Fishing or playing with Nightcrawlers?

We're marking off lots of 'firsts' this summer with the girls, including fishing for the first time. Spin fishing in a local pond wouldn't be complete with a a trip to Wal-Mart. We stopped in and grabbed a container of Canadian Nightcrawlers, a few bobbers, handful of hooks and a case of BudLight - just kidding. Next stop, Silver's Lagoon. Fishing held their attention for oh about 2 minutes, then they wanted to swim, then explore the bushes and more importantly play with every worm in the bucket.

Amazing how a little girl can boldly grab a spiny perch and hold it like she's done it before. Then the next minute dig into the tub and shove a worm in her sister's face. Absolutely great.

Here sissy want a worm?

I like worms!

T and I also got away for a night of camping all by ourselves. We headed west out of town and checked out the Fish Creek area. Along the way we checked out Montana's Largest Pine - a Ponderosa 350-year-old, 200-foot-tall, what a beast (see below).

The two photos below were captured from the North Hills area, check out the rainbow emanating from Mt. Sentinel.

Water

It seems like you can't get enough of it or be close enough to it during the summer. As the days start to shorten here in Montana, I find myself trying to incorporate it into my plans as much as possible. Here's a few pics from this summer's water escapades.

P-dog commanding the water gun

Up the trail from one of Montana's finest sandy beaches

Another sandy beach just down the road from the house

And as usual I'll throw in something that might make you damn. This boy has some ballz and then some. This is on the Truckee river in Tahoe, like they say if you're gonna be tough you gotta be stupid.

Not so fast there Fall

As always Montana's got some weird weather. Watching the news last night, most of us here were a bit surprised to hear the Winter Weather Watch for Glacier NP and the Bob Marshall. They are calling for 3" of snow above 7000ft. Ha, I ain't ready for that. I could use about 2 more months of flipflop weather.

T and I got the chance to check out the Rodeo the other night at the fair here in Missoula, and take a few pictures. I left there wanting something with a bit more zoom, but actually for sitting as far away as we were the 50mm didn't do too bad. We of course indulged in some fair food gut-bombage, a huge funnel cake followed by grade A people watching.







More pictures here

Western MT fair

Devastating Russian wildfires

Fire season in the western US seems to have been checked by regular rain/thunderstorms. Most of the nation has not seen any sizable fires yet this year, staying below Preparedness Level II thus far. The torrential downpours have been an almost daily occurrence for the last 2 weeks in Missoula. Everyone seems to comment on the mild summer we've seen so far. There hasn't even been a day that busted 100, I can dig that.

But over in Russia, the conditions have been quite the opposite. --

Moscow health authorities announced Monday that the number of deaths per day in the Russian capital had nearly doubled to 700 as the city and most of central Russia entered the seventh week of a heat wave. High temperatures, hovering around 100 degrees on some days, have destroyed 30 percent of the nation's grain crops and triggered massive fires in forests and peat bogs that alone have killed more than 50 people and devastated dozens of villages. - From the Seattle Times article



Another article on Russian smokejumpers

Rockies wildfire prediction

Yep its yet another post related to fire season and its predictions. Just like always only time will tell. We've started to see the nice warm days and some winds. The lower elevations grasses are curing quickly and we've seen our fair share of lightning already. There have been two stumps that tried to burn, lightning strikes I assume, one up near the M and one up Patty Canyon (several weeks ago)

The below highlights were taken from an article over on NewWest.net

• Average fire season throughout the Northern Rockies.
• Below normal potential fire in northern Idaho, far western Wyoming, and western Montana through mid-July due to a cool, wet spring that has shortened the fire season at high altitudes.
• At low elevations, fire fuel is above normal and should burn out by late July.
• La Niña will likely lead to a higher frequency of lightening in the Northern Rockies for the summer.
• Best predictions indicate a short, active fire season in August and September across the Rocky Mountain West that will likely diminish from late September to early October.

Some visual stimulation to go along

Western Montana lakes

Recently the family and I got out of the Missoula Valley and did some camping near some of Western Montana's finest lakes. We set up camp at Holland lake for 3 nights, relaxing and exploring the lakes shore. There were 2 campgrounds to chose from, both of them were pretty full with many of them reserved for the weekend. The mosquitos were a bit thick, but nothing a little deet couldn't take care of. Reapplication was key. One of the girls faces got absolutely hammered by the little buggers, coincidence that she's the one with the sweet tooth? Hmmm

We hiked up to Holland Falls (3 miles RT) and took in the great views of the Mission Range. I think the girls enjoyed the hike even more than we did, as they rode in the backpacks the entire way. We're thinking this summer might be the last time they take advantage of that luxury.

On of the other days we needed some downtime (see tired of chasing the girls around) so we got in the car and drove down to Seeley. The DVD player was just what the doctor ordered and the girls were soon quiet, call us lazy....whatever. The day use beach at Seeley is great, so we lounged and enjoyed the dull roar of watercraft in the background. A burger and icecream down at Bayside Burgers, we were all set. On the way back up north, we decided to stop at all the lakes and check out their campgrounds.

We checked out the trailhead for Clearwater Canoe Trail, sounded interesting... one of these days I might have to get a canoe and try it out. Lakes Alva and Inez had some nice campgrounds. Rainy Lake looked nice, a little more primitive without the facilities for motorhomes etc. And Lindbergh Lake was beautiful, we couldn't believe all the homes that surrounded the lake.

The next day we picked up camp and headed north up Highway 83 towards Bigfork. Avoiding the tourist trap that Bigfork seems to be, we stopped in a Flathead Lake Brewing Company in Lakeside. They've got a great outdoor seating area and an even better Imperial IPA. Their pizza hit the spot. Next stop was Finley Point on Flathead lake, an awesome waterfront cabin owned by a retired MFD fire chief. We had a great time on the boats. The grand finale? A tweaked right knee, how bad? I'm not sure at this point, but its pretty swollen although it seems to be improving.

All in all we couldn't have asked for any better weather or company. The temps were in the high eighties and low 90's all week, with no wind or clouds. I took quite a few pictures and have whittled them down, have a look over here (there's a few from aren't from the trip in there too)

http://picasaweb.google.com/kneetopia/MissoulaSummer?feat=directlink





If you double click on these, they'll open up into a bigger screen for better viewing pleasure. Thanks for looking

Rock skiing

Dedicated? Yes

Sane? I don't think so

Rad? Yes.

Take 2 minutes out of the day and watch how one can actually shred on rocks. Right around 45 seconds is really interesting as he dislodges a boulder on the way down.

Western MT weather pattern changing

Taken from KPAX.com

MISSOULA - Meteorologists from the Northern Rocky Coordination Center in Missoula say that we are in a transition from a "El Nino" weather pattern to a "La Nina" weather pattern.

This shift can make for an aggressive fire season, but Meteorologist Mike Kreyenhagen says that's not the case for us in Western Montana just yet.

"Our research has shown that we have some fairly active fire seasons when we roll out of an El Nino winter and into a La Nina summer. The wild card this year was that this spring was very, very, very wet. And so that has in our mind, knocked down the significant fire potential danger though the month of July."

Kreyenhagen added that he expects the fire danger for the month of August and September to be "normal".

When asked about what kind of winter we may see this year, Kreyenhagen said that if you're a skier then you should definitely considering buying a pass this winter.

"La Nina winters tend to dump a lot of snow, a lot of rain at the end of October. Snow for the high country, hunters are happy, skiers are happy. That's kind of the shift we're expecting."

Wild spring weather and Billings tornado

The rain continues here in Western Montana, it's been pretty impressive by our arid standards. The wet weather seems to be the topic of conversation everywhere you go. The natives are getting restless and want some consistent sunshine. Sure there have been a sprinkling of very nice days in there, pushing into the 80's but in general the valley has been unpredictable at best for the last 1.5 months.

I was curious as to how many days it has actually rained since May, so I took a look at the Missoula Rainfall totals on the NWS site


May - 15 days of 0.01" of precipitation. We received 1.6", compared to a normal average rainfall of 1.8"

June - It has rained 15 of the 20 days so far (days w/ more than 0.01"), damn that's wet. Totals for the month so far are 3.47", normal for the month of June is 1.8".

Yesterday in Missoula there was some very impressive weather, huge dark cells set up over the valley and dropped some huge rainfall in a short amount of time. Some hail fell, but nothing notable. However, over in Billings a tornado touched down, check out some footage of that.





Wind speeds from the tornado were estimated to range between 111 and 135 mph, National Weather Service meteorologist Keith Meier said. The last time Yellowstone County, which includes Billings, had that scale of a tornado was July 2, 1958, he said.

some more footage of Billings Fathers Day tornado >> http://mikeheard.wordpress.com/2010/06/20/fathers-day-tornado-hits-billings/

Missing Lolo Peak Skier found dead near peak

6/21 UPDATE : KPAX - Skier died in avalanche

A very sad and horrible reminder of how hostile a June ski outing in Montana can be. The details have not been disclosed. My thoughts and prayers go out to the family of this young gentlemen.

The weather was quite bad the past few days. This morning from the Missoula Valley one could see the snowline had dropped down to nearly 5500 feet. The Stuart Peak snotel shows that 10" of wet heavy snow fell since Tuesday the 15th of June. Temperatures were around 33 degrees, which would have made for a very wet heavy snowfall.

"A 38-year-old skier who had been missing in the Lolo Peak area since Tuesday was found dead high in the backcountry on Friday morning. Missoula County Sheriff Mike McMeekin said the man's body was located by ground search crews near the top of Lolo Peak at 9:20 a.m., but had not yet been recovered.

"They located his skis first, and then found his body nearby," said McMeekin, who said the initial search crew did not speculate how the skier had died.

Search and rescue crews from Missoula County, together with a helicopter search crew from Malmstrom Air Force Base in Great Falls, spent all day Thursday searching for the man, who was first reported missing on Wednesday night after he failed to show up at work......"

Bug hatch of epic proportions

Good god, this is a lot of bugs. Rock Creek's salmonfly hatch should be right around the corner. But at this point Rock Creek is flowing almost twice the normal flows, we've had a weird run off this spring. I would guess if the rain lets up, it will start to drop pretty quick.

A mayfly hatch along the Mississippi River was caught on Doppler radar out of NWS La Crosse on Saturday, May 29, 2010. The radar view below shows an image at 9:13 p.m. CDT.

The bugs are showing up as bright pink, purple, and white colors along the Mississippi River mainly south of La Crosse, WI. After the bugs hatch off the water and river areas, they are caught in the south-southeast winds while airborne for about 10-20 minutes.

Doin' it Baja series

Doin' it Baja looks like it will a good series to follow if you like the desert and the beach. I recently finished watching Part 1 of 8 while sipping on a Michelada. I had drank the Miller Chills etc, but saw a recipe to make your own. Tasty. I squeezed a 1/2 lime into a pint glass, a few dashes of Worchester, couple drops of Tapitio, followed by a Pacifico..........magnifico

http://www.vbs.tv/watch/doin-it-baja/doin-it-baja-trailer

Lolo Pass winter time-lapse

I'm intrigued by a time-lapses, especially those that involve snow. I watched this 5 foot dump in Big Bear and this Sunshine Village time-lapse, then decided I might attempt my own.

The technique(s) I used were pretty rudimentary but fairly effective. Basically I visited the MT DOT site and downloaded an image from their Lolo Pass webcam whenever I could remember to do so. I left a huge gap during the month of March, which just so happened to coincide with a serious lack of snowfall. My original intent was to capture the massive snow berms (and their ebb/flow) that usually stack up on the side of the highway. This winter however, was not all that impressive. Nonetheless, it is interesting. Let me know what you think.

Lolo Pass time lapse 2009-10 winter from O.P.I. on Vimeo.

And if you want to see how the pros do it, check out Timescapes.org

Keep Missoula Beered

In a recent national competition by BeerCity USA, Missoula finished fifth, ahead of Denver, Boulder, San Francisco, Seattle, Boston, Milwaukee and many more--and tops in the Rocky Mountain West by far.

Firefighters battle brush fire in Sleeman Gulch

This hits a little too close to home. It's a bit early to be having things running to the ridgetop. The aspect (SW) that this burned on is usually tinder dry, so I guess its not surprising. Careful, careful..

More than 35 local firefighters battled a wildland fire that erupted Sunday afternoon in Sleeman Gulch, a piney drainage off Highway 12 west in Lolo.

The fire is believed to be the result of a homeowner's controlled burn that became unmanageable when afternoon winds arrived around 1:29 p.m

Some pictures and video from KPAX.