Last July, Jason and I visited Montana. It was a trip of extremes. We went high into mountains and far underneath them. Below I explain the above.
Jason and I love exploring new places. Our curiosity often gets the better of us, and adventures suck us in. In 2021, we bid on a stay at a lodge in the Bitterroot Mountains near Hamilton, Montana during a charity event and won. Did we know where Hamilton was? Nope. Our Hamilton visit turned into a six-day voyage encompassing Missoula and Butte as well; what mushroomed out of a short unknown was pretty fantastic.
Two nights at the Downing Mountain Lodge, located 2,000 feet above Hamilton and not far from the top of Downing Mountain, were our above-mentioned winnings. The Downing Mountain Lodge was built in the 1970s from wood and stone. Its yurt-style circle encompasses a 40-foot diameter. The building was a restaurant at several points in its 50 or so years and as recently as 2008. It felt odd for just the two of us to occupy this space constructed to host 20 or 30 people, a little like The Shining but more peaceful. Being axed to death might not be so bad in such a beautiful, serene place.
The lodge’s interior seemed unchanged by the last half a century with eccentric, quirky, surprising, and rustic vibes. It smelled of leather (source unknown), old wood, aged rope, and fresh air. There were enough musical instruments about we could have made our own woodland band featuring a piano, guitar, ukulele, drums, flutes, and whistles. We didn’t become mountain musicians, but Jason figured out how to operate the 100-year-old Brunswick phonograph, which had accompanying records.
After leisurely rising the next morning, we hiked the Blodgett Canyon Overlook to a cliffside above Blodgett’s granite, U-shaped valley, which required 531 feet of elevation gain and 2.8 miles of exertion roundtrip. Blodgett is just one of more than two dozen impressive gaps carved through the eastern side of the Bitterroot Range.
Following this hike, we were hoping to do another, but the weather was iffy with forecasts for showers that kept shifting. In the end, our evening hike got thwarted by three rainstorms. Yet, these were awesome to behold from our perch on Downing Mountain. The hammering rain, pelting hail, zipping lightening, and booming thunder displayed nearly 360 degrees around us were mystical, so we didn’t pout over our missing trek.
The next day, we were off to Missoula and the second segment of our hodgepodge trip, which will be the topic of my next post.