Wintry Walking Bridge Over Rattlesnake Creek - Missoula, Montana

With a variety of national forest trailheads within 15 - or less - minutes drive, I find myself trekking yet again on a select few nearer paths that have become dearly familiar. Sometimes, a bossy little inner voice with ringlets provokes me to venture out further and higher - but there are times I tell her, hush, today requires the comfort of a well-known route. Henry D. Thoreau understood and voiced this feeling well: “Give me the old familiar walk, post office and all, with this ever new self, with this infinite expectation and faith, which does not know when it is beaten.… I will take another walk to the Cliff, another row on the river, another skate on the meadow, be out in the first snow, and associate with the winter birds. Here I am at home. In the bare and bleached crust of the earth I recognize my friend.“ -Journal, 1 November 1858