Bitterroot and Bergamot

Woodland wildflowers in Wisconsin abound on the back roads and byways
on a sunny spring afternoon. Here is a delicate wild columbine,
enjoying its shady spot. Its nectar tubes attract hummingbirds.

A patch of beauty on a backwoods bike ride: wood anemone in dappled shade

This is Lemhi Pass on the Idaho/Montana border, looking across to the
Montana side. This was the first place the Lewis & Clark Expedition
crossed the Continental Divide. In their efforts to find a passage to
the Pacific, the Lewis & Clark Expedition traversed this pass and met
the Shoshone, who provided horses and a guide.

When they discovered the Salmon River was not navigable, the
travelers then retraced their steps over Lemhi and traveled up the
Bitterroot Valley to Lolo, Montana. The excruciating trip over Lolo
Pass is the stuff of legend, but Lemhi is not as well known.

The headwaters of the mighty Missouri are here, spouting from the
earth as a tiny spring. The Big Sky surrounds and enfolds you
completely at this spot; the wind rattles the sagebrush. Except for a
primitive road, the land looks much as it did in 1805.

A small plane tries to dodge a summer storm without impaling itself
on the peaks of the Bitterroot mountains below.

Taken on the Montana-Idaho border.

The air in the canyon chills and the sun's last rays gleam on a
distant hill while campers watch the river flow by in the twilight.

"The River of No Return" ~ Main Fork of the Salmon River, Idaho.

Rattlesnake Creek in Missoula, Montana rushes past a delicate
wildflower on the stream's edge.

A ray of sun lights up the peaks of the Mission Range in the Flathead Valley.

The Blackfoot River ripples over rocks, refracting sunlight in
millions of dancing, mesmerizing rays. The sound of this river is a
song that stays with me always.

Late-afternoon sunshine lights up the fields at the Moose Can Gully
Ranch, Montana.

Mount Stuart looms above Missoula, Montana with brooding
magnificence, as seen from the Moose Can Gully Ranch.

Scapegoat Wilderness just south of the Bob Marshall as seen from the
upper Blackfoot Valley in western Montana. Such magnificent stories, people, and places in the Blackfoot ~
a place of legend and memory, linked to my family
through history and lore.

Fir trees frame an early spring view of the Scapegoat Wilderness as
seen from Flescher Pass on the Continental Divide.

Cowpuncher, cowgirl, cowdog searching for a lost calf in the gully