“You want to go up to that tree?” I asked the Boy, pointing to a tree that was way up there in the hills.

I started mapping out a route in my head up to the tree, which was not far from the Continental Divide. We hiked in a couple of hours and then set up a base camp with the idea of exploring the hills above us. We’ve camped up in the hills before, but it’s a chore, namely because there’s no water and the “flat spots” might look flat, but once I recalled a poor pitch where I ended up rolling down the hillside in the tent. No fun at 2 a.m.

So we filled the water bottles and headed up, the steepest part was the first couple hundred feet and we found an elk and deer trail and followed that for awhile. Then we headed into the lodgepole, which sucked. The trees were doghair and hid the downed trees beneath them, but I found that if you followed the course of the prevailing wind at least you could follow the route of the downed trees, most of which were all pointed in the same direction, at least this patch was.

The area burned almost 20 years ago now and quite honestly, could use another fire to thin out the doghair and burn up the down trees.

The thing is the lodgepole patches look pleasant from a distance and quickly turned into shin-shearing nightmares.

At any rate we got out of one patch, zigged and zagged around other patches on pleasant grassy glades and then made it to the top of one hill, thinking once up there we could probably do a ridge walk to our One Tree Hill.

It was a good theory, but there was another patch of doghair and this one was even worse, with trees 6 to 10 feet tall hiding downed trees 2 to 6 feet off the ground, all of it jackstrawed.

It took 20 minutes to go about 50 yards and it was worth it, as there was a big garden of arrow-leaved balsam root just beyond.

We stopped, took in the views of the Bob Marshall Wilderness to the south and then headed up the ridge. More jackstraw, but the trees were pretty well spaced apart, though the downfall was still wretched.

We finally broke out of the trees entirely and the ridge walk was pleasant to the One Tree Hill. It was cool and there was breeze and our tree, a limber pine, looked more like a big, but very old, bush.

Beneath it was a full unopened bottle of Miller Lite and what I thought at first was a bottle of motor oil because it was black, but turned out to be a bottle of mostly empty whiskey. I opened the beer and smelled it and sure enough it was beer. I thought about taking a swig but thought better. I kept the cap and left the bottle. I opened the whiskey and gave it a sniff and sure enough it was booze. Again, thought about taking a swig but thought better, it’s hard enough getting through that jackstraw with a clear head, nevermind a buzz or a sour stomach.

We had a snack and then headed back down. There was a straight shot down that looked much easier than the way up, but a bear that looked like a griz was feeding in the meadow and I wasn’t up for a dog-griz encounter so we gave it a wide berth, which meant we headed down the way we came. It was no fun but at least we knew what to expect.

The dog had the better of it, able to go under at least some of the downed trees.

It still took awhile to make it down and the bear, which turned out to be a brown black bear after looking closer at some photos, was gone, or at least off into the trees.

Back at camp we had some supper and then did our part of the trail clearing, cutting out about eight trees in the half mile stretch in front of camp.

By then it was getting a little bit dark, which is to say the sun went down behind a ridge, and I fell asleep. At 11 p.m. I woke up and it wasn’t quite dark the stars and two planets shined bright to the north.

The night was way colder than I expected and I was happy when the dog whined and wanted to come in the tent. It’s nice to have a big furry critter to keep your feet warm. The next morning the frost was heavy and there was ice like October on our tents.

The walk out was a muddy slog, but pleasant enough. I saw a western tanager which is always fun and would have had better pictures but just as I was about to get a shot an outfitter with a pack string came around the corner. I grabbed the dog and the bird flew away as they passed.

Another photo op gone with the wind. Such is life.