- Montana Headwall, Head Trip, Apr 1, 2013
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High on cedar
Alpine strollin’ in the Madison Range
- Montana Headwall, Head Trip, Apr 1, 2013
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Skiing up a storm
The weather’s wet. The snow’s suspect. The trek’s treacherous. Other than that, springtime in Glacier is grand.
- Montana Headwall, Head Trip, Dec 1, 2012
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Chasing snow ghosts
A years-long search comes to its end on Downing Mountain
- Montana Headwall, Head Trip, Dec 1, 2012
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Powder, peeps and PBR
How to survive when you’re in a world of yurts
- Montana Headwall, Head Trip, Sep 1, 2012
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Take it to the limit
A sports fan’s friendly wager leads to a sportsman’s dream hunt
- Montana Headwall, Head Trip, May 28, 2012
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Mind over mountain
Climbing Glacier's Mount St. Nicholas requires some gear and a lot of nerve
Under a smoky gauze of September sky, I wedged my back into the cold, dihedral, dangled my legs over a narrow ledge and peered 4,000 feet down to the V-necked bottom of Coal Creek. Mount Doody, sharp as a wolf's tooth, stood directly across the way. I shuddered and forced a deep breath. This was all wrong.
- Montana Headwall, Head Trip, May 28, 2012
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Oh, Pioneers!
A newbie backpack trip to Torrey Lake that would make Darwin proud
The Pioneer Mountains Scenic Byway carried me deeper into the valley between the high, jagged eastern peaks and timbered, gently sloping West Pioneers, meandering past flowered meadows wet with streams, grassland ranges speckled with livestock, and thick lodgepole forests. The mountains captivated me—I knew I couldn't be satisfied with just one bike trip. I needed to get into them, on foot.
- Montana Headwall, Head Trip, Apr 1, 2012
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Heaven & high water
A kid’s first fishing trip reels the mind
I looked back and forth between my son and two antelope literally roaming the dusk-lit prairie between the Front Range and the Big Belts and thought: This is what I always wanted before I knew I wanted it.
- Montana Headwall, Head Trip, Apr 1, 2012
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Wet & Wild
The Bigfork Whitewater Festival celebrates liquid love
It’s Saturday morning at the public park in Bigfork and I’m hoping to catch some of the nervous energy among the paddlers signing up for the 37th Bigfork Whitewater Festival. A heavy drizzle drums the taut nylon tents and the candy-colored kayaks. I figure the “Wild Mile” must be at a menacing level.
- Montana Headwall, Head Trip, Dec 1, 2011
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Making tracks
Izaak Walton Inn puts powder on the line
Skate skiing, cross-country skiing, backcountry skiing— anything on planks—is the pièce de résistance during a winter stay at the Izaak Walton resort by a railroad yard in tiny Essex, Montana.
- Montana Headwall, Head Trip, Dec 1, 2011
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Tank goodness
Pyramid Peak beckons the sled-to-shred crowd
I expected the snowmobile to make some bratty exhaust noise and steer more like a barge than a motorbike. The full body workout required to drive it, however, came as a surprise.
- Montana Headwall, Head Trip, Sep 1, 2011
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Drear and loathing in Anaconda
Finding a rainbow in a frozen fishing funk
The trip should have been tonic for the soul. The location should have fueled optimism and confidence. Nope.
- Montana Headwall, Head Trip, Sep 1, 2011
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Winging it
A Hungarian teen meets the flockers at Red Rock Lakes
Please God, let us see birds so magical that they imprint on her soul.
- Montana Headwall, Head Trip, Jun 1, 2011
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The last good mykiss
Golden trout in the Crazies, a love story
Golden trout, oncorhynchus mykiss aguabonita, are some of the most rare and resplendent salmonids in all of North America. For Montanans, they're one of the few California transplants welcomed to the state.
- Montana Headwall, Head Trip, Jun 1, 2011
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Sk8r joys
Inline skating in Idaho is awesome. No joke.
Do you know what the hardest thing about a five-day, 100-mile rollerblading trip is? It's when a friend asks, "Do you know what the hardest thing about rollerblading is?"
Punch line: "Telling your parents that you're gay."
- Montana Headwall, Head Trip, Apr 1, 2011
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Crags to riches
Lake Koocanusa's scalable treasures
A series of steep cliffs, bluffs and crags with more than 250 well-protected routes, it offers mostly easy or moderate single-pitch climbs, where you can walk off at the top or get lowered down if you want to quit. The views are spectacular and, even better for us, non-death-defying.
- Montana Headwall, Head Trip, Apr 1, 2011
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The trouble with Ingomar
Where do you find monster trout and a mythic lake in the Bitterroots? On the path of most resistance.
I'd set out in the heat two days before, packing an eight-day food supply and a dream of finding the fabled Ingomar Lake above Sawtooth Canyon in the Bitterroot Valley. Now I was finding out what the fabled part meant.
- Montana Headwall, Head Trip, Nov 24, 2010
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Snow pack
When you're a musher in Montana's grueling Race to the Sky, dog is your copilot.
The Race to the Sky is one of the toughest and most scenic long-distance dogsled races in the lower 48, traversing 350 miles of the rugged Rocky Mountains surrounding the Seeley-Swan Valley. Every February, competing teams run 100 miles a day or more, pulling sleds laden with 60 pounds of gear and about 170 pounds of musher in conditions ranging from blizzards and sub-zero cold to midday heat and rain.
- Montana Headwall, Head Trip, Nov 24, 2010
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Going Maverick
Lay fresh tracks and you can get in hot water
Pink clouds clog the Big Hole Valley as we descend into the frozen haze, and we see no signs of life—car, moose or otherwise—for the next 40 miles. That's precisely what my friends and I have come for—not just an affordable weekend, but also something that feels a world away from Missoula. The one-two combo of Maverick and neighboring Elkhorn Hot Springs promises to fit the bill.
- Montana Headwall, Head Trip, Sep 1, 2010
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Presents and Pronghorn
Antelope, rifles and other gifts of the heart
Give a girl a .308 and watch the dear and the antelope play.