Spring Wildflowers and Trout: Montana Awakes from Winter's Slumber

Our weather along the Continental Divide in southwest Montana has warmed but it's still very dry. On a recent family hike, dark clouds filled the sky and lightning flashed along the mountain ridges. But only a light rain graced the land, barely enough to make donning a jacket worthwhile. Outstanding sky, though, as with this "sun hole:"

Each spring at this time, I fish a small tributary of the upper Big Hole River. The main fare is brook trout--I like a mess or two dusted with cornmeal and fried, with a plate of sauteed dandelion greens on the side. Here's a tasty trout for the table:

The creek this year is lower than I have ever seen it in early May. Still, the rainbow trout are spawning (they run upstream from the larger river). I saw several very large fish (20"+) and caught a few nice ones, too--always exciting to hook up with a big fish in a stream you can jump across:

The high prairie, at first glance, looks desolate. But let's take a closer look. In this photo, you can see an arc of higher grass that defines part of a tipi ring:

Inside the ring, you can find buttery-yellow and blood-red flakes of jasper, knapped off by Indian sharpening their tools:

A friend I grew up with many years ago and with whom I've reconnected via FaceBook, suggested I try a test on the yellow jasper: heat it to see if it turns red. So on my way home from fishing I stopped at a local jasper mine used by Indians and picked up a few chunks of yellow jasper. Sure enough, at home in the kitchen over a gas flame, the heated yellow jasper turned red:

A close look at the bunch grass prairie also reveals many wildflowers.  Though they seem stunted by this spring's drought, there are many varieties to be found, including:
 
Hooker's Townsend Daisy (Townsendia hookeri):

Mountain Douglasia (Douglasia montana):

Cutleaf Daisy (or Dwarf Mountain Fleabane;  Erigeron compositus):

Sagebrush Buttercup (Ranunculus glaberrimus):

Wyoming Kittentails (Besseya wyomingensis): 

Pretty Shootingstars (Dedecatheon pulchellum), both purple:

and white: 

Sagebrush Bluebells (Mertensia oblongifolia): 

and Hood's Phlox (Phlox hoodii): 

Daughter Emily passed through on a cross-country drive to the East, so we set off on a family hike to a favorite place: 

It's near a now-abandoned ranch established c. 1900:

There are always interesting artifacts to be found (strictly catch and release): 

This is a calving area for elk, and they time their return for "green-up." Here are a few early arrivals (they begin calving here c. 20 May): 

Along the creeks and willows, a few white-tailed deer can usually be found: 

Molly-The-Dog enjoys the remaining snowfields, but they won't last long with another 80-deg F day or two:

See you in the hills! 
EcoRover out.