WHAT a DAY

Hike at Roger's Pass

In our Hall is a sister named Claire.  I'm not really sure of her age, maybe 50?  She is sweet, personable, and we've taken right to her.  Under her sweet exterior, hides TONS of grit.  She grew up in Montana, has traveled the world and hiked literally hundreds of trails.  She has floated or rafted or canoed hundreds of miles on the Missouri and other rivers.  She skiis (water and snow), snowshoes, cross country skiis..you get the point.  She is extremely knowledgeable about the mountains, wildlife, flowers...how to know if a bear is near...important stuff.  After today I learned that *her* version of an easy hike may not be *our* version LOL  Actually she has a book on all the trails in our part of Montana and they labeled this hike as easy, and she took the books word for it.  But we're up for anything......so here we go...

We left at 9 am, and drove Northwest for an hour into the mountains.  We pulled over at this sign:

And immediately we were going up a steady incline with lots of switchbacks (I'm talking like a mountain woman already haha) and even she was surprised at how immediately challenging it was.  Rusty was with us and led the way as usual.  And..it was HOT.  But there was a nice strong breeze that made it doable. 

So here we are.......you can see them ahead, headed to the right

VERY quickly we start seeing some great views

Way far away is the valley we drove through to get here

Until now it's been a one-person-at-the-time type of trail but we hit a clearing and Rusty takes off

Another straight-up stretch...  things are aching...already!  Ahhh!

So pretty!

Feeling like we're getting near the top

A close up of the road we came in on

And here is how far away it actually looked (click on the pictures once to enlarge, twice to zoom if you need to).

Higher up, snow capped peaks!

Stopping to rest, Rusty peeks over

Beautiful!

Still smiling..the attitudes haven't started yet ....

If there is a rock, HE is throwing it........always lol

I look back to make sure all my bear-snacks are caught up.........and what is this???   SNOW to the left!  We plan to go over there on the way back.

Looking back the way we came, the trail near the top...  we came up from those trees on right. 

By now we are at the peak...and we are feeling it! We are really high up, almost 6000 feet and even Rusty is breathing hard. Lots of burning muscles and the water is almost all gone. We stop to eat lunch.

Behind Claire is an amazing view of the valley to our left.  Since we are at the peak, we are seeing huge valleys to our left and right.

After we refuel, we start back. 

This is the ridge.  When she said we were hiking to a ridge and the trail continues along the ridge, I envisioned walking single file on this thin strip of land with sheer drop offs on the left and right ...  I don't know...... that's just what it sounded like! lol but it's fairly wide across.  You can see where it slopes down on each side and it's fairly gradual on each side and drops off steep eventually.  And there is the snow...the kids are headed for it.     

It didn't look that bad from a distance or even in pics, but it was quite steep getting down to this snow.  I wanted to do it but the kids would certainly follow so I asked Claire to do it.  She does THIS kind of stuff in her sleep LOL so she got down there...closer to it she had to turn around backwards and slide down.......  She grabbed us a snow ball and brought it up... I dont have a pic of it b/c we fought for it to throw at each other lol.

The funniest thing ALL day.....  Rusty ran down to the snow, his first snow experience.  And he started eating it like it was dinner! LOL.   He ate so much of it he left huge holes in the snow.  It was so funny.  We laughed and laughed...I'm still laughing.  He is ONE crazy dog!  Hope he likes it that much here in about 2 months!

Don't let this picture deceive you ... this was the attitude on the trail.  All sorts of things had her griping.  You name it, it was on her, in her sock, in her hair, on her skinned knee, in between her fingers.  Don't get me wrong, this was a tough hike, even for the adults..well, me..not Claire LOL but enough was enough ..no whiners!  Eventually I gave her one new job at home for every complaint I heard.  She will be a hard worker this week!

Headed back

Trail Dog

Claire said to bring our swim suits and she'd take us to a mountain lake to swim.  Little did I know it was 1.5 hours away from our hike!  Her idea of "just down the road" is way different than mine too LOL   But we jumped in the car, cooled off in the A/C and took off.   We ended up at a BEAUTIFUL mountain lake.. just so so beautiful.  Pictures could never capture it.  It was chilly, but doable because it was 104 today.... so we swam a while.  It invigorating and refreshing and the perfect end to a hot and dusty day.

As we left the lake, we saw this mule deer trotting along, not bothered at all by us.

He stopped alongside the road and at first glance, I thought he was just chillin'.  Can anyone guess what he's REALLY doing??????

Beautiful view behind him, huh?

And from here, we drove 1.5 hours back to Great Falls just in time for dinner.  I'm so wiped out...but it was worth it!

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c, m, c & z!