Lindbergh Lake

We took the boat to Lindbergh Lake (about 80 miles north of Missoula in the Swan Valley) to make sure we have all the Folbot Greenland II's parts--skin, crossframes, washboard, longerons, foot rudder, spray skirt--and essentials--paddles, bailer, dry bags, pfds, roof rack, ....

While Eric doesn't play along with this, I call our boat Nunataq, a beautiful Inuit word for rock that was once surrounded (and often smoothed) by a glacier.  When the glacier retreats, a nunatak remains, standing alone, as one does in Muir Inlet in Glacier Bay.  Our lovely boat first traveled by air folded in two big bags from Ithaca to Glacier Bay in 1996, and we paddled past the Nunatak (English spelling).  In a few days, we'll take the trusty Nunataq folded and packed in Otto, our Corolla Utility Vehicle, on the ferry from Bellingham to Juneau and Sitka.


Nunataq and humans, we all did fine at Lindbergh Lake.

Biking and Sauntering

Eric and our friend Gary on the Three Trees Trail

Parking our bikes under the Higgins Street Bridge

Gary and Eric on the Sound of Music Trail

heartleaf arnica on the North Loop

fuzzytongue penstemon near Lolo Street overlook

bitterroot at Lolo Street overlook

prairie star near Glacial Lake Missoula high water mark

cushion buckwheat on Sin Min Koos summit

The Garden

Biscuitroot and Shooting Stars

Chokecherry

Waterleaf

Ch-paa-qn Peak in the Distance 

(just to left of tallest trees)

Balsamroot

The balsamroot plants have fully awoken around the Jumbo saddle--all over and everywhere and huge!

And the tiniest of yellow flowers are also blooming: yellow violets.

Beautiful Day for a Bike/Trike

We went up Rattlesnake Drive and around Siesta Drive, a favorite relatively quick neighborhood ride, with Catharine and Robin on their beautiful Lightfoot and Catrike recumbent trikes. 

Catharine's is a delta, with one front wheel, and Robin's is a tadpole wheel configuration, with two in front.

Temperatures in the mid-60s, a light breeze, all of us happy to be out on our bikes and trikes!  And Robin showed us where to find glacier lilies near the creek.

Spring's Progress

Oh, beautiful Mount Jumbo with such a funny-sounding elephant name!  The translations of the Salish name, Sin Min Koos, "obstacle" and "thing in the way," align pretty well with the reclining elephant that European American settlers saw from the area where Missoula is now.  Away from the blocky town-side view, though, the spring walk up and down from the saddle winds and at time bolts straight up and down through flowers in bunch grass, gravel, and ponderosa/doug fir forest.  Jumbo over here is not an elephant shape or a thing in the way.

One 
favorite bend in the trail 
offers first views of town 
on the way up









and

views of the 
Rattlesnake Peaks on the way down.






 





The balsamroot extravaganza
is starting
and
the lupine,
polemonium,
and prairie smoke
are opening.

 

More Spring Flowers and Wally Small

This spring is dry.  The wildflowers are blooming against a beiger background, but they are popping up.  The larkspur are about in various stages of bloom.

And erigeron are starting to bloom on the gravelly part of the saddle.

 




Also, yesterday, just south of the saddle, I talked with Wally Small, former smokejumper now in his 80s, hiking up Jumbo with his trekking poles but without his precious dog, Shortstop, who has died.  I met Wally and Shortstop last spring and put a picture of them on the blog on May 10.  Today, we shared a different kind of happiness and understanding of how good it is to be alive and outside.