A couple of days ago a friend and I hiked part of an old trail, probably for the last time; the Ashley Creek trail 454. It was created sometime in the 1930s, probably by the Civilian Conservation Corps by the looks of its construction, but apparently hasn’t been tended to for several years and although the Forest Service still shows it on their maps, it is going back to its earlier natural state. I am fearful that it is but one of many that the Forest Service will keep alive only on paper, probably in an attempt to show a larger than actual trail inventory as their department steadily morphs into another hopelessly incompetent and ineffectual bureaucracy. Following are some photos from along the trail.
The old trail sign still exists as it nears the century mark.
Ashley Creek is the water supply for a small Montana town.
It was a very pleasant surprise to see two species of wildflowers in bloom in a sunny spot on the mountainside along the trail, a thousand feet above the trail head. Upon perusing my photo library, I found that this is the earliest bloom for either of them that I’ve encountered by about two weeks. Who’d-a-thunk-it!
Small Bluebells, Long-flowered Lungwort, Trumpet Bluebells ~ Mertensia longiflora
Early blue violet ~ Viola adunca
It’s sad to lose another such treasure from our early days.
Small Bluebells, Long-flowered Lungwort, Trumpet Bluebells ~ Mertensia longiflora
It was still quite cold in the Spring Creek canyon today with patches of snow remaining in the heavier brush off to the sides of the trail and the wildflowers this year are blooming two to three weeks later than most years, but it was so nice to be hiking on a back-country trail again. Although I can’t hike all of this trail today, I will later and it leads into the TeePee/Spring Creek roadless area where the headwaters of the creek form on the southern slope of Big Hole Peak.
Spring this year in western Montana has been/is anything but usual; very cold, damp, extremely heavy snow up high, and in most cases the wildflowers have been blooming about two weeks later than usual for each species and I have been trying to catch and post as many photos of them as I can. Because they are so small and precious and so often overlooked, yet so intricate, diverse and beautiful it seems that the least I can do is to try to give them a little attention. I’ll try to post a few each day with the date photographed and my best attempts at ID’s until I catch up (or we get the first snow of next winter).
