In a word: idyllic.
This is the kind of place in which I think I would have very much
enjoyed growing up. The public school
bus ride would have been a bear, however; the place is 15 miles north of town
on a winding road that, combined with the environment of a lurching bus, would probably create perfect conditions for motion sickness.
The neighborhood is just across the road from the Bridger Bowl ski area,
and our hosts’ property comprises 12 acres of spruce and lodgepole forest
backing up to a gentle peak.
The first thing you notice about the house is the giant
stacks of firewood surrounding it.
Montana, as we all know, is a cold place for quite a lot of the year,
and the felling, cutting and splitting of suitable trees is a constant activity
in the late summer and fall. Thanks to the pine beetles infesting the west, there is no shortage of dead standing trees that make for good burning. The dogs
especially enjoy sniffing around the piles after chipmunks though they do tend to knock huge heavy logs off of the pile occasionally. I fear for my toes.
The house has a large parking area (which is where the snow
plows pile up the drifts in winter) and a little grassy yard with a deck and
fence-in garden featuring a few small tomato plants and a large patch of
brambles The house itself is stacked lodgepoles on 3 sides and a stone façade
on the fourth, and it is, at least to me, the exact right size: two rooms
upstairs and a large open living area, kitchen, and bathroom on the ground floor.
The wood burning stove keeps the whole affair toasty in winter and the
skylights provide abundant natural illumination.
The trailer is situated about 20 yards away from the house
on a small flattish area sheltered by evergreens. This is nice for keeping the wind down, but
it also means that the trailer stays fairly cold until the sun makes its way
above the trees in the afternoon. This is quite amenable to Paddington, who,
being extremely fluffy, is always much too hot if the temperature is anywhere
above freezing;
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| "It's 50 degrees in here. Too hot. Turn on the AC." -- Paddington |
however, for high surface area-to-volume-ratio individuals such
as myself, it is slightly unpleasant, and when I came across a set of fleece
sheets at Costco I bought them for immediate use. (Two thumbs up, by the way.)
One of the major perks of the situation is the availability
of power and water, because otherwise we would be dependent on solar panels,
gas generators and propane tanks to charge our various devices and appliances.
The trailer still has to be taken to town every couple of weeks to empty the
holding and gray water tanks, but it is downright luxurious compared to the
National Forest campground we were using in Pocatello. The house is also conveniently close to a lot
of Forest Service land and trails. The
dogs are getting spoiled by all of the sparsely used open space (and I suppose
I am too). T their credit, although there are many things to sniff and chase,
and plenty of opportunities to run off and become feral, they like to stay
within sight of their humans.
Bozeman itself is an interesting place. According to our
hosts, it has absolutely exploded in size in the past decade, when someone
decided it was a hip place to go and pretend to be a lumberjack, complete with
beard and inexplicably expensive flannel shirt. It used to be a bunch of old
hippies who worked hard all summer and spent the rest of the year skiing every
day. When Mike and I rolled into town at
3:oopm on a Thursday, we were confused by all the traffic at every stoplight.
Who were all these people, and why weren’t they at work? It turns out that Bozeman is basically
Boulder, but with a Costco. It is also another place I wish I’d known about
when I was applying to colleges. Of course, if I had gone to Montana State I
might have ended up like Mike’s brother, who spent more time skiing than going
to class and subsequently transferred to the Northern Illinois University, where the
lack of any stimulating outdoor activities meant an academic environment more
conducive to studying.
We also had the opportunity to do a bit of weekend mountain
biking. Mike particularly wanted to bag
Sacagawea peak, so on our last Saturday there we undertook the unpleasantly
bumpy 6-mile drive from the trailer to the parking area and made our way
through the throngs of hikers up to the saddle overlooking Bozeman. The trail itself was narrow, switchbacky, and
actually fairly technical, which was a welcome change from the buff and mostly
smooth trails we had encountered at Grassy Mountain, Stone Creek and Olsen Creek.
The weather was nice but the top of the saddle was worrisomely windy, and it
was with a not-unreasonable amount of grumbling that I agreed to accompany Mike
up to the tippy top of Sacagawea. We
were rewarded by the sight of a couple fluffy white mountain goats strolling
around the peak, nibbling here and there at the few ambitious plants that had
managed a toehold in the rocks. There
was another couple of hikers there as well, with a German Shepherd that,
incredibly, did not seem terribly interested in the other quadrupeds occupying the
area (my dogs would have been losing their goddamn minds). The goats did not
seem to take any notice of us, but I, remembering the story from a couple years
back about the mountain goat in Yellowstone that GORED A GUY WITH ITS HORNS AND
FREAKING KILLED HIM BECAUSE IT WANTED THE SALT IN HIS PEE (!!!!!), still became
a little uneasy when one of them started moseying in our direction. I was also freezing, so we took some photos
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| Fun fact: a plane crashed into the mountainside behind me in 2004. |
And then bailed.
The descent was a rip-roaring good time, and although I rode
pretty well I was frustrated by a couple of tight switchbacks that I didn’t
clear, so now I’ll have to go back sometime and conquer them. I’d recommend the
trail to anyone in the area with a decent bike and who can handle a bit of
exposure.
We also went for a ride on Emerald Trail on the advice of host Matt, though we didn't find out until we got back that this was the trail on which he had crashed very hard and knocked himself out a few years back. Happily, we had no such issues, and after a few miles of moderate pedaling found the eponymous and very pretty Emerald Lake. I hadn't taken a #freetheboobies photo in a while, so I gave my phone to Mike, who naturally couldn't resist turning it into a selfie:
Sigh.
Besides adventuring, I knocked out a bunch of earrings
during our stay there and sold some of them to a bike shop on the main drag,
Chalet Sports. I also came up with this fun new design:
I wouldn’t say that
the jewelry business is paying the bills just yet, but it’s certainly funding
itself and it’s neat knowing that people are wearing it in a few different
states.
So, Bozeman was a pretty nice first stop, and it will be our
third stop as well, in November, when mountain biking will probably be done for
the season. However will we occupy
ourselves?
Next up: Walla Walla Washington! Where the sweet onions come from.
