Snow!

After brunch at a quaint and quirky place called Dauphins we headed fifteen minutes out of Missoula and a world away.

Missoula is an ancient dried up lake bed surrounded by mountains. The most dramatic entrance/exit is through HellGate Canyon. HellGate got its name from the first settlers in the area. The Blackfoot Indians were a notoriously violent tribe. They would sit on the mountains a

nd kill anyone who attempted to pass. They would then impale the heads of white men and line the mountain with the gory spikes. This made the canyon hell to pass.

It took just a few minutes for us to arrive at one of my Uncle's friends cabins, sort of. The cabin was located on the other side of the Blackfoot River. There were two ways to cross, either swim (way too cold) or take zip-line-bucket-type thing across. We went with the later. The ride across was slow and steady, but still a bit harrowing at first. Once we were across the river we checked out the one roomed cabin. It was like we were in the middle of nowhere.

There was a tee pee some ways from the cabin that was almost completely covered in snow. We decided to go out there to check it out. It was a bit rough going because the snow was over my knees! Eventually we made it there and were able to sit inside and rest a few minutes.

I wanted to get video of my on the zip line cart thing before we left. It went much faster on the way back for the first few second than it had on the way over. Unfortunately, I accidentally deleted about half of my pictures from this trip, including this one.

For dinner that night we met up with my uncle's former little brother Lucas. Last time I saw him he was 8 years old, now he's 18 and way taller than me! We then finished up my last night in Missoula at a few more local bars with a few more microbrews.