Winter Arrives

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.”

The Upper Blackfoot River

Desiree in Snowy Trees

First Snow at the Cabin

—Mitchell Hegman