A brief visit to Jackson Hot Springs in Jackson, Montana.

When the weather is good the 4 hour drive from Missoula to Yellowstone is one of my favorite stretches of road. Here are some pictures from the drive. We just got back from a weekend trip to the northern part of Yellowstone.

The hike back down from Upper Holland Lake.

We spent last weekend at a forest service cabin near Holland Lake, about halfway between Missoula and Glacier National Park in the Swan Valley.

Saturday we did a 12 mile out and back hike to Upper Holland Lake. The hike had about 2000 feet of elevation gain, which ended up being the difference between fall and winter.

The Mount Vernon Dredge is an old mining relic located in Nevada City at a history of mining museum. It is a massive structure, kind of reminds me of a brontosaurus when I think about it.

Remnants of the gold rush.

Or “Why We Took the Long Way Home, Part 1″

From a walk earlier this evening.

From Wikipedia

Stevensville is officially recognized as the first permanent settlement in the state of Montana. Forty-eight years before Montana became the nation’s 41st state, Stevensville was settled by Jesuit Missionaries at the request of the Bitter Root Salish Indians.

Where we spent last weekend.

Hanging around in downtown Missoula.

Hilary’s brother Justin and his friend Charlie visited us from Atlanta over the weekend. On Friday we drove a little outside of town to go tubing on the Blackfoot. The weather was hot and the water was cold.

North of Glacier, 7 miles from the border of Canada, we encountered the town of Eureka, which was soon followed to the west by Lake Koocanusa (best pronounced “Koo-can-u-s-a”) and its creator the Libby Dam.

Eureka is a small town that is big on logging, like most towns in northwest Montana. It was easy to see why, biking around the supply of trees seemed about limitless. They had a nice exhibit with multiple historic building, pictures, and objects from the past 100 years or so. The whole exhibit was a rather grand effort to keep history alive for a town of 1000 people.

Lake Kookanusa itself was gigantic. We rode along it for 50 or 60 miles and only saw the southern half of the lake. The lake was created when the Libby dam stopped the flow of the Kootenai River, the third largest tributary of the Columbia River (according to Wikipedia), in the early 70′s. The older I get the more anti-dam I become. Let the river flow I say.