Winter AND Spring: Having it Both Ways

It's that magical time of year in the Mining City of Butte America, when you can ski the hills in the morning and catch trout on dry flies in the river valley in the afternoon: Springtime in the Rockies (link to a nice cover of this classic tune).

Around my home in Walkerville, Montana (on the hill just above Butte), the snow is nearly gone and the Bitterroot (Lewisia rediviva) rosettes are greening up:

A few miles north of town at The Moulton (Montana's finest classic cross country ski trails) it's still winter. But you know spring is nigh because the mother moose has chased away her now lonesome, forlorn yearling (last spring's calf):

An Molly-The-Dog has managed to find a well-aged deer leg melting out of a snowbank:

The early morning air is frigid, but the warm sun grows delightful dendritic feathers of frost:

The Yankee Boy trail, the best trail in Montana's best ski area, is still good skiing up the steep climbs:

And down the twisting turns:

I feel bad for the Pilgrims that come to Montana in the summer, are enthralled by the scenery up in the hills, and end up buying a place where it's winter until May. That's great if they love snow & skiing & the hard drive to town, but many of them don't. That probably explains why many of those rural properties turn over so quickly.

Haven't been fishing, yet, but this afternoon I could feel the pull of the Jefferson River's big brown trout awakening from their winter lethargy. Stay posted.