The B&B was situated on Rock Creek, and we went out to fish the next day, but unfortunately a big cold front had blown in and winds were about 25 – 30 MPH all day and put the fish off. My wife and I had one or two tugs early in the day, and she caught a little brookie, but after that the fish seemed to get lockjaw. Went through flies and different techniques to no avail. Spent time fishing. Broke a rod, but Cabela’s customer service came to the rescue, and shipped a new rod to our place in Missoula, so we only lost two days of fishing.
We returned to Missoula the next afternoon. On the return trip, at breakfast we were told that Jerry (husband), of our host couple at the B&B, had left early to help his friend down the valley move the cattle from the high country down to the lower elevations. We were sorry to not get to say good bye to him. As we drove along the mountain highway and came up over the crest of the range, we started seeing cow manure on the road. It made a really nice squishy sound, kind of like driving through slushy snow. We began to encounter more and more of the evidence, and then rounded the bend to see this
It was our friends moving their cattle on the middle of the highway! I grabbed my camera – the neighbor who owns the cattle (and is a fly fisherman) was on his motorcycle. We rolled down the windows and all had a laugh as we commented on the smell. He replied, “That’s the smell of money!”
Then he told us to follow him and he would clear a path through the cattle for us
The damage
Needless to say, we made a stop in the small town of Philipsburg, MT and sprayed down the car at the pull in car wash/laundry mat.
The next day, we went to check out a spot Joel had pointed me to. I caught a few cutthroats on a Hopper Juan (sorry Juan, no close up pics – they both came unglued after a fight with a couple of acrobatic leaps). I had set up my camera and handed it to my wife, and I thought she did a nice job of capturing me fishing:
The next day, we went to the Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation Museum and also to the Smoke Jumper headquarters in Missoula. I will tag onto this thread later with more on the Smoke Jumper headquarters, but for now let me just say that the tour was one of the biggest highlights of our trip. A great book about the smoke jumpers is Young Men and Fire by Norman Maclean’s son….awesome read. [ EDIT:
Great job, John – love the landscapes, particularly the ones where the light was a bit softer and the tones a bit subtler (like the last one).
Zach
LOL, cows in the road always catch my attention. Looks like you had a good time. The last two shots are keepers.
Here are a couple more:
After 2.5 days in Glacier, we headed back to Missoula for the remaining several days of our trip.
We spent one day exploring the Bitterroot River, and saw Lewis and Clark’s campground at Traveler’s Rest, which was really cool. If you haven’t read Undaunted Courage by Stephen Ambrose, you owe it to yourself to do so. The fish were in the textbook spots on the Bitterroot, and I caught a few. We also tried the fishing in town along the Clark Fork a couple of different evenings, but didn’t have any luck there. Actually, I did catch one little cutthroat there one of those evenings.
The town of Missoula is really cool, and we had a good time exploring its restaurants and seeing some of the art and photography galleries. Unfortunately, several of the ones we really wanted to see were closed on the two different days we tried.
We can’t wait to go back, and next time I will be in better shape for the fishing, since a lot of the ground work and exploration was done on this trip. We will also allow more time to spend exploring Glacier NP.
The one river I didn’t get to fish this trip, was the Blackfoot, of A River Run’s Through It . Next time, I will rectify that. So far, the Bitterroot is probably my favorite. I really enjoyed Rock Creek, even though we had a hard time there due to the weather shift. I definitely want to go back and fish it again under more favorable conditions.
Awesome pics and post!
I will tag onto this thread later with more on the Smoke Jumper headquarters, but for now let me just say that the tour was one of the biggest highlights of our trip. A great book about the smoke jumpers is Young Men and Fire by Norman Maclean’s son….awesome read.
Great book. It was actually written by Norman Maclean not his son (his son narrates the audio version). He did years of research on that fire before he wrote the book. The book influenced some of the tactics still used today in fighting wild fire.
I have always wanted to do the tour. I’m looking forward to more smokejumper info!
Rich,
I mistakenly quoted the wrong book – thanks for pointing that out. I actualy have not yet read Young Men and Fire. Young Men and Fire is about the Mann Gulch fire near Missoula in 1949 (just ordered it 😉 ).
The book I meant to quote, and was referring to, is called Fire on the Mountain: The True Story of the South Canyon Fire, and was written by Norman Mclean’s son John N. Mclean. It is about the worse fire in the Smoke Jumper’s history and was on Storm King Mountain in Colorado in 1994. Ironicaly, the events of the fire, and topography of the mountain were almost identical to the earlier Mann Gulch fire.
Well guys, the Smoke Jumper tour pictures did not turn out. I didn’t have my DSLR for the tour (still kicking myself – left in car).
They didn’t have updated information about the tour on their message machine when we called, and so when we arrived, the museum was closed, even though we arrived during hours that they said they were open on the machine. There was an after hours number on the door, so we called it and found out that they stopped giving regular tours in the museum the day before (Labor Day :P). They asked how many of us there were, and we said “two”, so they said, “we’ll send someone over”.
A few minutes later, Enrique, a smoke jumper showed up. He gave us a personal informal tour of the actual headquarters and facilities, the gear, etc. It actually turned out better than if the museum had been open! But because everything was kind of unplanned and crazy, I only grabbed our little point and shoot camera, but unfortunately the results are just horrible. No WB correction, harsh flourescent lighting situations, shallow focus, no wide angle or other lens options…. basicaly I’m embarrased to post them.
Once I saw how cool the tour was, I was looking for a point where I could go back and get the DSLR. Towards the end of the tour I was able to run back to the car and grab it and used it to get the shot of the DC-3.
If I had had my DSLR, the pictures would have turned out great with no issues. I actually thought I was using the little point and shoot well at the time, but when I looked at the images in post, my heart sunk. :-[ It truly was an environment where the point and shoot just couldn’t hack it (or at least I couldn’t get the results I wanted out of it on the fly).
John, Great photos. My son guides in Missoula so I get to spend a number of days there each year. One of the reasons I lurk on this site so I can learn to take pictures like yours! I’ve even considered spending a week at the Rocky Mtn. School of Photography in Missoula next summer.
Thanks Michael and Eric….so glad you enjoyed the images. I mean that humbly, in that it really does give me a sense of joy to hear people enjoy viewing my images.
Eric, I agree with you about the chalet….it was so cool, and like you, I love the wood work on it. If you get a chance, try to catch the Great Lodges of the National Parks episode on Glacier airing on PBS (maybe it will re-air soon as the initial airing was back in late September). The Belton Chalet is one of the lodges in that episode. They interview one of the owners who bought it and restored it, and I remember him telling about how he had to cut and finish new pieces for all of the wood railing balluster pieces, and other exterior trim, when they were restoring the chalet.
Sorry to hijack here John but somewhat related – I heard last night on NPR that Earl Cooley, who was one of the first smoke jumpers, passed away this week.
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