Bright Spot - Missoula, Montana

Despite the persistent heat, Mount Sentinel boasts vibrant varieties of blooming wildflowers, including this bright blanketflower.
In the interests of preserving natural flora, aforementioned blanketflower included, the M trail is rife with signs reminding travelers to keep to the trail. Bear in mind that the main path to the giant M consists entirely of ELEVEN huff-puff inducing switchbacks, divided amongst 620 vertical feet, with only steep and wire fencing in between. I have to wonder if these admonishments exist thanks to some crazed coed who hopped the fencing only to slide, screaming like a banshee, 600+ feet to the trailhead. THAT would definitely be a diversionary trail sighting! But bad for any wildflowers en route. So let's hope the signs are merely a theory-based preventative.

View To Mount Jumbo - Missoula, Montana

The not-quite-almost-there switchback features a new-ish bench for anyone wanting a wee break to enjoy this view from Mount Sentinel across to Mount Jumbo and its iconic 'L'. No shame in pausing to take in the grand scenery.

'Antique' Tree - University Peak, Missoula, Montana

“Trees are your best antiques.” - Alexander Smith (1829 – 1867)

Sheltered - Missoula, Montana

“I am a writer who came of a sheltered life. 
A sheltered life can be a daring life as well. 
For all serious daring starts from within.“ -Eudora Welty (1909-2001)

Winter Trees - Missoula,Montana

“…Leaves have been stripped like trials of love
Joy runs like a river under the fallow earth
You come back to me without aplomb
Compassion needs no justifications….

By the oak fire forgive
Your voice is a discreet candle
It's all inward though mountains laugh
Winter trees have a quiet beauty”

- From Winter Trees by Joseph Narusiewicz
(Read this full poem and more of Narusiewicz’s verse in the text links above.)

Overlooking East Missoula, Montana

“The oaks and the pines, and their brethren of the wood, have seen so many suns rise and set, so many seasons come and go, and so many generations pass into silence, that we may well wonder what ‘the story of the trees’ would be to us if they had tongues to tell it, or we ears fine enough to understand.” - Author unknown, quoted in "Quotations for Special Occasions” by Maud van Buren, 1938

Patient Wanderers - Missoula, Montana

“It has been said that trees are imperfect men, and seem to bemoan their imprisonment rooted in the ground. But they never seem so to me. I never saw a discontented tree. They grip the ground as though they liked it, and though fast rooted they travel about as far as we do. They go wandering forth in all directions with every wind, going and coming like ourselves, traveling with us around the sun two million miles a day, and through space heaven knows how fast and far!” - John Muir, July 1890

Frosted Morning Bridge - Missoula, Montana

“All that is gold does not glitter,

Not all those who wander are lost;

The old that is strong does not wither,

Deep roots are not reached by the frost...."

- J.R.R. Tolkien, "The Fellowship of the Ring"

Tamarack, Close - Missoula, Montana

Comparing tamarack branches to those of an adjacent green conifer, I noticed the tamarack's distinct needle bunches. On a sturdy and fortunate tree, annual shedding and regrowth may cycle for hundreds of years. On the Montana, Fish, Wildlife and Parks site, retired Livingston biology teacher Lori Micken chronicles ages of some of these stately trees: "Years ago I felled a larch that had died in a fire that raged through the Swan Valley some time in the early 1900s. I counted 350 rings, putting the tree’s origins back to the time of the Jamestown Settlement in Virginia. The fire-scarred behemoths still living in the Swan Valley must now be nearly 450 years old. Ancient tamaracks estimated at more than 900 years old have been reported in some parts of Washington."

Tamarack Trail - Missoula, Montana

I've long been in awe of the tamarack's golden beauty - ever since my juniour high earth science teacher explained how the needles of these bona fide conifers turn yellow in the fall and then drop off, to regrow in the spring. No such a magical tree existed on Alberta's rolling farmland! 
In several sections of the trail up University Peak, our footsteps quieted as we walked the cushy carpet dusted with seeming gold-strewn magic.

Frosted Foliage - Missoula, Montana

“A touch of cold in the Autumn night -

I walked abroad,

And saw…”

- From “Autumn” by T. E. Hulme (1883–1917)

Click here to continue reading this poem which raised the thought in my mind, 'What lovely imagery of settings we've all seen!'.

Mossy Outcrop - Missoula, Montana

“I'm part wood nymph.

I require mountains and warm, dense patches of moss to thrive.”

- Vera Farmiga

Miniature Moss Variation - Missoula, Montana

“…Still I wonder, and envy

The lichen, chewing the granite like a cow

Its cud, ruminating so patiently

Over the pageant, as swift glaciers plow

The plains, and oceans flow and ebb between;

They view the epic plot, from beginning

To end spectators of every scene,

Where I glimpse one held pose, knowing nothing

Of the unfolding. I do not envy

The rough pale scales their immortality;

Only their witness of the great story.”

 - From ‘Envying theLichen’ by Mark Sauer

Read the full poem here, and more of Sauer's thoughtful verse at his PoemHunter collection.

Mossy Trailside - Missoula, Montana

On some switchbacks in the first hour of the trail up University Peak, moss carpeted the thickly forested hillsides, reflecting a vibrant upglow light into the dim understory.

Something Old, Something New - Missoula, Montana

“The only real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes, but in having new eyes.” 

- Marcel Proust, In Search of Lost Time