A Montana Journal

September, ca 2018 Was eight steadfast and determined men what rid into the Ruby River Valley that day. They come from all parts of country, and was of every age, some having been on life’s journey much longer than others. They rid the worn and winding trail down along the Tabaco Roots, and in shadow of Madison and Gravelly Mountains, through settlements of Ennis, Virginia City and Alder, and finally making way along reservoir and river and into lush valley to rein up at a place name of Ruby River Ranch. They weren’t outlaws, but they followed the One from two-thousand year past who was nailed to a tree for uttering words what angered the world, then changed it forever.  The ranch itself was some 10,000-acre of cattle and crop and river cut through. It laid out wide across prairie and sage-covered mountain, land what was perfectly and profoundly crafted by masterful touch of the Great Creator. This place was owned, I suppose, by the Creator hisself, and a kind...

Sunrise over the Sapphires. August, ca 2018 The day begun with quite the flamboyant salutation from the Great Creator as he sent his sun rising from behind them Sapphire Mountains.  Me and Ol’ Black Tahoe, my trusted steed, had lit out early morning and headed north up the Bitterroot Valley to the Lolo Pass.  Atop Lolo Pass. Caution on the trail. The trail this day would be some 200-mile going and another such returning, taking us deep into the Nez Perce Clearwater Wilderness and then beyond.  From high in them mountains, creek and river was ever present along trail’s entirety.  Lochsa River, pronounced "lock-saw." I had first perceived mile upon mile of flowing water to be a fisherman’s delight, but then changed thinking as we come first along the Lochsa, a beautiful and slowly meandering body of water with terrible high rocky banks and filled with bone-breaking boulders, some big as a buggy.  Boulders in the Lochsa. ...