Someone started up a new gym in the little town near here and I have to chuckle every time I go by: they advertise that they have a treadmill.
I do too, but mine is so much better. It’s the high ridge you can see at the skyline in this photo. The monthly fee for using it is $0.00 and imagine, if you will, what the walls of that exercise room look like!
It’s a little tough to use in winter, and so I use another at a little lower elevation, but I always enjoy looking up at the ridge and the tall peaks because I know on top of the highest one (it’s the middle one of the group of three in the left-center of the photo) is an old friend, the Big Hole Lookout.
It was built in the 1930’s and retired in the 60’s, but it still sits in the stark solitude of its perch on the cliffs above its namesake, the “big hole”. The pure white of the building and its surroundings in winter is quite a contrast to the shades of blue from the smoke of last August’s fires.
(Just beyond the old tower is the east edge of the TeePee-Spring Creek roadless area in western Montana’s Cabinet Mountains.)
I’d much rather use your treadmill than one of those in the fancy indoor gyms.
Great photos. The old lookout station is fantastic!
Comment by ak_adventurer — January 30, 2008 @ 12:03 am
Yes, it’s really interesting. Despite being the home of at least one family of pack rats, the interior is mostly intact, even the panes of glass in the walls. You can get a pretty good idea what it was like to live there during the fire seasons.
Comment by montucky — January 30, 2008 @ 10:01 am
Let my try that again, I am eating and typing at the same time
I bet you would kill those poor fitness gurus if they followed you up into the mountains for a day
Comment by Bernie Kasper — January 30, 2008 @ 4:28 pm
Quite possibly, Bernie, if the trail was long enough and steep enough. I am conditioned for endurance over a fairly long period of time and they probably are not.
Comment by montucky — January 30, 2008 @ 4:42 pm
I hear that – I have a difficult time understanding the appeal of treadmills. Although we don’t have anything so high and wild as your lovely country, SF is a very enjoyable city to walk around, and plenty hilly enough to get a workout!
Comment by Adam R. Paul — January 31, 2008 @ 10:35 am
Yup, walking around outdoors does wonders for the spirit as well as the body. There’s always something exciting around to see.
Comment by montucky — January 31, 2008 @ 1:16 pm