Back in Missoula

We are back in the lovely town of Missoula, MT after our many adventures. This last month has been full fledged Missoula style settling in. I have been on the river almost everyday training for work, having fun and running new rivers and creeks every week. Charlie has been setting up his shop, expanding his network in Missoula and getting jobs set up around town. This Friday he has a wall piece in a downtown art show for First Friday in Missoula, which is an event every month that promotes and shows the work of local artists.
Our new house is in the northern part of town and has access within two blocks to a creek, a wildland park and a trail system that can take us the mile upstream to the Rattlesnake Wilderness that sprawls just north of town. We have been fortunate to have beautiful weather, and have been enjoying the wilderness by running, hiking and biking. One of our goals this summer is to explore the Rattlesnake Wilderness as much as possible.
We live with our friend Ashley that we met on Tonsai Beach in Thailand, she is originally from San Francisco, and two river-guide friends of ours that are mostly on the river but their addition to the household makes our bills incredibly affordable. In Missoula we have many family-style friendships and often get together with our friends to cook meals, drink local beer and play sand volleyball by the river in Kiwanis Park.
At the beginning of May we were able to go on a seven day trip down the Middle Fork of the Salmon River just southwest of Missoula. It is a world class section of river through one of the largest wilderness areas in the United States, the Frank Church Wilderness. We went with a group of 15 close friends, both rafters and kayakers. It was completely self-supported, and because we had so many professional river guides on the trip, we had a full kitchen and gourmet food every meal. We paddled a few hours a day through some of the most rugged country I have ever seen. This part of Idaho is an alpine forest, with many pine trees clinging to rocky mountains. We had one day, about half way through the trip, where we didn't pack up camp, but stayed another night and explored the meadows, mountains and hot springs that surrounded our Loon Creek campsite.
On this day we made friends with Tyrel, an authentic mountain man who worked one of the few remote ranches that were grandfathered in when the area was made a wilderness. Tyrel ended up offering to take us all on a trail ride back into the mountains, an offer that we immediately took him up on. So we saddled up the draft horses and took of for a three hour ride through the amazing sights of Northern Idaho.
We can't help but feel blessed to live surrounded by beautiful country and amazing friends. We are so happy to be back in Montana, and look forward to a healthy, productive summer.