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Bob and I left our Bozeman housesit shortly after 4:00 pm on Monday, August 14, to drop the homeowners’ car at the airport for their use when they flew in later that night and then headed out for a 3 hour drive to Missoula, Montana. We only spent the night there (home to the University of Montana and 2nd largest city in the state). Tuesday, we were off early for a 7+ hour drive to Kent, Washington (a southern suburb of Seattle) for a meet-up with Beth’s cousin and his wife.

Jennifer and Kris also recommended a local site that Bob might want to see. We stopped by this am after we left their house, but we couldn’t get Bob in the photo, as there was no available parking in the area, and the parking police were out.

We are spending 3 days in La Conner, Washington, before our next housesit in Sidney, Vancouver Island, Canada. La Conner is a small town (population 965) in Skagit County, in the far upper northwestern corner of Washington state. It is located on the Salish Sea between Seattle and Vancouver. We’re staying in the historic Hotel Planter on the main road in La Conner.

The other night, Bob and I went to the Gallatin River Lodge for a drink. It was an easy 10 minute drive from the house and further west of town, which is not our usual direction. We enjoyed the views as well as talking to the local staff, who gave us some good recommendations on places for gifts as well as another sight to see while we are here. We took advantage of both recommendations.

The young bartender, who has moved to Bozeman to ski, recommended that we check out Fairy Lake, which is a few miles from Bridger Bowl, where he likes to ski. Both are “easily” accessible from Bozeman.

Fairy Lake is an alpine lake in a forested bowl at the base of Sacagawea Peak in the Bridger Mountain Range. It sits at an elevation of 7,557 feet.

It is just 34 miles from where we are staying but takes over an hour to reach, even though all but 6 miles of the drive are on city streets and a well-paved highway. The last 6 miles are on a narrow dirt, gravel and/or rocky road that is negotiated at a slow pace to accommodate the many, many curves as well as cattle and oncoming autos. It was a relief (especially for Bob, the driver) to get out of the car! Luckily, the view was worth it.

Yesterday, Bob and I walked the Painted Horse Trail, which started in town, to the t intersection with the Triple Tree Trail that we had hiked the day before. We walked a total of about 8.4 miles with the out and back route. We didn’t go up a mountain, but we did climb just a bit from prairie to a ridge line and, like the prior day, encountered runners and bikers on the mostly narrow trail.

Today we drove about 20 minutes east to the trailhead for the Triple Tree Trail on the south side of Bozeman. It was a 5.4 mile distance, out and back, with an elevation gain of about 950 feet. It crosses Limestone Creek (which dogs seemed to enjoy) and is on state land on the northwest slope of Mount Ellis.

We saw a couple of Beware of Bears signs, always a bit disconcerting. However, there was quite a few people using the trail (hiking, biking’ and running), so we felt better about maybe not having a bear encounter.

Prior to the hike, Bob helped another hiker jump her battery, so that she could leave the trailhead parking lot. I thought it was good that we arrived when we did, but I’m sure others arrived after us that could have helped as well.

Below are pictures from another great Bozeman hike.

In 1915, Montana State University students created an M on a mountain at the mouth of Bridger Canyon. I’m not sure what it was originally made of, but it now consists of 250 feet of whitewashed rock. There are two routes up to it, one short (.5 miles) and steep, and the other longer (1.5 miles) and less steep. Both are popular for hiking and running, as we found when looking for a parking spot this morning.

We chose the less steep (deemed easiest on the trail signage) to spare our knees and have a longer hike.

One of the places that Bob and I had read about to visit is the Emerson Center for the Arts and Culture. We headed there today before running some errands. The center is housed in the former Emerson School, named after Ralph Waldo Emerson. The building was constructed from 1918 to 1920, to serve as an elementary and junior high school. It ceased being used as a public school building in 1992.

However, the center continues its educational focus by expanding the community’s exposure, understanding, and engagement in the arts not only through exhibits of local artists ‘ work, but also providing a space for artist studios, a theater, music instruction spaces, design studios, classrooms, and shops.

There were three exhibits at the center. The first was a photography exhibit by Matthew Hamon, a Montana-based freelance photographer. This set of photographs focuses on capturing the myths of the West.

The second exhibit was titled Barns, Bovines, and Botanicals, by Shari Chandler, a Bozeman, MT resident since 2017. Her paintings were much more lighthearted than the photographs, and the title of the exhibit was accurate.

The third exhibit was titled Flat Lens by Jennifer Combe, an associate professor of art at the University of Montana. She states that her artistic work explores cultural constructs around gender and mothering, ability and schooling. She distills her understanding of an experience into simple geometric shapes.

In addition to the exhibits, we just enjoyed walking around the first two floors of the building, looking at the art on offer in the shop as well as others on display.

In the question between beaches or mountains in terms of places to vacation and/or live, at least for those of us not fortunate enough to grow up around either, Bob and I tend to fall on the side of mountains. Obviously, both are great (as are forests and other types of geographic phenomena), but the photos from our in-town walk today reinforce my love for mountains, even as a backdrop.

We did about a 5 mile hike this afternoon by combining the trails around the Cherry River and Glen Lake, both in the valley below the Bridger Mountains, on a beautiful, sun-filled day. Enough said, I’ll let the photos do the talking today.

Pics from the Cherry River Trail Walk.

Pics from the Glen Lake Walk.

We’ve had a few days recently where it has rained off and on here in Bozeman. Luckily, we were able to get the lawn mowed yesterday in between the morning programmed watering schedule and the afternoon programmed watering schedule (followed by rain and then a brief storm later in the evening). The weather forecast keeps changing, but we had some rain today and look to have more tomorrow.

Today, we headed out for Palisade Falls because we wanted to see the waterfall, but also because there is a big music and art festival in Bozeman so we wanted to avoid activities near downtown to avoid traffic, which doesn’t seem to move well here. As per usual for the past few days, the sky was overcast, but it gave us some great views of low clouds against the Gallatin Mountains.

Palisade Falls is a towering waterfall dropping more than 80 feet off a vertical rock wall at the southern base of Palisade Mountain in the Hyalite Recreation Area south of Bozeman. And we will have to take the website’s word about, as we were unable to get there, but we did end up with a beautiful drive through national forest and walked a bit by the lovely Hyalite Reservoir.

Before we left for the Palisade Falls, we had read that the road to the trailhead was currently only open on Saturday and Sunday. We didn’t know why, but I assumed this was just the most popular time to visit. That could be the reason, but they are also doing roadwork, or maybe creating a paved road from what is a dirt road now. You can see below that with the rain, the dirt had become mud, serious mud in some areas. We made it past the construction vehicles in the photo before things got even worse, and we decided that without 4-wheel drive it might be best to turn around before someone had to dig us out.

We drove back to a picnic area we had passed and walked along a paved path near the reservoir, where some brave woman (local likely) as going in for a cool dip.

Today, we did a little over five-mile hike in and around Burke Park, which is near the sculpture garden we had explored on our first night in Bozeman. Listed by the city as moderate exertion, trails in the park take you up Peet’s Hill, which is supposedly the best sunset view in town . After walking the main trail (there are many) through the long, narrow parkland, we connected to a few other trails towards the west of town.

Yesterday, we headed to downtown Bozeman to walk Main Street to check out what this area had to offer. It’s a fairly small downtown area, about 8 blocks or so and not fully utilized, but it was still pretty vibrant with people out and about and lots of variety in retail and restaurants.

We ended our walkabout with a drink at the Armory Hotel, as its bar has a view.