Mount Jumbo Saddle Trail

Lina and Gabe’s blog inspires me, but starting one after looking at theirs and my friend Abbey’s blog from her academic year in Ireland means taking a scary dare.  I take it.  Both of these rich, lively, visually and philosophically beautiful blogs have “adventure” in their titles: “Lina, Gabriel, Navelle, and Arthur: Images and Stories from Our Latest Adventure” and “Abbey’s Irish Adventure.”  Writing mine will be a way for me to think about my adventures--what I do, where I am, what I care about—a way to reflect on and share my adventure on Earth. 

I start today with the Mount Jumbo Saddle Trail, which opened this year to hikers and bikers, as it usually does, on March 15.  It closes each December so that elk can move freely in winter through their range, which extends across the trail and south to Mount Jumbo.  We know the elk are out there.  We see herds of them in winter when we look out into the Mount Jumbo open space, and this year on March 15 I saw their hoof prints in the trail. 

I also saw right-on-time buttercups on a south-facing slope just beyond the saddle.

People on this trail tend toward smiles, greetings, and a sense of good humor extending toward glee.  A few years ago on opening day a woman at the far reaches of happiness called out to me from a distance, “How lucky are we?”

Really lucky.  In addition, we are the inheritors of the consequences of citizens’ effort and good sense leading to the 1996 purchase of this land from private owners.  This is a Missoula city park with open views out and down into the Clark Fork River valley and Rattlesnake and Marshall Gulches and up into the Big Sky. 

Eric at Jumbo Saddle