Category: HelenaOutdoors
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A Simple Question
I had a lovely conversation a couple of weeks ago where a simple question stopped me in my tracks: “What do you think your 7-year-old self would think of your life now?” It didn’t take me long to answer. I think that kid would be amazed. “Whoa, wait! You go out and look at flowers, rocks,…
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Four Owl February!
I’ve been taking Obi to the Tenmile every morning at about 7am since late January. I’ve been hoping to hear, or see, a Great Horned Owl. I know from previous experience that they could be in that area, and since I had seen three species of owls, I became a little obsessed with adding a…
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Superb Owl Weekend 2026
A superb owl weekend it was, indeed! Last evening two daughters, the Lab, and I went into the hills a bit to listen for a Northern Saw Whet Owl that had been heard by a few other folks in the last week or so. So, as the darkness descended, we found ourselves walking up the Mini-Ridge…
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The Value of Helena’s Wildland-Urban Interface as a Recreational and Economic Asset
I’ve been resting my partially torn Achilles tendon for the last few weeks, so my recent gentle trail walk on the Ambrose trail was a welcome return. I noticed that there has been a lot of new work mitigating fire risk from the middle to western terminus of the Ambrose; soon that work will include slash pile burning…
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Equinox Effort- 2025
Spring Awakening: A Birding Blitz Around Central MontanaThe vernal equinox arrived, heralding the official start of spring, and we celebrated in the best way we know how: with a whirlwind birding adventure! Our goal? To identify 55 bird species across two days of exploration in a month not known for a lot of species depth.…
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February in the Rearview
February may be the shortest month, but holy cheese does it have some long weeks. Helena had nine days with winds above 20mph (33kph); and two of those days had gusts above 40mph (65kph). Sixteen days were below 0 (-17c). My home area received at least 20 inches (50cm) of snow. And we were cloudier…
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A bit brutal, maybe?
February has been brutal. We are 17 days into the month and the average temp has been 4.8ºf. Let’s round it up and just say 5ºf (-15ºc). Last year’s average for Feb was 29ºf (-2ºc). Our low this year (so far) has been -18ºf (-28ºc). Eleven days left of Feb this year. If we’re going…
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Mount Ascension
The views from the top of Mount Ascension, or Mount Helena for that matter, rarely disappoint.
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Cross Quarter Days
Today, Feb 2, 2025, is a cross-quarter day. That is, today is a day that sits about half way between a solstice and an equinox. There are four cross-quarter days of old, Samhain (Nov), Imbolc (Feb), Beltaine (May), and Lughnasa (Sep). The Library of Congress does a nice job of describing how old ways became…
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Wing Marks
The Helena valley has been seeing temps dropping into the single digits overnight and struggling to rise to much more than mid-20’s (around -6c) during the day. That’s not overly cold, but we’ve also been seeing dips into the single digits below zero (around -20c) every 7-10 days as well. When the cold goes below…
Nature, every day. 