CLEANER AIR

We had a pretty nice day here in the Bitterroot.  The wind blew away some of the smoke and we had some pretty good visibility.  I even went for a pretty long walk this morning.  Hope we have some more days like this one or even better ones.  We also have a herd of elk hanging around our place so have had to fix the fences a couple of times.  Sure hope they move to another area. 

Have to have a puppy picture.

The rabbit brush has done well this year.  Maybe they do better in a drought.

This is the best visibility we have had in weeks.

SMOKE UPDATE

We had a bit of break in the smoke for two days as we had a north wind, but today the smoke is back in full force.  To say the least, we are getting really tired of this. 

Puppy is doing good.  I think we both forgot how much time you have to spend with a young pup.  Of course ours is a house dog so you have to be really on top of things to prevent accidents.  And we have a had a few, but for the most part it is not doing too bad.  Catmay is finally starting to accept him.  The first thing she did was establish her dominance.  Slapped him around a little bit. 

The setting sun last night when you could actually see some of the mountains on the west side of the valley.  

Zeph likes to lay on anything of Connie's anywhere.

The smoke today down in the meadow.

The training has begun.

Couch potato dog and cat.  This is as close as they get.

NEW PUPPY

Well Connie and I traveled to Malta, ID to pick up a new Australian Shepherd puppy.  We were going down just to look at it, but I knew it was a done deal as Connie has been looking at this puppy for quite some time.  And when I found a picture of  him on the counter one day, I knew it was a done deal.  Especially when she bought puppy food and a new collar before we went.  But I will admit he is a cute one.  Naming him has been a little hard though.  We wanted to keep with names starting with a "Z" so thought it would not be to hard.  Well, there are a lot of names that start with a Z.  It looks like his name will be Zephyrus which is the Greek God of the western wind (I think I have that right).  I will probably call him Zeph as I get the longer version all tongue tied.  Or I will just call him a low life scum of the earth dirt bag as I have called all our dogs!

Sleeping in the backseat on the way home.

 

His first morning walk.

You want me to get in there?  There is water in there.  But we don't take baths in Idaho!

An insulted clean dog.

Hanging out on a rock.

  Just about to see how flowers taste.

STILL A LOT OF SMOKE IN THE BITTERROOT

We had a couple of days with a north and north east wind which cleared out the air some.  But today it is back being pretty smoky.  I think everyone around here is getting pretty tired of this smoke and the fire season.  Not much moisture in the forecast - none to be exact in the next seven days. 

The sun is about to set this evening.

Visibility from the old fire pit.

HOME TO THE SMOKE IN THE BITTERROOT

We arrived home from our hiking and kayak trip to a very smoky Bitterroot Valley.  There is a fire just to the south and west of the town of Hamilton.  It is 3 miles from downtown Hamilton and about 8 or 9 miles from our house.  There have been evacutions of homes on the westside of town.  The air has been rated "hazardous" or "very unhealthy" just about all the time we have been home.  One of the problems the fire fighters are having is that embers are being blown around and starting new fires.  Below is a picture of a couple of embers that were by our barn.  You can see they are bigger than the quarter in size.  And the ash is everywhere.  The worst part is that no rain is in the 7 day forecast.  It will take snow to put out all the fires burning in the Selway-Bitterroot Wilderness area and the big fire on the Montana - Idaho border called the Mustang complex.  THINK SNOW!!!!!!!!!!!

BEARTOOTH PASS

We left Yellowstone and headed out the northeast exit to Cooke City and the Beartooth Pass area.  We had trouble finding a camping spot near the exit of the park and all the Forest Service campgrounds around Cooke City were closed for the season.  We finally camped at Island Lake campground just about to the top of Beartooth pass.  It is a new campground we discovered last year and was in the process of being closed, but the campground host said we could spend the night.  Billy and I got up early the next morning and did a paddle around the lake.  It was pretty cold as the water drops from the paddles were freezing on the tops of the kayaks.  But the sun finally came up and everything warmed up - the air, the kayaks, and the humans.  We left there and stopped further up the highway for a hike.  Then it was down the other side to the Red Lodge area where we went into town for a latte and late lunch.  After spending the night in a FS campground just out of town, Connie and I headed to the Bitterroot and Bill and Marney headed back into the park for a few more days.

Marney dangling her feet over the edge.  Snow and a lake can be seen across the way.

Our vehicles awaiting our return.

Billy Bud and I.

The girls on the beach at Island Lake.

Hiking around the lake in late afternoon.

A red tail hawk checking us out.

Some mergansers left a few feathers behind when the paddled away when we arrived with our kayaks.

The sun finally hitting the lake.

Ice on the water of a creek coming into the lake.

Ice crystals coming up out of the ground and forming columns which pushed up the sand which stayed on top of the crystal column.   We found these pretty interesting.

B & M enjoying the view of the Beartooth region.

LEWIS AND SHOSHONE LAKES

After we left Red Rock NWR, we headed to Yellowstone NP where we did some hiking and kayaking.  The main thrust of the visit was to put our kayaks in at Lewis Lake near the southern end of the park and paddle across Lewis Lake to the river that connects it to Shoshone Lake.  Shoshone Lake is much larger and where we spent some time in the back country of Yellowstone.  One day we paddled over to geyser basin and hiked around there.  What a great place.  No board walks, no signs telling you the name of this hot pot or geyser.  Just a trail to wonder on most of the time.  And the best part was that we were the only ones there!  The wind came up when we were on our way back to our campsite, and it was not the best paddling.  We hugged the shoreline and made it back to camp just fine.  But I don't like whitecaps and rough water in our boat.  Need a spray skirt and rudder for that kind of kayaking.  We also had to hold up at Lewis Lake on our return until the wind died down and we were able to get to the lee side of the lake to get to our put in/take out point.  Had a great time and will try and explore that area some more.

The pictures below are out of order.  I had some major problems trying to upload the photos.  Click to enlarge.

Getting ready to put in at Lewis Lake.  Very foggy when we left and navigated by GPS right to the mouth of the river.  Just like flying IFR except you don't need to keep the wings level nor worry about altitude.  Just keep the kayak on course - easy.

The fog lifted after we got to the mouth of the river.

Grizzly tracks on the beach.

The last 1/2 mile of the river is shallow and we had to pull the boats.

A podunk met us at our campsite.  I think he was used to begging!

The mouth of a river flowing into Shoshone had lots of lilies growing in the back water.

A nice sunrise.

Lone Star geyser.

Kayaks packed and ready.

When we could first start seeing land on our crossing.

The first part of the river is really a nice paddle.

Heading across Shoshone to geyser basin early in the morning.

A mud pot.

This picture does not do justice to the moss growing around the basin.

Lots of little geysers going off all over the place.

The creek going through the basin had a lot of moss growing in it.

And the frisbee had to come out at our camp.

Sunrise on our last day.

Marney checking out the whitecaps on Lewis Lake.

Lots of hot water pools on the edge of Lewis Lake.

Taking a little break.

Connie pulling our boat through some shallow areas.  A couple of folks came down the river in canoes and ask "how do you get the girls to do that?"

Where we tied up our food at night.

Hot water just flowing towards the lake.

Pretty little hot pot.

The elk were in full rut while we were there.  Lots of bugling in the evenings and early mornings.  And we found a number of young trees that the bulls were rubbing their antlers on while hiking into Riddle Lake.

A mule deer doe was not really afraid of us.

A dragon fly found the water a little to hot.