Usually when I get to a new place, I’m very eager to get out an explore.  This time, though, it took me over two weeks before I got out for a drive in the area, which helps explain why I managed to go almost three weeks on a tank of gas, unheard of in Montana where distances are great.  Well, I have a couple excuses for the slow start to my explorations. First, the weather wasn’t that great my first couple weeks in Montana; with a substantial amount of snow on the ground, especially above the valley floor, a trip that included hiking wasn’t really an option.  Second, there was much to do with settling into a new place, and viewing my move here as permanent rather than temporary reduced the sense of urgency. And third, my early focus has been on trimming down at the gym and losing some of that travel pudge I put on over the last year.

My cousin Deb and her husband John who live in the area suggested a Sunday drive after they got out of church.  Sounds good to me!  They first suggested a loop through Madison and Gallatin Valleys to search for elk herds, which still congregate in the valleys at this time of year because snow is too deep in their summer range in the higher altitudes when they spread out more. A late start and less than ideal weather led us to chose a shorter loop, though, but one that included some new territory for me.

The Bridger Range runs north from the city of Bozeman with a north-south road through its middle which is called Bridger Canyon, in my view really more of a valley between the main Bridger Range and the lower Bangtail Mountains just to their east than a canyon.  I had been up that road before to ski at Bridger Bowl, the local ski mountain, in 2009.  From there we made a right turn to the east down a road through Brackett Creek Valley, supposedly just recently paved in the last year.

Like many places in Montana, Brackett Creek is a quite wide-open valley given over to ranches and fringed by forested hills. Cottonwoods grow along the creek bed, and although we didn’t see any elk, the fields were filled with herds of Muleys (mule deer) as well as black Angus cattle.  We barely saw another car on the road.  I think the highlight was sighting several Sandhill Cranes, the species that’s known for congregating in the thousands on the Platte River in Nebraska around this time of year. These must have taken a wrong turn and missed the big convention.

Brackett Creek runs into the Shields River in what’s known as Shields Valley, the broad basin between the Bridgers and the Crazy Mountains, a dramatic north-south range in south-central Montana. Clyde Park (population 288) is the small town at the confluence, a good place for a pitstop and a stroll around in one of those little back-of-beyond Podunk western towns in the midst of ranch country.  They can get far remoter than this one, though, only a short distance from Livingston and Bozeman.