Spring Creek trail (USFS trail 370), April 22nd.
Where Spring Creek flows through the deep shade from the ridges just to the south and the cedars overhead, the look of winter remains as the spray from a small cascade coats the overhanging branches with ice.
Yup, those are my snowshoe tracks made today on this section of trail. It doesn’t look like it in the photo, but the snow is still four feet deep on the sides of the canyon.
Yet, a mile downstream where the canyon opens up a little, letting in what little sun there has been this spring, this shrub is sending up its bright new buds toward the light, full of hope for the new spring
and the Glacier Lilies are reaching the summer of their short lives in their homes along the south slopes.
Somehow, Nature has it all figured out.
(Spring Creek originates in the TeePee-Spring Creek roadless area in the Cabinet Mountains of western Montana and flows in a southerly direction toward the Clark Fork River. Shortly below where these photos were taken however, the stream goes underground and disappears. It’s a rather eerie sensation while hiking down after being accustomed to the sound of the gurgling water to suddenly encounter complete silence near the mouth of the canyon.)
Montana Outdoors 