My very good friends Clark and Tiffany came to Great Falls to celebrate the marriage of one of Clark's old army buddies. My other friend Perkins (who was living with me for a chunk of the summer) and I decided to fly up there and pay them a visit. We grabbed some lunch at a pizza joint and went to visit the bird pond. There were so many ducks and birds the water was murky with duck droppings! Then we grabbed some frozen yogurt and made for back for Bozeman. It is always worth the drive to see good peeps, but [View Full Entry]

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From Red Lodge Jeff and I parted ways (If you don't know what I'm talking about see the previous entry about the Beartooth Highway), he headed back west towards Bozeman and I continued on my way to the Crow Indian Reservation for Crow Fair (the tribes yearly summer pow-wow). Once I was on the "rez" I was supposed to meet my very good friend Cheryl and her girlfriend Lisa. Unfortunately I took a wrong turn and ended up going for a very long drive through the Crow Reservation to Bisby, which is in the Northern Cheyenne [View Full Entry]

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I had a chance to meet my friend Jeff Banfield out on Island Lake in the Beartooth Wilderness and decided that I would take the long way there. I left Bozeman and went through Yellowstone National Park from West Yellowstone to Cooke City. By the time I got to Cooke City it was dark and I decided I'll sleep in the truck for the evening. It ended up being a smart move as it started raining cats and dogs all evening. The following morning I got up at sunrise and started my way up the Beartooth Highway. I would try to [View Full Entry]

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Let this be a warning to all who decide to half ass the planning of a fairly long distance hike! My friend Justin Van Almelo and I had earlier this fall planned to do a hike up into the beautiful Spanish Peaks area. It was going to be an amazing loop taking us from the Hell Roaring Creek drainage up to Hell Roaring Lake and back to Lava Lake, where I would have previously parked the old black toyota to fly us back to Bozeman at the end of the weekend. Because Justin had to work on Friday, I generously offered [View Full Entry]

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The days have been hot here in Bozeman as of late (mostly in the low 100's) and I have just finished my summertime employment obligations. What better way to recharge one's batteries than to bath in eight pounds of popcorn. [View Full Entry]

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My first overnight hiking trip of the summer was through the Hylite Canyon area all the way back to Bozeman, overall about 20ish miles. Hylite Reservoir is a great place for people to go to get out of the crazy summer heat of the high plains. It has a huge lake/reservoir to go swimming in, a dozen or so trails to hike and a ton of waterfalls coming down the mountain (see the journal entry: [url="http://www.travelblog.org/North-America/United-States/Montana/Bozeman/blog-93291.html" target="_blank"]A Hike Up Hylite Mountain). It was a nice hike through some thickly forested evergreen tree [View Full Entry]

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[url='/Videos/4229.html' onclick='dialog("/Videos/4229.html?popped=1","tbvideo",600,600);return false;'] Skiing Down Baldy Sans Skis As some of you may know my birthday just so happens to fall on the 2nd day of May each year. This event has been occurring now for twenty seven whole years. Some of you may know that the number twenty seven is kind of an interesting number for the fact that it's prime factorization is 3 * 3 * 3 or 3 raised to the third power. This will be the last time in my life that I will be a number raised to itself (4 raised to the fourth power is [View Full Entry]

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The time late April, the place Northern Yellowstone National Park, the People: Mike Sulock, Kezia Manlove, Mike "Moon" Sweely and myself. The four of us decided to go forth and hike up through the Lamar Valley close to the location that I saw the Grizzly and the Wolves fighting over the dead Buffalo carcass in [diary=Touring the Hi Line and Celebrating a Birthday]. The actual goal behind this hike was to make it to "Dead Bear Springs", but we didn't quite get to the springs (though we saw it from a distance). If you aren't looking for an intense hike [View Full Entry]

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Shortly After seeing my brothers off my friend Amanda came to pay me and Montana State University a visit! During her visit we got to see a very rare sight in Yellowstone, A Grizzly Bear and a Grey Wolf pack fighting over the carcass of a dead bison about three miles from us! We ran into a bunch of Wolf Watchers with their spotting scopes and hung out with them for a bit and watched the wolves and the bear duke it out for a couple of hours. Here is a little hint on seeing wildlife in Yellowstone: Don't watch [View Full Entry]

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Eating Right and Sleeping at the Canyon One thing to always consider when taking long road trips that cover large chunks of land (3,000+ miles) in a short amount of time (one week or less) is fuel -not just for the car, but for the body. No matter how hard one tries to eat “healthy”, you end up hitting a energy wall that only one thing can get you over. The stuff legends are made of, road food. I'm talking greasy gas station burritos, cheese dogs, chips, sugar laden candy bars, caffeine saturated soda pop, and anything that will give you [View Full Entry]

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