Missoula Magazine

summer 2011

golf the

letters

'Tee Tales' with Annie Loughlin

mr. woodworth

montana wilderness

remodeling expert works a neighborhood

what's in a name?

it's a dog's life

style on the ranch

our favorite photos of man's best friend

western cuisine like never before

art evolution missoula public art guide inside!

missoula magazine

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letter from the editor

n

ever has Missoula been so ready for summer’s sunshine!

Winter was a little bit brutal, spring was unexpectedly cold and rainy. But summer, we know, will bring out the best in our little corner of the world. Blue skies. Long, long days. Backcountry sojourns. Frontcountry festivals. Visitors from near and far.

This edition of Missoula magazine is awash – as are several Missoula neighborhoods as I write this note – with stories of summertime in and around the Garden City. Our cover story is a tribute to Missoula golf pro Annie Loughlin, whose outlook on life (and, by association, golf) will make you smile.

In fact, it’s about smiling.

“I use the analogy of the Dalai Lama, how he always has kind of a grin on his face,” Loughlin told Bill Speltz. “I don’t know why he does that, but I used to stand over putts and grimace and I started experimenting with a little smile.

Oh my gosh it really made a difference, kind of relaxed my whole body. You find if you have a grin you can’t really be tense.”

The mere arrival of summer is enough to get me smiling, but we’ve got a long list of suggestions to help turn up the corners for anyone who needs more convincing. Betsy Cohen took on the task of scoping out the new deck drinks being poured at several Missoula taverns. Bob Meseroll and Daryl Gadbow shared a bit of their fly-fishing expertise. (They also suggest napping under trees and smoking cigars!) And our photographers assembled a tribute to Missoula’s best friends: the ever-so-happy dogs of summer.

And ... we’re not finished! ... we have a starter list of not-to-be-missed western Montana festivals. And Missoula chef Greg Patent offers up three lovely summer breakfast menus, while Fact & Fiction’s Barbara Theroux provides her choices for good summer reads. Looking for something more ambitious? Betsy Cohen has a great story about a Missoula design specialst who helped homeowners in one local neighborhood modernize while holding onto their history.

Of course, we’ll each write many new, personal stories this summer as well. My own family will celebrate two weddings: my daughter, Kelly, in August; and my niece, Sarah, in June.

We’ll welcome a couple of great guys into the fold: my soon-to-be son-in-law Eric and my niece’s intended, Blake.

We’ll take our traditional treks into Glacier National Park. We’ll gather with family and friends who we see but once, or twice, a year. We will laugh and smile, and breathe deeply of summer’s bounty.

I’ll see you again at season’s end, so we can share a few newly etched memories.

bookmark it!

Go online to Missoulian.com all summer for:

pretty flowers!

Missoulian news editor Justin Grigg introduces followers of his blog to some of our loveliest neighbors here in western Montana: wildflowers. Check out his WildflowerWalks.com blog throughout the growing season.

lovely libations!

Matt Pritchard presides over GrizzlyGrowler.com and has the inside info on the best summer brews at western Montana’s ever-more-plentiful craft breweries. Miss his daily blogposts and you’re going to miss out on some fun.

fishy stories!

Missoulian sports editor Bob Meseroll spends his summer on our blue-ribbon trout streams, and shares his know-how and tales from the field on his Talking Trout blog.

You’ll find his posts at talkingtrout.com.

loud music!

Who’s got the soundtrack for summertime in western Montana? Missoulian arts and entertainment reporter Joe Nickell. Check it out on his blog, NickellBag.com.

cute kids!

The kids are home for the summer, and you need a friend. The lines are open at MissoulaMom.com, where Tyler Christensen shares her own stories – and yours.

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missoula magazine

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missoula magazine

on Springer the cover: Ryan pedals along the Clark Fork River with a delivery of Loughlin evaluates for herMissoula next putt.

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inside this issue

vol.5 no.2

summer 36 events of the

24

contents

46

28 summer 2011

all year long 9

the way we were

in season 24

'the golf letters: tee tales'

10

missoula cooks

28

mr. woodworth

14

on the fly

36

10 summer events

16

summer fly box

46

it's a dog's life

20

missoula reads

52

wilderness: what's in a name?

74

parting shot

60

drink up the sun

64

style on the ranch

8

missoula magazine

64

“ I try my best to take small windows of a produce season, and create something special.�

Paws Up executive chef Wes Coffel, page 64

the way we were

practice makes perfect

1945

Smokejumpers, an elite firefighting crew for the U.S. Forest Service, practice making exits from an airplane during training at the Missoula Smokejumper Base in 1945.

Photograph courtesy of U.S. Forest Service

missoula magazine

9

missoula cooks A trio of dishes for a weekend breakfast or brunch: buttermilk yogurt pancakes, buttermilk cinnamon waffles and egg casserole with ham, cheese and mushrooms.

summer mornings

e

by greg patent

photos by michael gallacher

gg casserole with ham, cheese and mushrooms, buttermilk yogurt pancakes or buttermilk cinnamon waffles can perk up anyone’s appetite on a lazy summer weekend morning. I’m not suggesting you make all three at once; the recipes are here for you to enjoy at your leisure.

Pancakes and waffles are special treats. The batters really don’t take much time to put together, but during hectic workdays when time is at a premium they may be too much. So enjoy them when you have the time to relax.

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missoula magazine

Egg casserole with ham, cheese and mushrooms, buttermilk yogurt pancakes or buttermilk cinnamon waffles

can perk up anyone’s appetite on a lazy summer weekend morning.

When our kids were growing up, we often made pancakes or waffles on weekends. We all love butter, but I’m the only one in the family who likes maple syrup, so everyone else topped their treats with jam or yogurt or sour cream. If in season, I’d often sprinkle a few blueberries or huckleberries on the pancakes as they cooked.

Now, decades later, I find that my grandsons love chocolate chips in their pancakes. In fact, when I cook for them, pancakes mean chocolate chips.

Waffles should be crunchy on the outside and tender on the inside.

That’s a personal preference, of course. Like whole wheat? You can substitute it for up to half of the white flour. Want a nutty taste? Add a couple of tablespoons of toasted wheat germ or a few tablespoons of chopped walnuts to the batter.

I’m compulsive about filling each small waffle square with just the right amount of maple syrup. But if you don’t care for syrup, try spreading your waffle with some jam instead. For extravagance, whipped cream or sour cream and fresh fruit will always bring on the smiles.

Egg casseroles are substantial main dishes and may be served by themselves or with a side of fresh fruit. I like them a lot because I can put them together the night before and bake them about an hour before serving.

So even though weekends are times for taking it easy, all these recipes can be started the night before and finished the next day, giving the cook more pleasure than work.

Greg Patent is a food writer and columnist for the Missoulian and Missoula magazine. Visit Greg’s website at www.gregpatent.com. You can write him at gregpatent@gmail.com.

Michael Gallacher is a photographer for the Missoulian. He can be reached at (406) 523-5270 or by email at mgallacher@missoulian.com.

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missoula cooks

overnight egg, mushroom & ham casserole ingredients 6 slices firm whole grain or white bread (I use Birdman) 2 tablespoons butter

This delicious casserole is easy to put together and can be assembled the night before and refrigerated. But if you want to bake and serve it right away, go right ahead. The crucial ingredient is the bread, which must be firm-textured. Do not use a fluffy or puffy bread because the casserole will be too soft. I’d avoid strongly flavored breads because you want the taste of the egg, mushrooms and ham to dominate.

8 ounces mushrooms, cleaned and diced 1 medium onion, diced 8 ounces deli ham, about 1/3-inch thick, diced Salt and pepper 8 large eggs 2 cups whole milk 1/2 cup chopped parsley 8 ounces shredded sharp or extra-sharp cheddar cheese

Overnight egg casserole.

A hearty dish of eggs, ham, cheese and mushrooms.

Great for breakfast or as part of a brunch.

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missoula magazine

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directions Trim crusts from the bread and cut the bread into 1-inch pieces. Butter a 12 x 8 x 2-inch baking dish and arrange bread in a single layer to cover the bottom of the pan. (Why not just arrange intact slices of bread in the pan? The bread tends to float up into the eggs during baking and pieces of bread, for some reason, work better than whole slices.)

Melt the 2 tablespoons butter in a large skillet over medium high heat.

When the butter foam subsides, add the mushrooms and onion and stir well. The butter will be absorbed and the vegetables will appear dry at first.

Keep cooking and stirring, and in 2 to 3 minutes the vegetables will glisten and look shiny. Continue cooking and stirring for a minute or so and add the ham. When the ham is heated through, in about another minute, take the pan off the heat. Season with about ½ teaspoon salt and ¼ teaspoon pepper, and let cool until warm.

In a large bowl, beat the eggs to combine the whites with the yolks thoroughly. Add the milk, 1 teaspoon salt, and ½ teaspoon pepper, and beat to combine. Stir in the parsley.

To assemble, spread the ham, onion, and mushrooms evenly over the bread, and sprinkle with about half the cheese.

Pour in the eggs and milk, and sprinkle the remaining cheese on top. Cover the pan tightly with plastic wrap,v and refrigerate overnight.

Bake, uncovered, on the center shelf in a preheated 325-degree oven for 45 to 60 minutes, until the eggs are puffed and nicely browned on top. Be sure entire casserole is puffed. The center is often the last to do so. Cool 10 minutes before cutting into squares and serving.

Casserole will settle on standing.

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13

on the fly

itty-bitty flies by daryl gadbow

d

photo by michael gallacher

uring the early years of my fly-fishing evolution, one of my neophyte companions generically referred to any hatch of especially small flies as “itty-bitties.”

In his parlance, itty-bitties was a label of scorn and, to us, it was code for fly-fishing futility.

As in, “How’d you do?”

“Oh, not worth a darn. They were feeding on itty-bitties.”

In later years, I learned that from midsummer on into the fall, our frustration with itty-bitties often was attributable to encounters with hatches of a genus of tiny mayflies known as Tricos, short for Tricorythodes.

Ultimately, I discovered that it’s well worth the time and effort to develop a strategy for fishing the Trico hatch on western

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missoula magazine

Montana rivers.

In the 1970s, I began to approach fly-fishing more seriously. I pored over all the fly-fishing literature I could get my hands on. In the pages of some of the latest magazines, I came across articles about how the experts take on the challenge of Tricos.

At first, I was skeptical of these scholarly missives. They discussed the use of spiderweb-fine leader tippets of 7X and nearly microscopic imitations in sizes 22 and 24.

I remember thinking at the time, “Why bother with such puny tackle?” Any trout worth messing with, I concluded, could be enticed with a size 8 hopper, a size 2 muddler, a fat woolly bugger, or if the fish were inordinately finicky, my old secret weapon – a size 14 royal Wulff. After all, those patterns represent trout

meals that seem far more substantial and satisfying than some dinky mayfly.

Anyway, I figured even if a fish can see a size 24 fly, it would take an eagle-eyed angler to track one on the water.

Shortly after that, however, I changed my tune on Tricos.

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ne August morning while jogging along the Bitterroot River on the edge of Missoula, I paused on a high bank to watch fish rising on a long flat stretch. They were feeding eagerly, lined up like hogs at the trough, just bulging the surface in rhythmic gluttony.

Obviously, a major hatch was in progress, but from my elevated perch, I couldn’t see any flies.

I assumed the subtle rise forms, in such slow flat water, were made by a school of whitefish. But as I observed them more carefully through my polarized glasses, I was able to discern the fish finning just below the surface. They were all trout.

Walking quietly along the bank, I counted a couple of dozen rainbows feeding in a 30yard section of the flat.

What really excited me, though, was the size of the fish. They ranged from 12 inches to well over 20, with a preponderance of them tending toward the upper end of that scale.

When I knelt at the edge of the river to see what the trout were gorging on, I noticed that the surface was peppered with minuscule black-bodied mayflies, with delicate silvery wings. They floated spreadeagle on the water and collected by the thousands in solid mats in eddies and foam lines in the current. I recognized them from my reading as Tricos.

Countless more of these dainty mayfly spinners danced up and down in shimmering clouds, their mating swarms hovering just over the surface in the morning sun.

I

was back on the stream the next day, armed with a 7X tippet on my fly rod and the closest imitations I had – some size 20 mosquito patterns.

The trout were slurping away on schedule. But the extremely calm, clear water made approaching within easy casting range of the fish a bit tricky. I spooked the first few fish with sloppy casts.

Eventually, I discovered that the most effective presentation of a fly to these persnickety trout was a downstream drift, letting the fly land softly several feet above a bulging rise and feeding slack line so

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15

summer fly box by bob meseroll

I

photos by michael gallacher

t’s 90 degrees in the shade, if you can find any.

The river is glassy, not a rise form to be seen.

The pale morning duns have long since vanished and it’s hours before the caddis will begin their nightly dance.

What’s a fly fisherman to do?

“I generally pull my boat under a great big pine tree and light up a great big Cuban cigar and watch the day go by,” said Jim Cox, co-owner of Missoula’s Kingfisher Fly Shop, only half kidding.

That’s one approach, and not a bad one either.

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missoula magazine

But after your siesta, take a look around you on the riverbank.

Those ants making off with your sandwich make fine trout food. So do the beetles and grasshoppers.

As a group, fly fishermen refer to them as terrestrials – landdwelling insects – as opposed to aquatic insects that spend the majority of their lives in the river.

And as land-dwelling insects, terrestrials are not well adapted for swimming once they fall into the river. That makes them sitting ducks for opportunistic trout.

“Terrestrial insects are not designed to float,” said George Kesel, who owned Missoula’s Four Rivers Fly Shop until it closed this spring. “When they hit the water, unless the surface film catches them, they go straight through. Whereas caddis and stoneflies and mayflies, they’ve all evolved to float.”

Terrestrials present anglers with the best chance to pick up a few fish during the lazy, hazy afternoons of summer on western Montana’s rivers.

G

rasshoppers are a staple of the summer fly box. They come in a myriad of shapes, sizes and colors.

There are the old-school patterns – Dave’s, Joe’s, Whitlock’s – that are tied mostly with natural hairs, hackles and fibers. And there’s a new generation – Chernobyl, Mystery Meat, Turk’s Tarantula – many of which are tied with foam and other synthetic materials.

Fishing with hoppers can be fun because bigger flies are easier to cast and see on the water, and they can elicit powerful strikes from excited trout. But bigger is not always better when it comes to hoppers.

“Everybody wants to tie on a size 6 grasshopper,” Kesel said. “There are a lot more size 14 grasshoppers. There are size 6s out there, but as you can see as you walk through your yard, there are more smaller ones.”

And Kesel has another unique – at least to me – suggestion. He likes to fish grasshoppers, as well as ants and beetles, beneath the surface, like a nymph.

“Have you done that yourself?” Kesel asks.

Well, yes, but not on purpose.

“It works, doesn’t it?” Kesel says.

“Everybody says, ‘My fly sunk, but I still hooked a fish,’ and yet every time it sinks, you hook one.”

Cox has tried the same tactic.

“I’ve done that in the swirlies quite a bit, in the foam eddies, and it’s pretty effective,” Cox said. “When I move into food collection areas, it can be very good.”

There are hopper patterns that are tied specifically to be fished beneath the surface, like the conehead drowned hopper. Kesel ties his own, but has suggestions for those who don’t.

“Buy a grasshopper without a post, without any strike indicators to it,” he said.

“Make sure it’s a low floater, coat it with something to make it sink and then fish it just like you would a nymph.”

With hoppers, as with any terrestrial, some common sense goes a long way in

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missoula magazine

17

summer fly box

Grasshoppers are a staple of the summer fly box. A high-floating hopper tied with foam and other synthetic material can be used as a strike indicator when used in tandem with a dropper or subsurface fly. determining success.

“These things are coming from the banks,” said Kesel, offering advice on the best locations to fish. “And below tree branches, below trees that hang over the water.”

“And the shady banks, too,” Cox adds. “That’s huge. That lower Clark Fork, there’s almost nowhere where that’s exemplified more clearly. On those blistering days, you can go along where there’s nothing, nothing, nothing and then you get to the lefthand bank and you have those pine trees coming over and that’s where you get your action.”

G

rasshoppers also make fine strike indicators when used as part of a hopper-and-dropper rig.

By tying a nymph – or any other subsurface fly like a sunken ant or beetle – below the hopper, you can double your chances of a hook-up.

“Obviously, you choose a high-floating grasshopper-style fly,” Kesel said. “Then I tie a clinch knot to the bend of that hook. Then I tie a clinch knot to my nymph. I tell people you want to have that be as long as you can comfortably control. If that’s 18 inches, it’s 18 inches. If it’s 24, it’s 24. The deeper you can get it, the happier you’ll be in the long run.”

Cox gives similar advice. He says he either goes deep with the dropper, as Kesel suggests, or very shallow.

“It’s kind of odd the number of times on those days where I’ve had my best success with droppers that are actually pretty shallow underneath, like nine inches,” Cox said. “These fish that you would think would be on the bottom on the springs, I’ve had really good luck shallow or really deep. There doesn’t seem to be a mid-column feed going on. They’re either on the bottom or just below the surface.

“I also focus on riffles with the more oxygenated water.”

Some other possibilities for droppers include pheasant-tails or stonefly nymphs, or something more general like a prince nymph or a copper John.

“I like olive-colored stuff, like olive pheasant tails, the

18

missoula magazine

beerhead emergers, even though a lot of the smaller things represent baetis, which aren’t going on at that time,” Cox said.

I

have generally fished ants and beetles only in food collection areas like backwaters and eddies. They can be particularly effective in areas where the water isn’t moving or is moving very slowly. Trout get into those spots and cruise around, looking for meals of opportunity.

But toward the end of last summer, I started using a parachute black ant pattern while prospecting anywhere along the stream.

Let’s just say I’ll have a lot more ant patterns in my summer fly box from now on.

“The ants are evil, absolutely evil,” Cox said. “I’ve had amazing luck on the Blackfoot with ants, to the point where I’ve caught a fair number of bull trout on them. Not the monstrous bulls, but up to 19-20 inches. They’ll take it on the surface.

“I had an 18-inch bull come up and swim right past the Dave’s hopper to eat the little ant. It wasn’t even a flying ant. He swam right past the big-ass hopper to eat the little ant.”

The sheer numbers of ants available make them a logical choice for those slow summer afternoons.

“When you are casting your terrestrials in August and early September, the bug life in the water is minimal,” Kesel said. “That means that those fish are looking for anything that’s food. How many ants do you think are walking around this area? They’re falling in the water all the time. That’s why it works.

“They’re small enough that they’re easy to make drift correctly and they’re small enough that it’s hard (for the fish) to find something wrong with them, unlike a size 6 grasshopper.”

And if all else fails, there’s always that big pine tree and a stogie.

Bob Meseroll is sports editor of the Missoulian and an avid fly fisherman who doesn’t smoke cigars, but has been known to nap under a tree from time to time. He can be reached at 523-5265 or at sportsdesk@missoulian.com.

TMRR

Trout Meadows River Ranch Missoula, Montana TMRR

Trout Meadows River Ranch Missoula, Montana

TMRR

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Trout Meadows River Ranch Missoula, Montana missoula magazine

19

missoula reads

reading montana

t

by barbara theroux

photo illustration by linda thompson

his time of year, libraries, sports shops and bookstores have displays of hiking, camping, fishing and touring books. Locals and visitors look for the best, the one book to give or take to the lake or send to a friend to help explain the people and the places.

We see notes on cocktail napkins, bookmarks or random scraps of paper. Sometimes, the person has no idea what will be best, so we try to suggest the perfect Montana book for seeing and remembering this great place.

There is a wealth of material written about Montana, Montanans and issues of concern to Montanans every year. Here is a partial list of new books to add to your collection this summer:

Fire Season: Field Notes from a Wilderness Lookout by Philip Connors

A decade ago, Philip Connors left work as an editor at the Wall Street Journal and talked his way into a job far from the streets of lower Manhattan: working as one of the last fire lookouts in America. Spending nearly half the year in a seven-by-seven-foot tower, 10,000 feet above sea level in remote New Mexico, his tasks were simple: Keep watch over one of the most fire-prone forests in the country and sound the alarm at the first sign of smoke.

“Fire Season” is Connors’ remarkable reflection on work, our place in the wild and the charms of solitude. The landscape over which he keeps watch is rugged and roadless. It was the first region in the world to be officially placed off limits to industrial machines – and it typically gets hit by lightning more than 30,000 times per year.

Connors recounts his days and nights in this forbidding land, untethered from the comforts of modern life: the eerie pleasure of being alone in his glass-walled perch with only his dog Alice for company; occasional visits from smokejumpers and long-distance hikers; the strange dance of communion and wariness with bears, elk and other wild creatures; trips to visit the hidden graves of buffalo soldiers slain during the Apache wars of the 19th century; and always the majesty and might of lightning storms and untamed fire.

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Recovering a Lost River: Removing Dams, Rewilding Salmon, Revitalizing Communities by Steven Hawley This book provides a powerful argument for why dam removal makes good scientific, economic and environmental sense – and requires our urgent attention.

In the Pacific Northwest, the Snake River and its wilderness tributaries were once some of the world’s greatest salmon rivers. As recently as a halfcentury ago, they retained some of their historic bounty, with millions of fish returning to spawn.

Now, because of four federal dams, the salmon population has dropped close to extinction. Efforts at salmon recovery through fish ladders, hatcheries and even trucking them over the dams have failed.

Steven Hawley, a journalist and self-proclaimed “river rat,” argues that the best hope for the Snake River lies in dam removal, a solution that pits the power authorities and Army Corps of Engineers against a collection of Indian tribes, farmers, fishermen and river recreationists. The river’s health, as he demonstrates, is closely connected to local economies, fresh water rights, energy independence – and even the health of orcas in Puget Sound.

cowboy country of the high plains and truly spectacular river valleys. Its cities and towns provide charm, personality and hospitality, with classic eateries, quaint museums and uniquely Montana activities.

Welsch and Moore, your guides to Big Sky Country, share their favorite places both on and off the beaten track.

This is the newest addition to the “Backroads & Byways” series designed to help you get away for a weekend or longer, to explore your home state or to make plans for free time in an area you don’t know well. Discover the most interesting places to visit on and off the beaten path. Destinations will appeal to foodies, history buffs, families with kids, couples, adventurers, hikers, bikers in short, everyone.

the most prominence, mountain range highpoints, and even county highpoints.

Also included are detailed directions to bagging more than 50 of Montana’s major peaks, with routes ranging from easy trails to bushwhacking and scrambling.

Geology Underfoot in Yellowstone National Park

by Marc S. Hendrix

Peakbagging Montana: A Guide to Montana’s Major Peaks

by Cedron Jones

This book is for hikers who want to know more about mountain climbing or peakbagging. For those who need a definition: Peakbagger (n): a mountain climber whose principal goal is the attainment of a summit, or a specific set of summits. Peakbaggers are often excellent off-trail scramblers and bushwhackers, strong and tough hikers, and well-schooled at map-reading and navigation.

Here you will find basic information about the sport, plus maps and tables of popular peakbagging categories, such as the state’s highest point, mountains with

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Backroads & Byways of Montana: Drives, Day Trips & Weekend Excursions

by Jeff Welsch and Sherry Moore

Montana offers the breathtaking landscapes of Glacier National Park and the Greater Yellowstone region, the mystical

Although it’s also known for wolves, bison and stunning scenery, Yellowstone National Park was established as the world’s first national park in 1872 largely because of its geological wonders. In “Geology Underfoot in Yellowstone Country,” author and geologist Marc Hendrix takes you to more than 20 sites in the park and surrounding region.

Besides covering icons such as Old Faithful and Mammoth Hot Springs, the author visits sites that are less well known, including outcrops of rock deposited by super-fast incendiary flows of hot ash, the glacially sculpted grandeur of the Beartooth and Absaroka mountains witnessed along the Beartooth Highway, and the deadly Madison landslide that killed 28 people in 1959.

The “Geology Underfoot” series encourages you to get out of your car for an up-close look at rocks and landforms. These books inform and enlighten, no matter how much – or how little – geology you already know. What’s more, they’re simply good reading, on-site or at home.

I’ve Never Met an Idiot on the River: Reflections on Family, Photography, and Fly Fishing

by Henry Winkler

This is a great book to share the passion of fishing, words to live by, or at least learn something about dry flies and woolly buggers. “I've Never Meet an Idiot on the River” is Henry Winkler’s collection of everyday wisdom learned from fatherhood, family and fly-fishing.

A veteran of showbiz and a television legend, Winkler’s paramount pastime has always been fishing. It takes him to the outdoors, returning him to nature where he can be away from the busy-ness of everyday life – a “washing machine for your brain,” as Winkler calls it. Standing in the river is a different way of being that allows intuition to rule and important life lessons to make themselves apparent.

Spending time with family on these trips has taught him to be a better father and husband, and gain more out of everyday life. Being in nature has reminded him of how to really see the world, as well as how to understand the importance and value of simplicity.

Courting fish with flies has made him more self-reliant, patient ... and funnier.

Through wading in the waters and casting his line, some might say Henry Winkler has grown a bit wiser, while others might say: “You’ll never meet an idiot on the river.”

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Annie Loughlin 'the Golf Letters: Tee Tales'

written by Bill Speltz

a

nnie Loughlin posed a question of her mother recently, curious about the perpetual frown worn by a

mutual acquaintance.

“My mother looked at me and said, ‘Well don’t you know at some point your face becomes your face?’ ” Annie recalled. “ ‘Whatever you do with it on a daily basis, eventually you can’t change it.’ ” What a wonderfully versatile piece of wisdom.

Suitable for job interviews, special occasions, sticky predicaments and ... golf?

It’s true. Annie has ironclad proof.

Her belief in the strength of a smile has been validated over years of teaching and competing in the game of golf. So much so it’s the underlying theme in a quirky, sometimes funny and introspective book of anecdotes she’s written on her favorite sport.

It’s called “The Golf Letters, Tee Tales,” and it’s as much about taking time to smell the roses as it is about taking the torture out of an unpredictable game. Consider Loughlin’s advice on addressing a golf ball: “I use the analogy of the Dalai Lama, how he always has kind of a grin on his face,” she said. “I don’t know why he does that, but I used to stand over putts and grimace and I started experimenting with a little smile.

“Oh my gosh it really made a difference, kind of relaxed my whole body. You find if you have a grin you can’t really be tense.”

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photographed by Tom Bauer

If only the sport were that simple. If only we could all shoot par wearing wide smiles.

Truth is, par can be part of the problem sometimes.

Expectations soar out of control like a wayward drive and golf becomes too serious, according to Loughlin.

A

respected teaching pro who was recently appointed

by PGA of America president Allen Wronowski to the organization’s 25-member executive teaching committee, Annie says players are leaving golf because they’re overwhelmed. Too much emphasis is placed on results and the tools that supposedly get us there – expensive technology and a textbook swing.

“We have a lot of lapsed golfers right now,” said Loughlin, who splits her time teaching lessons at Canyon River and the University of Montana Golf Course. “I think in a way we’ve kind of lost the fun of it – too intense and people are getting too judgmental about their swings.

“They can’t just go out and have a good time. And there’s no place that really welcomes families to come and play.”

Technique is one of Loughlin’s pet topics. Teaching golf for 22 years in places like Texas, California’s Bay Area and Missoula, she has seen all sorts of different postures and poses. And she’s dealt with plenty of players expecting to find success in 30-minute lessons once a week.

She moved to Montana in 2000 to get away from 30-minute lessons, teaching up to 17 a day in the Golden

Above: Annie Loughlin has taught golf for 22 years, trying to get golfers to lighten up both their grips and their attitudes to get more enjoyment out of the game.

To order Annie Loughlin’s book or find out more about golf and the local teaching pro, log on to: www.loughlingolf.com.

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Loughlin helps Kathy McAllister line up her approach (top), improve her drive (left) and prepare for the game during a recent lesson at the University of Montana Golf Course.

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State. She much prefers taking her time with students, interjecting humor and stressing that the first golfer in Scotland used a stick and a rock and went out and had fun.

“I’ve taken lessons from a lot of pros over the years and Ann Loughlin is the best I’ve ever worked with,” said Steven Pressfield, author of the famous book “The Legend of Bagger Vance.” “Golf is a game of imperfection.

Imperfection equals humor.”

E

ven Loughlin’s advice on grip mechanics has a theme of “lighten up.” She shares in her book the story of a star pupil she worked with in San Francisco.

“Ron Bryant came to me for a lesson and I remember he had perfect mechanics,” she said of the former standout pitcher. “When I checked his grip, oh my gosh it was vise-

“We already know you want to do well, practicing and playing. It’s a matter of getting out of our own way with it.

It took me a long time to get to the point where I didn’t beat myself up over golf. It’s a process. I remember playing in a mini-tour event out in California and I shot par on the front nine and at the turn I started saying to myself, ‘That was a good round for me. Boy if I can shoot this it will be a 72.’ I think I shot a 50 on the back nine. I was really embarrassed and didn’t stay around afterwards to have a beer. I wanted to go to the library and hide in the stacks.”

One way to appreciate golf, Annie suggests, is to consider how fortunate we are to have such accessibility.

In her book, she writes about a group of Korean women visiting Missoula one summer to attend the University of Montana. They asked that she give a lesson.

“ We have a lot of lapsed golfers right now ...

I think in a way we’ve kind of lost the fun of it - too intense and people are getting too judgmental about their swings.”

like 10 times over. As soon as I showed him to lighten that thing up, it helped.

“It’s kind of similar to fly fishing here in Montana. You don’t want to hold that fly rod really tight. You have to keep it light so it flows. The energy flows.”

There are parts of Loughlin’s book that could be experienced whether golfing or fishing. That’s probably not by accident for a woman who has grown to love the Treasure State’s simple pleasures.

Annie’s first anecdote highlights an experience she had playing golf while an eagle circled overhead. Later she touches on owls, squirrels, hawks, fish, cows and bears, careful not to overlook other delights like the value of teeing up a marshmallow.

“The Golf Letters” probably won’t take you more than 30 minutes to read. The impression she leaves will last much longer.

“Golf is a great educator of life,” said Loughlin, who grew up in small-town Iowa and took her PGA player’s ability test from the legendary Harvey Penick in Austin, Texas. “The lessons you learn about recovering, the parallels.

“Let’s say you hit a shot you’re not happy with. Try to pause and let a little time pass. The magic happens in that pause in our daily activities as well as golf in the top of that backswing.”

A

nnie uses her own competitive experiences as a base point to teaching the trappings of golf. We’ll never conquer golf, she warns, but goals are perfectly fine.

“If you listen to a lot of pros when a person is interviewing them before a big round, they always say, ‘Well I’ll see what happens,’ ” Annie said. “That’s the attitude we have to have with this.

The group was grateful for the instruction. Golf is popular but pricey in Korea, so opportunities can be limited.

“I ended up giving them a series of lessons and at the end I said, ‘We’ll go out on the golf course,’ ” she related.

“That was exciting to them. I got them all lined up and got carts and everything, got them to the first tee and all they wanted to do is drive in the carts.

“We drove around for an hour. They were just excited to be on the course. We need more of that for kids to get out there in this country.”

Loughlin says the PGA recently paid a good chunk of money to a consulting firm to find out why the business of golf is “flattening out.” She contends part of the problem is short attention spans. Kids say it takes too much time to play. Some adults say the same.

Sadly, the golden age of golf may have come and gone with Tiger Woods’ legendary status. On the other hand, maybe the game is just experiencing a temporary lull.

All Annie knows is golf is a great game. Well worth another look from all those lapsed golfers out there.

“Just don’t worry so much about performance,” she said. “People have enough stress in their life and you don’t want to add golf into that.

“I learn from golf every day, life lessons that have made me who I am. You can learn a lot about people and their nature when you get paired up. You kind of see how you want to be and how you don’t want to be. You learn we’re all human.”

Bill Speltz is Sunday sports columnist for the Missoulian.

He can be reached at 523-5255 or by email at bill.speltz@lee.net.

Tom Bauer is a Missoulian photographer. He can be reached at 523-5270 or by email at tbauer@missoulian.com.

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Mr. Woodworth Written by BETSY COHEN Photographed by LINDA THOMPSON

h

is name is Jeff RolstonClemmer, but this Missoula home remodeling and design expert might as well go by the name “Mr. Woodworth.”

Over the past few years, Rolston-Clemmer has quietly plied his talents helping homeowners make the houses they love even better.

Although he’s worked on countless homes throughout Missoula, Woodworth Street has become Rolston-Clemmer’s professional home so to speak, his calling card.

In this University of Montana neighborhood, east of Higgins Avenue and south of Beckwith Street, Rolston-Clemmer has transformed six of the houses in the best ways possible – by word of mouth and by coincidence.

“I don’t think any of the homeowners I have worked with recommended me to one another, although I know they all have recommended me to other clients,” Rolston-Clemmer said. “It just sort of happened that I ended up doing so many of the homes on this street.”

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Remodeling and design expert Jeff Rolston-Clemmer has transformed six houses on Woodworth Street in the University of Montana neighborhood.

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t

echnically, two of the homes are on Ronald Avenue, but before the remodels and because they are corner lots, the homes originally had Woodworth Street addresses.

Like most older neighborhoods, this part of Missoula has a diverse sampling of early 19th century homes, Depressionera bungalows, 1940s starter homes and a hodgepodge of more modern “family” houses built between the 1950s and 1970s.

Eclectic, yes. Cookie-cutter no.

“One of Jeff’s greatest gifts is that he knows how to keep the details of the original architect – and despite even changing the size of a home, he still knows how to make the home fit into the neighborhood,” said Emily Greenwald, one of RolstonClemmer’s Woodworth Street clients.

Above: Rolston-Clemmer transformed this former bungalow from one to two stories, while leaving much of the home’s original character intact.

Left: This “before” photo, courtesy of Emily Greenwald, shows the home in its original state.

Below: Emily Greenwald walks through her remodeled home. “He (Rolston) is very thoughtful and respectful of the original structure and to what his clients want,” she says.

“Jeff was referred to me by a friend, and when he came and walked through my home for the first time, I could tell he appreciated the unique characteristics of the house and he appreciated the bones the house had,” she said. “He is very thoughtful and respectful of the original structure and to what his clients want.”

Rolston-Clemmer is so attuned to the history of the homes and their distinct place and presence in the neighborhood, it would be difficult for anyone to guess which homes he designed from any of the street’s many remodels, said Kathi Nickel, who hired Rolston-Clemmer to give her Ronald Avenue home a stunning front porch.

One of the things she admires is the fact that Rolston-Clemmer doesn’t “stamp” his

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work or give it his own signature.

“He happens to be very creative and really works with people to give them what they want, so all of his houses are quite unique,” Nickel said. “I think he is incredibly thoughtful and philosophical about his work, and he deeply considers things like does the house match the homeowner’s personality, do the furniture and house colors reflect their lifestyle?”

b

orn in Billings, RolstonClemmer returned to Montana in the late 1990s after finishing his architecture degree at the University of Arizona.

Because he didn’t take his licensing exam, Rolston-Clemmer calls himself a designer,

Above: A new living room was created with the upstairs addition of Greenwald’s home.

Left: Greenwald stands in the master suite, also part of the second-story expansion.

Below: A small sitting area complements the added stairwell leading to the new upstairs addition.

not an architect, and with his company, Habitare Design Studio, he specializes in home remodels.

“He is quite the accomplished draftsman,” Nickel said, “and he sees all the hidden obstacles, especially the houses with dormers and strange rooflines.”

From a philosophical standpoint, Rolston-Clemmer is a designer who is reluctant to overhaul a home to the point that it no longer reflects its origins or style.

“I strongly feel that it rarely works to convert one style of a home into something else,” Rolston-Clemmer said. “And usually, someone has bought the house because they like it.”

The fun and challenge of remodeling, he said, is “figuring out what are those

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qualities and features, figuring out how to improve the things that aren’t working, and making changes so the rest of the neighborhood doesn’t hate you when you are done with the project.”

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ow, because he has had so much experience working with many of the 1930s- and 1940s-era homes on Woodworth, Rolston-Clemmer said he has an intimate knowledge of the original construction of these typically small-footprint homes.

“Anymore, I know what to expect before I ever walk into a home in this part of town,” Rolston-Clemmer said. “Usually there is a very small kitchen, two small bedrooms and one bathroom. Doorways are narrow and there are few closets.

“I appreciate small homes, but functionally they don’t mesh well with how we live today,” he said. “You can’t really entertain because there is no dining room or it is far too small.”

Yet despite the physical restrictions of these older homes, bigger is not always

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better and newer isn’t always the answer.

Rolston-Clemmer knows this, and that’s why he specializes in remodels.

“So many people fall in love with their neighborhood, and love their homes,” he said. “They just want them to work better and I see no reason to fight that.”

d

avid Schafer, a Woodworth Street homeowner and remodeling first-timer, was initially reluctant to spend money to pay for a designer when he and his wife Deanna were looking to significantly enlarge and update their home a few years ago.

“We, of course, had some ideas about what we wanted to do and Jeff walked through the home, listened to us, and then Above: What once was an attached garage on the left side of the home, is replaced with a kitchen, mud room and side entrance to the Shafer home on Woodworth Street.

Left: Inside the eight-foot addition, a spacious kitchen flows into an expanded dining area that was part of the original home.

Below:Mark Kayll stands in his basement, where Rolston-Clemmer helped the family create a stylish laundry area, and a light and airy living room with French doors as well as a remodeled bathroom. he took our ideas and made them so much better,” Schafer said.

When Rolston-Clemmer suggested the best way to create a larger dining area was to add eight feet to the house, the Schafers swallowed hard but took their designer’s advice.

“He was spot on,” Schafer said. “His advice was great.”

Immediately after and with each passing day of living in their remodeled home, which also included kitchen and mud room additions, and both a main floor and basement remodel, Schafer said he couldn’t be happier.

“When we first started on the project, I thought hiring a designer or an architect was an expensive thing to do, but at the

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Above: David and Deanna Schafer enjoy their remodeled home on Woodworth Street. When we first started on the project, I thought hiring a designer or an architect was an expensive thing to do, but at the end of the project, we realized it was money well spent,” says David.

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end of the project, we realized it was money very well spent.”

“We wanted to stay in the neighborhood because we really like it,” he said. “And the house we have now is the house we want.”

Betsy Cohen is a reporter for the Missoulian. She can be reached at (406) 523-5243 or by email at bcohen@missoulian.com.

Linda Thompson is a photographer for the Missoulian. She can be reached at (406) 523-5270 or by email at lthompson@missoulian.com.

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10 can't miss

summer

events

written by SHERRY DEVLIN

o how do you all make it through those long, dark winters?” a friend from a sunnier clime asked one day.

“Summer,” came my reply.

It is not to be squandered, this all-too-short season of sunshine and late-hour sunsets. The season of plenty in western Montana: plenty of friends a-visiting, backcountry a-calling and blue skies a-beckoning.

In fact, the only bad thing about summer is there’s too much to do and too little time to squeeze it all in. So here at Missoula magazine, we’ve picked 10 “don’t-miss” events from the hundreds on the calendar this summer – just to get you started.

Hurry, though. It’ll be over before you know it!

1

Whitefish Arts Festival

Ahhh ... Whitefish in the summer: heaven! Beautiful scenery, a lifetime of mountains to climb, rivers to float and lakes to lounge alongside. And on July 1-3, the 32nd annual Whitefish Arts Festival, at Depot Park on the corner of Spokane Avenue and Railway Street.

The park is just across the way from the Amtrak train depot, the O’Shaughnessy Cultural Arts Center, the city library, and numerous downtown businesses and restaurants – making a trip to the arts festival a lovely way to spend a day, exploring all that Whitefish has to offer in summer.

Sponsored by Whitefish Christian Academy, the festival draws artists from across the U.S. and features metal sculptures, paintings and photography, woodworking, pottery, jewelry, clothing and home decorations. Also on hand in the park: local food vendors. And, happily, plenty of big old leafy trees for shade!

Hours for this summer’s show are 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. on Friday and Saturday, July 1-2; and 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. on Sunday, July 3.

Admission is free.

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Perry Backus

Bitterroot Glory Days

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For a good, old-fashioned, flag-waving, apple-pie eating time, there’s no beating Bitterroot Glory Days, planned this year on July 1-2 at the Ravalli County Fairgrounds in Hamilton.

There’ll be contests for all ages and interests, food and craft vendors, pony rides, a petting zoo and rodeos at night. Among the competitions: watermelon-eating, patriotic cakes, best-dressed horse (and buggy and bicycle), best Western hat, most fabulous fair-do, and most awesome mustache.

For more information, call (406) 363-3411 or go online to www.ravallicountyfairgrounds.org.

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3

Kurt wilson

Polson Main Street Cherry Festival

What would summertime in western Montana be without Flathead cherries?

Unthinkable!

And what better way to celebrate than by perusing the food and fun at Polson’s yearly cherry festival? Set this year for Saturday and Sunday, July 16-17, the festival will include cherries, more cherries, lots of arts and crafts vendors, a cherry-pie eating contest and cherry-pit spitting contest, a quilt and pillowcase contest and – did I mention – cherries? And lots of yummy food?

Hours are 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. on Saturday the 16th and 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. on Sunday the 17th. Admisison is free.

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linda thompson

The Event at Rebecca Farm

This July 21-24, you’ll find the biggest equestrian event of its kind in the United States, with more than 450 competitors, 350 volunteers and nearly 20,000 spectators, at Kalispell’s Rebecca Farm.

In addition to the competition, there is also a trade fair with arts and crafts and a wide range of food concessions.

The sport of “eventing” is best described as an equestrian triathlon with historic military ties meant to replicate what a horse and rider would master in the cavalry. Dressage is designed to test obedience and the harmony between horse and rider. Cross-country tests endurance.

Show jumping examines precision, agility and technique while jumping over high obstacles and turning when the rider commands.

Want to go? There’s more information online at www.rebeccafarm.org/About_Rebecca_Farm.

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Celtic Festival Missoula

The Garden City’s annual celebration of Celtic culture – food, music and dance – takes place downtown in Caras Park.

Admission is free. Music at the July 30 event will feature Malarkey, the Celtic Dragon Pipe Band and also a fine Celtic band from Spokane, An Dochas, accompanied by the Haran Irish dancers.

This year’s festival will also feature a master Irish storyteller, Michael KasonyO’Malley. In the evening, the uber-popular Young Dubliners will return to the main stage with a hearty dose of Celtic rock. And Highlander beer will be on tap for it all! See for yourself at www.celticfestivalmissoula.com.

Festival Amadeus

Whitefish will be at its summertime loveliest July 31 through Aug. 6, when it hosts Festival Amadeus and its celebration of Mozart, Beethoven and the classics in chamber and orchestra concerts.

This year’s festival begins with a free outdoors concert at Depot Park, featuring the Festival Amadeus Orchestra and young classical saxophone virtuoso Ashu performing music by Glazunov, Piazzolla, Handel and Mozart.

Also scheduled during the week are Italian pianist Roberto Plano, offering a recital of Franz Liszt and joining the orchestra as soloist for Mozart’s dramatic Piano Concerto No. 20 in D minor. Other featured artists include jazzblues-classical trumpet master Adam Rapa, 12-year-old trumpet sensation Natalie Dungey, young violinist Nigel Armstrong, and – from Montana – pianist April Lane and the Bridger and Glacier string quartets.

Want more? Go online to www.gscmusic. org/concerts/festival-amadeus.

7

Michael Gallacher

Bigfork Festival of the Arts

For its 33rd year, the Bigfork Festival of the Arts will be open from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. on Saturday and Sunday, Aug. 6-7. More details are online at www.bigforkfestivalofthearts.com.

The festival, of course, fills the streets of Bigfork with art, crafts, food, music and more. And while you’re in town, you’ll want to check out the town’s Summer Playhouse, art galleries, restaurants, and unique shops on the shore of Flathead Lake. You can even rent a boat, canoe, paddleboat or Jet Ski and enjoy the water.

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8 BITTERROOT SCOTTISH IRISH FESTIVAL August 26-28 Daly Mansion, Hamilton Live Celtic Music Highland Games & Dance Competition Variety of Vendors & Food Daily Tickets - $10 3 Day Tickets - $15 Clan Chieftain Sponsor: For More Info: www.BitterrootScottishIrishFestival.org

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Bitterroot Scottish-Irish Festival

My daughter and I happened upon this festival last summer, while taking a leisurely drive through the Bitterroot Valley. What a feast for the eyes and ears! Bagpipes!

Highland dancing! Those rambunctious Highland games!

This year’s festival is set for Aug. 26-28 on the grounds of the Marcus Daly Mansion in Hamilton. Plan to arrive early in the day, as the event drew 3,000 participants last year and promises an even larger assemblage in 2011.

Dozens of Scottish and Irish clans take advantage of this gathering for minireunions, and vendors provide traditional foods and handcrafted wares. Among the competitions are pipe and drum bands, modern bagpiping, Highland dancing and Highland games. Historical, musical and cultural presentations are also assured, as are special events just for children.

For more information, go online to www.bitterrootscottishirishfestival.org.

David Erickson

Tom Bauer

David Erickson

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River City Roots Festival

Late August. Downtown Missoula. Jam-band. Bluegrass. Folk. Rock.

Hometown beer. Homegrown fun.

Must be the 2011 edition of the River City Roots Festival, set for Saturday and Sunday, Aug. 27-28, on the streets of downtown Missoula.

Leftover Salmon, a pioneer of the jam-band scene, will headline this summer’s event – which, as always, is free and certifiably fun. Their performance comes Saturday night, with the warmup provided by Acoustic Syndicate, a folk/rock/bluegrass band from western North Carolina.

And did I mention there’s more than music – although music is the main attraction at the Roots Fest. Besides the live performances at the big stage on West Main Street, organizers promise a juried art show, children’s events and a four-mile fun run. Here’s the online link: www.rivercityrootsfestival.com.

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Crown of the Continent Guitar Workshop and Festival

This weeklong workshop and festival has as its home the lovely Flathead Lake Lodge, just outside Bigfork. Participants enroll in workshops in one of six styles of guitar and attend nightly performances by some of the finest players of each style.

Also offered is a beginners’ course for people who want to learn to play guitar while in the company of some of the world’s greatest players. There will also be a watercolor workshop available for spouses and older children, taught by renowned Western artist Nancy Cawdrey.

The 2011 workshop and festival runs Aug. 28-Sept. 4. Confirmed artists-in-residence are Joe Bonamassa, Lee Ritenour, Scott Tennant and Steve Lukather. You can get things rolling by going online to cocguitarfoundation.org. missoula magazine

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Michael Gallacher

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Michael Gallacher

ecently, while searching for a photograph in the Missoulian’s archives, I noticed a recurring theme: In town, on the river and in the mountains, dogs can be seen working their way into our photographs. It’s no secret that Montanans love their canine friends, and so perhaps it’s not surprising to see them featured so often on the pages of our newspaper.

Sometimes they are the focus, sometimes a single outtake between shots.

So how often do the four-legged creatures find their way into our pictures?

Let’s just say often enough that there are plenty more where these photos came from. The old adage “Never work with children or animals,” attributed to comedian W.C. Fields, may be sage advice for photographers and filmmakers alike, but as a photojournalist, the subject of your photograph often finds you.

And we are so glad they do.

Linda Thompson, Missoulian photographer

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Michael Gallacher

Linda Thompson Linda Thompson

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Linda Thompson Michael Gallacher

Linda Thompson

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Michael Gallacher

Kurt Wilson

Linda Thompson Michael Gallacher

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What’s in a name? written by ROB CHANEY photographed by TOM BAUER

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K

ari Gunderson was sitting in a clearcut on the edge of the Mission Mountains Wilderness last April when a snowmobile popped over the crest and stopped 10 feet in front of her.

The Wilderness Act of 1964 forbids motorized use of wilderness areas. Gunderson is the only federally designated wilderness ranger in the Mission Mountains. Standing on her crosscountry skis, reviewing her options, she started chatting about how good it was to be outdoors. The rider recalled how, as a kid, he used to snowmobile deep into the basin.

“The word ‘wilderness’ didn’t come up,” Gunderson recalled. “We just both agreed: ‘Yes, this is a beautiful area.’ Instead of going for confrontation – my values beat yours – neither of us are completely right or wrong. We didn’t end up yelling at each other.”

The rider turned his machine east and stayed on the Flathead National Forest side of the line. And Gunderson was left pondering exactly what it is she’s protecting.

An angler casts into Upper Cold Lake in the Mission Mountains Wilderness in 2010. The balance between preserving wilderness and managing it for public use is under constant debate. missoula magazine

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Above: Kari Gunderson, the only federally designated wilderness ranger in the Mission Mountains, hikes a trail in the Missions.

Right: A high mountain valley in the Absaroka-Beartooth Wilderness is largely untouched by human influence. Other parts of that and other wilderness areas have seen human impact, but are then managed as actual wilderness once designated by Congress as such.

T

ype “wilderness” into the Google search bar and the first response is the Wilderness Water Park Resort in Wisconsin Dells.

Webster’s dictionary derives wilderness from the Old English wilddeorn: of wild beasts.

But Scottish philosopher Jay Hansford Vest pushed back to Old Gothonic, where wilderness meant “self-willed land” in the sense that a wild animal is selfwilled and not domesticated by others.

The difference may dance on the head of a pin, but we’re heading for a hoedown.

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Consider: If wilderness is a place for wild beasts like grizzly bears to endure, what happens when we’ve got too many bears in the Absaroka-Beartooth Wilderness and not enough in the Cabinet Mountains Wilderness? What if the only way we can save the native cutthroat trout in the Bob Marshall Wilderness is to poison the transplanted rainbows?

The Wilderness Act defines its protectorates as “an area where the earth and its community of life are untrammeled by man.” How does that track with President Obama’s America’s Great Outdoors initiative and the “No Child Left Inside” movement to get more people into the woods? We may not trammel it, but what if we fill it with knapweed?

Although it’s not mentioned in the title, Montana Sen. Jon Tester’s Forest Jobs and Recreation Act proposes adding 660,000 acres of new wilderness to the state. Tester’s bill should see a crowded debate docket this summer, as perhaps half a dozen more members of Congress offer their own wilderness legislation. The U.S. Forest Service also confronts wilderness management this year in its struggle to draft a new Forest Planning Rule.

So we really need to know what we’re talking about.

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he Wilderness Act of 1964 was eight years in the making, and when it passed only 12 senators and one representative voted against it.

“You can’t get much more bipartisan than that,” said Missoula’s Bill Worf. Today, he’s nearly 85 and blind. Back then, Worf was supervising the Bridger National Forest Primitive Area in Wyoming. His innovative practices drew the attention of thenSecretary of Agriculture Orville Freeman.

“He gave me a call and said, ‘Mr. Worf, would you come to Washington and help implement this act?’ ” Worf said. “I was one man, with one secretary who stood about five feet tall, and we were the wilderness policy developers for the United States Forest Service.”

The act assured “that an increasing population … does not occupy and modify all areas within the United States … leaving no lands designated for preservation and protection in their natural condition(.)” To Worf, that meant wilderness was not a recreation playground, or even a wildlife management area. It was a place

“where man steps back and lets Mother Nature run the show.”

It was also whatever Congress said it was, former Montana Sen. John Melcher once explained to Worf as the two men flew over Melcher’s proposed Mission Mountains Wilderness. Worf asked what was to be done with the pockets of heavy logging, roads and other human impacts.

“He said, ‘Congress has designated it as wilderness – you take it from there,’ ” Worf recalled. “Just because it wasn’t wilderness when Congress made it, our responsibility was to start managing it as though it were actual wilderness.”

In other words, it doesn’t matter what people have done to a place before Congress acts. Snowmobile trails, military training, fish stocking – once the Big W stamp goes on, Worf said, all that stops.

“It might be that people want more, but we may already have more than the nation wants,” Worf said. “We need to make a decision about each piece of ground – it’s wide open.”

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“

there’s multiple values you have to choose between

”

Hikers pause on a high plateau in the Absaroka-Beartooth Wilderness. The desires of multiple users, the intrinsic values of the land and water and the management of the resources all complicate the definition of wilderness.

T

he same year the Wilderness Act was passed, U.S. Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart observed he was inadequate to the task of legally defining hard-core pornography, “but I know it when I see it(.)” Gunderson pulls a similar trick in the Missions with what she calls “the Authority of the Resource.” The simple beauty of the place commands respect.

Unfortunately, respect doesn’t come with an owner’s manual.

And finding a legal definition of wilderness pales compared to legally defining what to do with it.

This spring, David Cole and Laurie Yung published “Beyond Naturalness: Rethinking Park and Wilderness Stewardship in an Era of Rapid Change.” On their first page, they state: “We cannot preserve parks and wilderness by drawing a line around them and leaving them alone.” So what are we preserving? If it’s something called “naturalness,” the authors argue we don’t know what that is anymore.

“I used to feel fortunate to work in wilderness, because I had a clear set of goals I was working toward,” Cole said from his office in the Aldo Leopold Building on the University of Montana campus. He experimented with restoring over-used campsites in wilderness areas. If the plants grew back, he got an answer.

“It wasn’t like multiple-use areas,” Cole said. “But now I realize even in wilderness, there’s multiple values you have to choose between. One characteristic of wilderness was the ‘outstanding opportunity for solitude.’ Now there’s a wilderness lake an hour’s drive and an hour’s hike from Seattle. You pass a group every three minutes. Is that OK? Or should we tell 80 percent of the people to stay home? I don’t know.”

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or decades, the fate of wilderness has been decided in Washington, D.C., with players in suits jockeying for time in congressional hearings. Yung suggested the local watering hole offered a better negotiating table, where hikers and motorcycle riders and mountain bikers and horse outfitters and hotel owners and fur trappers could keep the needs of their neighbors as well as the nation in mind.

“That’s not how we usually think about land management,” Yung said. “We’re used to duking it out on the national scale. But when you get down to the local level, you see more innovative ideas and creativity.”

Cole’s office window looks across a mown lawn to a brick wall.

Yung works in a third-floor garret high in Main Hall, where she can see a sea of treetops that obscure the busy campus below. But they’re both in Montana, and they consider this a good place to lead the national debate about wilderness.

“We’re not in Los Angeles, where people don’t know where their water comes from,” Yung said. “The potential to have that conversation here is really great.”

Rob Chaney covers natural resources for the Missoulian. He can be reached at (406) 523-5382 or by email at rchaney@missoulian.com.

Tom Bauer is a Missoulian photographer. He can be reached at (406) 523-5270 or by email at tbauer@missoulian.com.

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written by Betsy Cohen photographed by Linda Thompson

The Depot A tall and a short Skinny Margarita await summer guests at the Depot in downtown Missoula.

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fter a long winter and soggy spring, Missoula, you deserve to lounge the summer away on the many famous outdoor patios and decks that make our city so hospitable.

As if anyone needs encouragement to embrace the season, here’s one: Sipping a cool drink on a hot day will be even more enjoyable this year.

All across town, the mixologists at Finn & Porter, the Iron Horse Brew Pub and the Depot spent the winter plotting and planning extraordinary adult beverages that lend themselves to indulgent, languorous hot days and nights and the joy of doing nothing but taking in the pleasures of summer with a cool but slow-sip experience among like-minded company.

The following are some of Missoula’s many new deck enhancements:

A

t the Iron Horse, which will have a newly remodeled and swanky upstairs deck on which to dine and drink this season, expect several new martinis on the menu, with the standout offering called the “Sparkling Hibiscus,” said Kyle Riggs, general manager.

This exotic concoction is a melding of Grey Goose pear-flavored vodka, Domaine de Canton ginger liqueur, sparkling white wine and a wild, edible blood-red hibiscus flower from Australia.

The flower, Riggs said, has become the “it” ingredient at sophisticated hot spots in hip cities and is a dramatic ingredient at the bottom of a drink, where it sits waiting as the final reward to be eaten.

Remarkably and surprisingly, the flower tastes like – but better than – a raspberry fruit roll-up, Riggs said.

But the real temptation of the season are the two sangria offerings Riggs has perfected and taste-tested among his discriminating crew.

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“We will be offering a red and white wine sangria, which we are really excited about,” Riggs said. “I have these wonderful decantors that it will be served in and the sangria is something special we are rolling out with the new deck, which will be something else – something unlike anything in Missoula.”

The red wine sangria will have malbec wine as a base, and will include two shots of Stoli Blueberi along with apples, blackberry, blueberries, strawberries, oranges and pineapples that are soaked together for 48 hours before serving. When decanted, 12 ounces of gingerale are added to the drink.

The white wine sangria will have sauvignon blanc as the base, and also two shots of limoncello, and such fruits as strawberries, blackberries and blueberries.

“It’s a drink that looks cool, and sangria is definitely a summer drink,” Riggs said. “Sitting outside on our deck and drinking wine sangria on a warm summer evening – you can’t do better than that anywhere in the world.”

A

t the Depot, every summer a certain drink takes off and becomes the season’s sensation, said Brian Hall, bar manager.

This year, early signs point to the “Skinny Margarita.”

“It’s like a margarita – all the great taste and look – but without all the calories,” Hall explained.

Beautiful to look at, cold and refreshing, the skinny cocktail is the perfect deck companion for healthconscious Missoulians and their summertime guests.

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“It is essentially a margarita without the sugary juices,” Hall said. “The way we do it is we use fresh limes and cointreau, then we crush the lime into the liqueur, add tequila, ice and a little bit of soda water.

“It’s the soda water that takes the place of Rose’s Lime Juice, orange juice or other sweet and sour mixes.”

I

f patio surfing is to be done down by the Clark Fork River, expect cool relief from two specialty martinis at Finn & Porter – the Wiki Waki Woo and the Huckleberry Lemondrop, said John Melchior, general manager.

The Wiki Waki Woo is an exotic mixture of vodka, tequila, amaretto, triple sec, fruit juice and rum. The Huckleberry Lemondrop is made with huckleberry vodka, triple sec and lemonade.

“We have a lot of new refreshing and innovative drinks on our summer menu,” Melchior said. “It’s nice to have new things to enjoy and to have something to watch the river go by.

“We have a wonderful deck by the river, and it is a wonderful place to spend some time.”

Betsy Cohen is a reporter for the Missoulian. She can be reached at (406) 523-5253 or by email at bcohen@missoulian.com.

Linda Thompson is a photographer at the Missoulian.

She can be reached at (406) 523-5270 or by email at lthompson@missoulian.com.

the brink gallery

LEFT: Iron Horse The Iron Horse Brew Pub offers both white and red wine sangria, based on sauvignon blanc and malbec respectively.

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downtown missoula

Top: IRON HORSE Bubbles swirl around a hibiscus flower in the Iron Horse’s Sparkling Hibiscus martini.

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bottom: finn & porter Lemondrop is shown beside the Wiki Waki Woo, right, a mixture including vodka, tequila, amaretto, triple sec, fruit juice and rum.

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Ranch on the

written by Lori Grannis photographed by Tom Bauer

T

hirty-three miles from the Missoula County Courthouse, the Resort at Paws Up sits, a paragon of Western history.

In 1806, Captain Meriwether Lewis of the Lewis and Clark Expedition is said to have had a picnic atop Sentinel Rock – a slab of granite that sits smack dab in the middle of what is now known as the Resort at Paws Up. Near the turn of the last century, Paul Greenough purchased property adjoining the ranch and built many of the structures still used on the working ranch today.

Between 1927 and 1965, the property fell from hand to hand and was then purchased by Jon and Land Lindbergh – sons of the famed aviator – who operated it as a hereford outfit under the name Lindbergh Cattle Company.

It passed to two more families before Dave and Nadine Lipson purchased the property, attached land leases to it, and dubbed it “Paws Up” – after a dog’s convivial double-paw greeting.

The pair added 150,000 square feet of new buildings, 100 miles of new fencing, and turned Paws Up into one of the top 10 black angus operations in Montana.

In 2005, the Resort at Paws Up opened hearth and home as a resort, and has accommodated everyone from big-city entrepreneurs, to worldfamous rock stars, to everyday Montanans.

Yet despite a guest’s station, there’s one thing each has in common with the other: At some point in time, everyone must satisfy their hunger.

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Trough, one of the dining rooms at the Resort at Paws Up, mimics a tent in dĂŠcor and serves family style dining. missoula magazine

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“

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try my best to take small windows of a produce season, and create something special.

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�

Above: Executive chef Wes Coffel uses his knowledge of food’s chemistry with Paws Up’s menu, which includes elk, venison, pheasant, beef and trout.

Right: Paws Up offers dining to nonguests of the resort with a full menu.

deck situated just beyond “Pomp” – the Paws Up formal dining room – is the best house seat in nature’s grand theater, and an idyllic snapshot of majestic set design: 37,000 acres and 120 miles of trails that beat a path to the 1.5 million acres beyond that are the Bob Marshall Wilderness.

A dynamic cast of nature’s characters debut daily here too – not only as herds in a migratory field path, but inside, on the plate.

Elk, venison, pheasant, beef and river trout all find their way onto Paws Up menus. After almost four years here, executive chef Wes Coffel has found a way with ranch fare that city-bound chefs might not grasp.

The resort’s new menu reflects that mastery, revealing subtle changes that draw the corners of the mouth east and west: Dried black trumpet-crusted elk loin is served over steel-cut oats, steeped in stock and apple juice – a wildly creative play on tired risotto – then layered with kitchen-smoked kohlrabi and slices of sheep-and-goat Mobay cheese with grapevine ash. It is the menu’s runaway victor.

The trumpet mushroom crust – candied in a painstaking process – is at least a partial nod to a

technique Coffel learned from four-star New York chef Daniel Humm, when the Eleven Madison Park impresario was in-house in a starring role at the 2008 Montana Master Chef food and wine weekend.

“I’ve picked up some interesting techniques from the chefs who come here each fall, and it’s fun to watch how they work – they’re all so different,” says Coffel, who has amassed a few techniques in his bag of tricks in the years since coming to the resort.

But while he has witnessed chefs flexing their molecular gastronomy muscles, it isn’t really his cup of tea. He sees cooking more as a firm grasp of food’s chemistry than as a science experiment that helps chemicals mimic the likeness of food.

From foundation techniques such as sous-vide and braising that break down collagen, connective tissue, muscle and fat cells at precise temperatures to tenderize, to adding acid to vegetables to prevent a loss of color brilliance, it’s what food’s own chemistry does that excites, he says.

But it’s taking that science and making sense of it for 200 guests per night in the height of a hectic summer season– that is what Coffel does best.

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Taste

Crean is a herder of sorts. Down in the Paws Up wine cellar, the food and beverage manager tends a flock of nearly 4,000 bottles of wine that represent some 160 worldwide vineyard labels destined for guest tables. And if that sounds like a vast horde, it’s not. All of those corks are popped within a single season, since the resort isn’t in the business of cellaring wines for years on end.

In the last year or two, Paws Up has fallen away from the multitude of wines they once featured from Europe. They still retain some, but now it’s an eclectic, focused collection of bottles from small producers that most don’t have an opportunity to taste at the average fine dining restaurant in Missoula: An Edi Simi Pinot Grigio, or a Merry Edwards Pinot Noir.

Regional varietals from Oregon’s Willamette Valley and from Walla Walla, Wash., owe to Crean’s many trips there in the off-season, but it’s the pocket producers with small, select portfolios that keep guests enamored.

“I have gotten to know guests who return each year, and I have their favorite wine ready for them – they don’t even have to ask,” says Crean, who meets daily with waitstaff to introduce new wines and lend education.

It’s the way guests come to learn of a new wine, he says.

“We’re also seeing a real trend in half bottles,” says Crean.

It’s a way to have a glass of white with an appetizer and a glass of red with a dinner entree without ordering two full bottles.

Expert bartender and mixologist Allen Crabtree is also in the business of trends: He creates his own mixers by infusing flower petals, fruits, peppers and herbs. His Bloody Mary mix is a favorite – an orchestra of roasted-and-pureed vegetables like celery, carrots, garlic, shallots and jalapeno peppers.

He even makes stir sticks out of Jolly Rancher hard candies.

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resort’s newly appointed chief executive officer, Tina Harlow, says Coffel’s new menu is the culmination of many late-night conversations the two had about how minute twists can turn a classic into something slightly more whimsical and extraordinary.

At a resort like Paws Up, she says, dinner should be an experience that subtly speaks to the rest of what a guest may have done earlier that day – trail rides, fly-fishing, rappelling – and ultimately transforms the dining table into a fullcircle destination experience.

Harlow’s own start in catering – including lunch for Lady Bird Johnson, and fetes for the Dallas Museum of Art – and 20 years managing a portfolio of the world’s most elite hotel properties, gives her a bit of dining caché.

From Caneel Bay Resort in St. John, U.S. Virgin Islands, to The Ventana Inn & Spa in Big Sur, Calif., to the uberexclusive Lodge at Koele on the island of Lanai in Hawaii, she’s seen and hired many fine chefs in her day, and thinks Coffel is an incredible discovery in the wilds of Montana.

“Offering food that is very specific and true to locale is important to the whole experience here at Paws Up,” says Harlow.

“I can go to restaurants in town and get anything, but here, I am able to savor food with a ranch flare, and Wes got that immediately.”

The other benefit of offering food with a ranch flare is also obvious: Give Chicagoans, New Yorkers and other visitors a taste of what’s local, and they’ll return again and again.

“I try my best to take small windows of a produce season, and create something special,” says Coffel. He also sources unique and fleeting ingredients found right on the ranch – fiddlehead ferns, ramps and the ephemeral morel – and places them in the middle of a dish.

“In fall, I preserve produce for winter menus,” he says. Tomato jam, onion marmalade and preserved lemons all partner with menu proteins once the snow flies here.

the moment guests arrive at this rustic luxury enclave in the Blackfoot River Valley, they are immersed in ranch nomenclature: “Tank” is a sojourn stocked with libations and

fine wines to sip in the hour or so before dinner.

The canvas veneers and camping artifacts that have re-imagined the casual “Trough” from a room to a tent, offers three meals of family style dining – all fit for cattle barons and especially suited to families with kids.

Off in the distance, chuckwagon dinner rides serve up local color and pit-cooked bison prime rib or salmon near one of four river camps, but it’s “Pomp” – the resort’s formal dining room – that beckons guests in for a taste of nature’s local bounty served on a silver platter: flamegrilled Angus striploin with buttermilk mashed potatoes, and Dutch-oven morel mushrooms, bone-in bison ribeye with fingerling potato-and-bacon ragout with horseradish cream, and free-range chicken with trout-bean stew, smoked bacon, and sorrel salad with crispy fiddlehead fern.

The resort hosts fly-fishing and nature enthusiasts, families and honeymooning couples from around the globe in late spring, summer and early fall. Hearty breakfasts lead to hard play, and at day’s end all lay their heads to rest in luxurious accommodations that place feather beds beneath a billion stars.

But it’s in the shoulder seasons – from October to December, and from February to April – that Harlow says she wants to see more of the surrounding community.

“Since coming to Missoula, most people I talk to don’t know that they can come up here and have dinner,” says Harlow. “I’d like to see that change.”

It’s a little tougher to get a dining room reservation in summer, she says, but it is possible, and if not there, the deck is open, so people should call.

Tank and Trough offer a full menu, and the same ranch-steeped experience on the edge of a million-dollar view. Fall, winter and early spring afford the best opportunities for local diners.

For reservations, call (406) 244-5200.

Look for cooking classes, an expanded events calendar and other upcoming culinary opportunities.

Lori Grannis is a free-lance food writer. She can be reached at 360-8788 or by email at llgrannis@gmail.com.

Tom Bauer is a photographer for the Missoulian. He can be reached at 523-5270 or by email at tbauer@missoulian.com.

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buttermilk yogurt pancakes These pancakes are so light they practically fly off the plate. The combination of buttermilk and yogurt gives the pancakes a taste that suggests a sourdough starter, but the texture tells you no starter was used. You can prepare the dry and liquid ingredients separately the night before and combine the two the next morning for breakfast or brunch. Serve these cakes hot off the griddle with butter and syrup.

ingredients

directions

1 ½ cups unbleached all-purpose flour

Measure the flour by spooning it into dry measuring cups, filling the cups to overflowing, and sweeping off the excess with a metal spatula. In a medium bowl, whisk together thoroughly the flour, sugar, baking powder, baking soda, and salt.

1/4 cup sugar 1 3/4 teaspoons baking powder 3/4 teaspoon baking soda 1/2 teaspoon salt

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1 cup buttermilk 2/3 cup plain low-fat yogurt 1 large egg 2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract 2 tablespoons vegetable oil 1 ½ cups fresh huckleberries or blueberries or chocolate chips (optional)

In a separate bowl, whisk together the buttermilk, yogurt, egg, vanilla and oil. Add the liquid mixture to the dry ingredients, and fold both together gently with a rubber spatula just until the dry ingredients are thoroughly moistened. It is not necessary to break up any small lumps of flour. Batter will be thick. Let stand about 10 minutes.

Heat an electric griddle to 350 degrees. (If your griddle doesn’t have a thermostat, or is not electric, adjust the heat to medium-high.) Lightly coat the griddle with cooking oil or nonstick cooking spray.

For each pancake, spoon about 1/4 cup batter onto the griddle and spread to a 3- to 4-inch circle. If using berries or chocolate chips, sprinkle them over the pancakes.

When the tops of the pancakes are full of broken bubbles and start to lose their glossy look, in 2 to 3 minutes, flip them and cook until the undersides are golden brown, 1 to 2 minutes more. Serve immediately.

Makes about twelve 4-inch pancakes.

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ingredients

directions

Preheat a waffle iron. To measure the flour, stir the flour, dip a 1-cup dry measuring cup into the flour filling it to overflowing, and sweep off the excess. Put the flour into a 1/2 cup sugar medium-size bowl and repeat to measure the second cup.

1 teaspoon baking soda Add the sugar, baking soda, salt, and cinnamon, and whisk 1/2 teaspoon salt together thoroughly.

1/2 to 1 teaspoon In a large bowl, whisk the eggs to combine the yolks and ground cinnamon whites well, and stir in the buttermilk and butter. Add the dry ingredients and stir gently with a rubber spatula only 4 large eggs until the batter is smooth or has a few lumps. Do not beat or 2 cups buttermilk overmix or the waffles will be tough.

1/4 cup butter, melted Bake the waffles following the waffle iron manufacturers’ and cooled slightly instructions, buttering the grates or coating them with oil or cooking spray before making each waffle. Serve as soon as possible.

2 cups unbleached all-purpose flour

Makes about six 8-inch round waffles or 10 4-by-8-inch square waffles.

C HIC C L OTHING GOR GE OU S GIFTS

These crunchy yet tender waffles, lightly spiced with cinnamon, can be served for breakfast, brunch, or even dessert. For breakfast or brunch, butter them generously and pass maple or agave syrup separately. A spoonful of yogurt or sour cream along with a few berries makes a more substantial meal. For dessert, spread the waffles with fruit jam and top them with whipped cream. Sprinkle with raspberries, blueberries or huckleberries or with sliced peaches.

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JAZZY JE WE L R Y

buttermilk cinnamon waffles

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itty-bitty flies

...continued from page 15 that it floated directly down to the trout’s feeding station.

I learned that the trout would shy away if there was the lightest unnatural drag on the fly, or if the leader passed over the fish ahead of the fly. If the presentation was offline more than about six inches to the side, it inevitably was studiously ignored.

This was, indeed, tough fishing. And it got tougher.

That first day, I managed to hook five rainbows. And five straight times the fish snapped my 7X tippet, either when I set the hook or on their first jump.

Frustrated, but determined to solve this fishing predicament, I came back the next day. This time I tried a slightly thicker 6X tippet, which is about 3-pound test, and had better luck. Using as much restraint as I could muster to set the hook gently, I netted a couple of rainbows between 14 and 16 inches. Still, I had one larger fish break the line the first time it cartwheeled out of the water.

For the next few weeks, up until the middle of September, I continued to fish the Trico hatch on the Bitterroot and Clark Fork rivers. And I continued to experiment

with my tackle and technique.

Gradually, I increased my tippet size to 5X, and even 4X, while also trying larger, size 18 imitations. I was pleased to find 5X – about 4-pound test – was a successful compromise of thickness and strength, as long as I employed a downstream drift presentation.

Trout feeding on Tricos will take a size 20 imitation more readily than a size 18.

But, for me, the hook-holding advantage of the 18s outweighs the occasional refusals.

I

n more recent years, I’ve refined my Trico tactics even further.

These days, my imitation of choice is a “double Trico” that I tie on a size 16 hook.

The pattern is essentially two size 20 tricos tied one behind the other, with just fine black thread for each separate body, and for wings, high-quality grizzly dry-fly hackles – one spun sparsely at the eye of the hook and the other about in the middle, between the two bodies. Tricos have prominent, split tails, so I tie in a few splayed white or dun hackle fibers at the bend of the hook.

The pattern is surprisingly easy to tie. And the size 16 hook gives me added

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missoula magazine

confidence when playing large trout, with a bonus of being easier to see on the water.

Sometimes I trim the hackle on the bottom to make the wings float flush on the water and look more realistic. But I don’t think it’s necessary.

I have a friend who ties a “triple Trico” pattern on a size 12 hook. But I think that may be overdoing it.

The downstream drift presentation I prefer for Trico fishing is definitely easier from a boat than when wade fishing.

Local guides often assist their clients fishing the Trico hatch by tying a tiny mayfly imitation – either a dry or a very small nymph – on a dropper below a hopper or other large buoyant bug. I can vouch that this trick works … at least sometimes.

And, fortunately, sometimes those super-selective trout will even deign to take the hopper.

Another little ruse I employ as a fallback measure for fooling temperamental Trico sippers is a size 18 royal Wulff. The combination of peacock herl, red floss, and white wing sets this offering apart from the parade of black-and-silver Tricos and seems to grab a trout’s attention often enough to be effective. It might suggest a small ant or other terrestrial insect. For whatever reason, this ploy seems to work particularly well on the lower Clark Fork.

The best Trico fisherman I know is Bob Meseroll, the Missoulian’s sports editor, who also is a regular contributor of flyfishing articles to the newspaper as well as this magazine. But Bob initially honed his fly-fishing skills on the highly discriminating trout and ultra-difficult spring-creek-like conditions of the Henry’s Fork of the Snake River in Idaho. And he ties exquisite imitations – both the dun and spinner variations – of Tricos and other flies. He’s got an edge on most of us.

But some of the little stratagems I’ve mentioned here have definitely helped me take advantage of one of the greatest lateseason fly-fishing opportunities in western Montana – the Trico hatch.

It’s not the easiest fishing, but at least now I’m not so intimidated by the dreaded “itty-bitties.”

Daryl Gadbow is a former Missoulian reporter, now a full-time fisherman and occasional free-lance writer. Michael Gallacher is a Missoulian photographer. He can be reached at (406) 523-5270 or by email at mgallaher@missoulian.com.

missoula reads

...continued from page 23

The Bitterroot & Mr. Brandborg

by Fredrick H. Swanson

Fredrick Swanson tells the story of Guy M. Brandborg and his impact on the practices of the U.S. Forest Service. As supervisor of the Bitterroot National Forest from 1935 to 1955, Brandborg engaged in a management style that promoted not only the well-being of the forest community, but also the social and economic welfare of the local people.

By relying on selective cutting, his goal was to protect the watersheds and wildlife habitats that are devastated by clear-cutting, and to prevent the job losses that follow such practices. Following his retirement, he became concerned that his agency was deviating from the practice of sustained-yield management of the forest’s timberlands, and led a highly visible public outcry that became known as “the Bitterroot controversy.”

Brandborg’s behind-the-scenes lobbying contributed materially to the passage of the National Forest Management Act of 1976, the single most important law affecting public forestry since the creation of the Forest Service.

afternoon, millions tuned in to the small screen to see this real-life action hero tempt death.

Behind the flash and the frenzy, who was the man? Best-selling author Leigh Montville masterfully explores the life of the complicated man from Butte. He delves into Knievel’s amazing place in pop culture, as well as his notorious dark side – and his complex and often contradictory relationships with his image, the media, his own family and his many demons.

Climb Glacier National Park

by Blake Passmore

This guidebook weighs less than 1 pound and has rounded corners to allow it to slide in and out of a backpack.

Climbers are guided by the use of photographs marked with red lines from the trails to the summits of 16 peaks. Included are in-depth descriptions of on-trail and offtrail routes to summits near Logan Pass in

Glacier National Park.

There are more than 300 full-color photographs, 16 full-color maps, GPS waypoints and elevation profiles for each route, and written descriptions are used to relay information to help beginning and intermediate climbers safely reach – as well as return – from these lofty summits.

The peaks featured in this volume include Mount Oberlin, Clements Mountain, Mount Cannon, Bearhat Mountain, The Dragon’s Tail, Reynolds Mountain, Heavy Runner Mountain, Piegan Mountain, Pollock Mountain, Bishops Cap, Haystack Butte, Mount Gould, Going-tothe-Sun Mountain, Matahpi Peak, Mount Siyeh and Cataract Mountain.

Barbara Theroux is manager of Fact & Fiction bookstore in downtown Missoulian. She writes a monthly column for the Missoulian and a quarterly column for Missoula magazine.

Linda Thompson is a Missoulian photographer.

She can be reached at (406) 523-5270 or by email at lthompson@missoulian.com.

Evel: The HighFlying Life of Evel Knievel: American Showman, Daredevil, and Legend

by Leigh Montville

Evel Knievel was a high-flying daredevil, the father of extreme sports, the personification of excitement and danger and showmanship ... and in the 1970s, Knievel represented a unique slice of American culture and patriotism. His jump over the fountains at Caesar’s Palace led to a crash unlike anything ever seen on television, and his attempt to rocket over the Snake River Canyon in Idaho was something only P.T. Barnum could have orchestrated.

The dazzling motorcycles and red, white and blue outfits became an integral part of an American decade. Knievel looked like Elvis ... but on any given Saturday missoula magazine

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parting shot

p.s.

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As streamlined as a feathery dart, a great blue heron flies over the Lee Metcalf Wildlife Refuge in May. photo by michael gallacher

missoula magazine

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Since 1921 ...

Griz Wear, Books, Art Materials, & Old Friends

UNIVERSITY CENTER • 5 CAMPUS DRIVE • MISSOULA, MONTANA • CONTACT@MONTANABOOKSTORE.COM 888-333-1995 • m o n t a n a b o o k s t o r e . c o m • 406-243-1234

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