Montana wouldn’t be Montana without
throwing an inclement twist in the weather at you. Yesterday, in this
tradition, Desiree and I found ourselves driving across an open, summer-cured
expanse of rangeland before abruptly entering a churning storm front—a virtual
wall of falling snow extending from the uppermost reaches of the sky to the
grasslands before us.
At once, we penetrated the undulating
wall and entered winter.
Caught within swirls of snow, we
ascended the whiplash curves to the crest of Flesher Pass and then descended
into the Upper Blackfoot Valley and full-on snowscapes. “I love it,” Desiree
said as we turned off the main highway and onto the unplowed road leading us
toward a narrow mountain valley and our cabin. We stopped for photographs when
we reached the bridge across the Blackfoot River, and stopped again before
reaching the cabin so Desiree could pose among a stand of snow-covered pines.
“Winter is pretty,” Desiree declared.
“Yep, I’ll give you that.”
—Mitchell Hegman