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scenes of visionary enchantment (long)

August 17th, 2008 at 05:16 am

The title taken from a Lewis and Clark entry. Every time I go to the cabin and people ask where it is, I get it wrong. We were 60 mi east of Butte, 50 mi west of Bozeman, in the Deerlodge-Beaverhead National Forest, in the Tobacco Root Mountains, near South Willow Creek, about 10 mi or so away from Pony, Montana. We also spent a little bit of time in Bozeman, Montana.

The Tobacco Root Mountains


The cabin in the woods. The idea from the Forest Service perspective is to have it melt away. Our project was to pull down a fence that DH's dad built and the Forest Service wanted it down. The X's out front are the cross posts with the nails that should head to the dump.


The back deck of the cabin in the woods. That lighter colored wood cube on the right is the shower.


A creek runs through it, but there is quite a cliff before you get to it.


Action shot of DH with the chainsaw.


This is not a happy picture. The forest is mostly spruce and lodgepole pine. All the red trees are dying from spruce beetle. Next year they will be gray and they will turn into vertical fuel for the next forest fire. Only two good weeks of killing frost at -40F can reliably kill the beetle. (N.B: I'll have to rethink that -40F comment - it was told to me in a casual conversation. See comments for more)


The stereotype of Montana. Works for me.


The better half of a Montana couple (a man and his dog), and at the Pony Bar, he's likely to have his own pint.


We got a little citified, too. This is Big Al standing guard at the Museum of the Rockies (MOR) in Bozeman. If you have a dino-mad child, MOR is the place to go.

8 Responses to “scenes of visionary enchantment (long)”

  1. cargirl86 Says:
    1218985404

    The first picture of the mountains is absolutely beautiful. :-)

  2. LuxLiving Says:
    1218989896

    Beautiful place!!

  3. baselle Says:
    1219019608

    If I can figure out how to link sounds, I have about 18 minutes of creek noise...perfect white noise to sleep by.

  4. Apprentice Fun-Frugalist Says:
    1219019994

    Looks like a special place !! Thanks for posting pics !!

  5. Broken Arrow Says:
    1219025469

    Very nice! Thanks for sharing!

  6. Analise Says:
    1219029924

    A lovely and scenic place. I would want to visit for months on end...

    What is being done about the beetle problem? We have affected areas in CA, too.

  7. baselle Says:
    1219034203

    Analise - Not too sure what is being done about the problem except cut the trees down. That isn't happening either. I'll have to rescind my -40F comment - here is a
    Text is link from the Forest Service and Link is http://www.na.fs.fed.us/spfo/pubs/fidls/sprucebeetle/sprucebeetle.htm
    link from the Forest Service about the beetle. Its range is in Alaska, where presumably -40F is common. So that can't be a killer.

  8. Analise Says:
    1219124188

    In CA, the problem is a type of bark beetle related to the spruce beetle ... I guess there are many different types but they all attack coniferous trees. We had to chop down six huge Monterey pines at school because the beetles got into them and killed them over the course of about a year.

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