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We had only been home from British Columbia for a couple of days, but we had worked diligently on rehabbing the truck and gear. I got the notification that Reckless Kelly was going to be in concert in the middle of Montana. Why not get back out on the road? Before we knew it we were packing the truck for a quick trip to Montana.

This was a real whirlwind tour of western Montana, but it would give us a chance to see a few places we hadn’t been to yet. Eventually we plan to choose a year and focus on exploring Montana, so this would be a bit of “pre-homework”. We took a couple days to get there and planned to take a couple days to get back.

After a couple days on the way to Melville we were there. After seeing Reckless four times, they finally played “Snowfall“, which is the song that led me to discovering them. Anyone that includes my favorite bit of philosophy from Warren Miller in a song must know something about something (Remember: “If you don’t do it now you’ll be one year older when you do”).

The show went off as the sun set behind the Crazy Mountains. It might be the only concert I have been to where it was dark enough to stargaze. It was a nice evening.

With the concert behind us it was time to head back home on this spur of the moment unplanned trip. We found a nice lake high up in the Tobacco Root Mountains, the only catch was it was completely packed, which was unfortunate, because looking at the picture it may have been the last blue sky we saw in quite a while.

We did find another great spot to camp, in contrast to the lake, we had the entire place to ourselves once the day users left. Just the way we like it.

The next morning we planned our route to go through Butte. Home of the Berkley Pit, which I had read about for years and is one of the worst man made environmental calamities I can think of. We had to swing by and see it.

Butte itself was much nicer and “alive” than I had envisioned. I don’t know if I’d say nice, but nicer than the image in my mind. The pit however was just as disgusting as I imagined.

If you aren’t familiar with it there is a lot of info out there. You can start with pitwatch.org and go from there. From pitwatch: “The water in the Berkeley Pit contains groundwater contaminated by sulfuric acid. The sulfuric acid breaks down other metals and minerals in the Butte Hill. As a result, more than 21 metals and minerals can be found in the Berkeley Pit’s water.” There has to be continuous pumping and treatment of the water that accumulates in the pit so that it doesn’t contaminate local groundwater.

Could it get any sadder in the same day? Yes it could. By then, as you can see from the air quality from the pictures above, fires in the area had turned the air into a grayish brown film that was blocking out the sun. We continued our trip up the Big Hole River. Similar to the Butte, the Big Hole River elicited an image in my mind. The real thing couldn’t have been further from that image. Reduced to just a trickle, it was choked with aquatic weeds floating on the little bit of water that remained in the channel. All the cattle within view were either standing in the water or within ten feet of the banks. Nearly every bit of vegetation had been eaten to within an inch or so of the soil. How could a fish possibly live is such an overgrazed, overused river? The answer is, mostly, they don’t. With the smoke and the battered river, it seemed like we were driving through an apocalyptic landscape.

Our real destination and reason for traveling up the Big Hole was a stop at the Big Hole Battlefield. We had just finished listening to The Dying Grass. Give it a listen or read if you have an interest in the Nez Perce war.

I reached a point in the visitor center where I just couldn’t read any more. The plight of the Nez Perce as they fled from the U.S. Army was just too sad. We took a walk out to the battlefield. It was still good to see this site and ponder our not so pretty past.

With the smoke reaching beyond unhealthy levels we pulled up the air quality map. In just four days or so since we left home several fires had blown up all across the region and there wasn’t anywhere on the map we could possibly go for the night and be able to breathe. So instead of one more night on the road we made the dash for home.

A whirlwind tour to be sure!