Crow Creek Falls (2017)

Three years ago, on September 26, that girl and I met for our very first date.  Our date was a six-mile round-trip hike into Crow Creek Falls.  The falls is the largest in the Helena National Forest. 

For a century preceding this date, the waterfall lay on private land as part of patented mining claims.  In the 1980s a miner moved in to remove placer gold deposits from the deep pool below the waterfall.  At the end of his venture he left behind a heaping junkyard.  Rusting bulldozers.  A battered crane.  Empty barrels in various states of repose.  Small bits of refuse strewn from end to end of the claim. 

Thanks to the combined efforts of the American Land Conservancy and Montana Fish and Wildlife Trust, the area around the falls has been cleared of junk and the property is now in public holding (purchased by Helena National Forest in 2004).

Yesterday, we repeated the same hike.  The hike in is gorgeous.  The first half of the hike follows along Crow Creek.  The creek is perfectly clear and ever active, bounding through smooth boulders and spilling whitely over deadfall.  The forest there seems as ancient as any I have seen.  The shadows are deep and tree moss hangs from all branches of the tallest trees.  Thimbleberry, snowberry, and chockecherry bushes grown tall alongside the trial.  The sun remains a distant jewel hanging above.

The sound of the waterfall reaches you long before you arrive there.  By the time that girl and I found ourselves at the edge of the deep pool at the base of the falls, we were yelling to carry on conversations.

We did stop our blasting conversations long enough for a kiss in celebration of three years together.

--Mitchell Hegman.