Even more adventures in HDR and other work

It's so nice when all the kids fit in the frame and look at the camera

Out the front door

February 13th, 2015

In anticipation of the arrival of my new Nikon D7100, I've gone back to working on my own skills, trying to make myself worthy of my new toy/tool.  Primarily, I'm getting out almost every day, camera in hand, hoping to learn from my own mistakes, and then using the advice of others to improve my work.  The shot above, for example, came as a result of lots of photos I've taken of deer in the yard, usually when it's too early to get a good light on the scene.  To get this photo, I used a tripod, increased the ISO to 400 (when I normally use 125), and put on a telephoto lens (my old Sigma 70-300 lens) set at 170mm.  I posted this photo in the Expert Photography Action Takers group on Facebook, and got several very positive comments, but one suggestion that I should use the "Pet Eye Removal Tool" to get rid of the unnatural shine in the eyes.  Well, the version of Photoshop I have (CS5) does not have a "Pet Eye Removal Tool," but using Google, I found several ways to "fix" the eyes, and the version above shows the image after I "doctored" the eyes in Photoshop.  It's not an easy fix when you have 8 eyes looking at you, but it can be done.  If I wanted to take the time, there's more work I could do here, but I'm happy with the result as is.  Especially at this resolution.  Blow it up and let me know what you think.

Yesterday, Kevin had an Emergency Services meeting in Thompson Falls, so I rode along, then took the truck up Blue Slide Road to take some pictures and find some geocaches while he was in his meeting.  Turning off Montana Highway 200 just west of town, I drove up Blue Slide Road then took the cross road to the bridge at Birdland Bay.  There's a geocache hidden on the bridge, or so they say, but I didn't find it.  Due mostly to my own vertigo, I found standing at the side of the bridge, looking down into the water while feeling along the bridge supports for a hidden magnetic key holder, just upset my system no end.  That plus the fear of dropping my new Garmin 650t into the water, and I gave up.  It wasn't worth it.  But the area is very photogenic, so I grabbed the camera and tripod and starting snapping away.  The picture below shows the bridge in all its glory, as a composite three bracketed shots merged together using Photoshop's HDR merge feature.

Birdland Bay Road Bridge over the Clark Fork River

West of Thompson Falls, Montana

February 12th, 2015

Once I had my fill of photography, I set off to find caches along Blue Slide Road.  This is the original U.S. Highway 10 Alternate which runs on the north side of the river from Thompson Falls to just past Trout Creek.  I was on a time schedule, as I needed to get back to pick up Kevin without making him wait, so rather than drive all the way to Trout Creek, I went as far as Cougar Peak Road, near where our friends Mike and Norm lived when they first moved to Montana from Memphis.  My GPS was not cooperating well, refusing to go into portrait mode, and in landscape mode, the last word on the cache description was partially hidden.  It told me that the cache was hidden in the "sign..." which I read as signal, even though there was nothing remotely like a signal around.  When I was finally able to get the orientation changed to landscape, I learned that the hidden word was "signage," which made a lot more sense, and sure enough there was the cache.  Score one No, one Yes and on to the next.

The next actually meant turning back toward Thompson Falls and stopping at Graves Creek Road.  That cache was very easily found, as was the one just a few hundred feet on down the road at Steep River Ranch Road.   The last cache I looked for was titled "Squaw Creek," but in all the times I've driven Blue Slide Road, I've never seen a Squaw Creek.  I know it's not politically correct to use the word Squaw, and I'm sure that's why the highway sign no longer calls the stream that.  Instead there is a sign I've always wondered at, telling all that cross the bridge that they are at "Squaylth-Kwum."  I leave it to my Salish speaking friends to tell me what that means, if anything.

Pat's Knob at Twilight in HDR

Plains, Montana

February 11th, 2015

On Wednesday I stayed home all day, fighting a head ache and mild nausea, but did take advantage of our beautiful location to go out on the deck and shoot some pixels.  The scene above is an HDR composite shot of Pat's Knob, the second highest peak in the Coeur d'Alene range, across the valley from us.  I feel the need to point out that the Coeur d'Alene range is the group of mountains, part of the Bitterroot Mountains, that separates our part of Montana from northern Idaho.  The mountains behind us, and in whose foothills we live, are the Cabinet Mountains.  The highest peak in our area is Baldy (and the road from which our driveway leads is Baldy View), but Baldy is in the Cabinets, not the Coeur d'Alenes.   To get that vintage post card look, I used a program called Photomatix to merge the three exposures and then "tone-map" the image.  I'm pretty happy with the way it turned out, even though it's not at all in keeping with modern photographic standards.  But it does look like a post card from the 40s or 50s, wouldn't you say?

Tuesday Kevin was in Missoula all day for a meeting sponsored by the Montana Department of Public Instruction on how to keep your schools safe from terrorist attack.  I can't quite picture Al Qaeda operating a cell in Sanders County, but you never know.  Kevin said that every school in Sanders County was represented at the meeting.  I took advantage of him going into town to spend the day sight seeing, eating good bread from Le Petit Outre bakery and good raw fish at Asahi, and trying not to fall asleep in the comfy chair at Barnes and Noble.  I did pick up a couple of books while at the latter, one a very readable guide to the Nikon D7100 written by a photographer who spends part of the year in Montana, and also  The HDR Book by Rafael "RC" Concepcion.  Kevin was a bit taken aback when I told him that latter book cost $45, but that's what happens in the arts--and believe me, this kind of photography is definitely an art form.  I'm working my way through the book and its accompanying website, which is what led to the two HDR images above (and the one immediately below).

Maclay Bridge over the Bitterroot River

Missoula, Montana

February 10th, 2015

After my sashimi bento box at Asahi, I stopped at Goodwill and found a small, but serviceable, covered clay baking dish, and then I headed out to Blue Mountain to try for some good scenery shots.  The road up Blue Mountain was ice covered, so I turned around and went to Maclay Flats instead.  I got some interesting shots there, but I was most pleased with the shots I took at Maclay Bridge, the one-lane bridge crossing the Bitterroot River on the western edge of Missoula.  The image above is, once more, a composite of six exposures merged and tone-mapped in Photomatix.  Not realistic at all, but I really like the way it turned out.  By all means click on the image and view it full screen and see if you don't find it intriguing.  Looks like something a painter from the Impressionist School would come up with, should Monet have visited Missoula.  At least that's what it looks like to me.

And that clay baking dish I bought?  Well yesterday, I took some sweet pizza dough I had in the fridge, formed it into a round loaf, and let it rise a bit before baking it in the new dish.  Here's how it turned out.  Not bad for a first attempt, but I'm going to have to try with fresh dough and see what happens then.  The "oven spring" was so successful with this dough that the bread actually reached the clay lid and stuck to it in one place.  Unfortunately, the bread didn't bake all the way through and there was a dough pocket in the center.  Guess 1 hour at 400 degrees just wasn't enough inside that little baking dish.  What did bake tasted pretty good though.

Sweet Pizza Dough baked as a loaf in a covered clay baking dish

Plains, Montana

February 12th, 2015

Up Around the Bend

Catch a ride to the end of the highway
And we'll meet

by the big red tree, There's a place up ahead and I'm going, Come along, come along with me.

--Creedence Clearwater Revival, "Goin' Up Around the Bend"

Click here to hear CCR on YouTube.

It's summer, and an old fart's fancy turns to the thought of heading out on the open road in a convertible.  And lo and behold, I have three convertibles, what luck.  Of course the 1976 Triumph Spitfire hasn't been driven in years and needs a complete overhaul, not to mention a new top and interior.  The 1996 Saab is a wonderful car, and drives beautifully, but for now, the top doesn't drop.  That's right, it's a convertible that doesn't convert.  That leaves my 1980 Triumph TR7 drop-head coupe, to give it its proper British name.

Looks like a fast car, doesn't it?  Last time I drove it, I went with the Garden City Rods & Customs club on a day trip around western Montana.  We left Missoula, drove in a round-about way to Helena, then on to Butte, and from Butte back home to Missoula.  At least that's what everybody else did.  There I was in the middle of the pack, surrounded by 1937 Chevrolets, Fords, etc.  and I couldn't keep up with them.  Now in all fairness, those 1937 Chevrolets were stock only in so far as their bodies looked authentic.  Underneath the sheet metal, they were anything but.  As we drove up and over MacDonald Pass on US Highway 12 (elevation 6,312), crossing the Continental Divide, I lost all power and quickly fell to the rear of the pack.  Once across the pass and headed down into Montana's capital city, I was able to catch back up, but my car was not happy climbing that hill.

South of Helena, we once again crossed the Continental Divide at Elk Park Pass (elevation 6,352) and once again, I lost power.  This time the leader of the pack was keeping me under his watchful eye, and I slowed the whole caravan down to a crawl from my position in 3rd place.  After a tasty lunch in Butte, we drove on to Deer Lodge where we stopped in the shade of the old prison walls for ice cream cones.  After this break, I could not get the car to even turn over, let alone run.  I told the gang to go on without me and I would get home on my own.  Reluctantly, they agreed.  Once I got the car running again, I made it roughly fifty miles before I limped off I-90 and pulled into the parking lot at Beavertail Pond.  And there I sat for at least two hours before I could get the car cooled down and running again.

As I said, that was the last time I had driven the car, and that was back in the summer of 2012.  But hope springs eternal, as they say, and I was determined to triumph over my Triumph.  When we moved to Plains, Kevin and our friend Michael put both Triumphs on Kevin's fifth-wheel flatbed trailer, and carried them to their new home.  Until last week, neither car had been moved from where we left them once we unloaded them from the trailer.  But now it's summer, and I NEED a convertible. So...

Dog Lake, AKA Rainbow Lake

Alongside MT Highway 28

Sanders County, MT

Last week I was able to get the 1948 Frazer to run.  It has no brakes, so running consists of turning the key, pressing the button on the dash, and letting the engine idle for 15 or 20 minutes.  Having crossed that off my list, I turned my attention to the TR7.  Leaving the battery on the charger over night allowed me to listen to the sound of the engine trying to turn over.  It wouldn't catch, unfortunately.  Mike was visiting, so he and Kevin left me watching Jeopardy and when they returned, the TR7 was running.  Idling roughly, but running none the less.  I moved it up to the garage.  Yesterday, I took it down to pick up the paper. (Ok, our driveway is over a 1/4 mile long, and it's another 1/2 mile to the paper drop.  I can walk there in 20 minutes and it takes me 25 to walk back.)  This was an excuse to see if the TR7 would settle down.  It did, having run out of gas about a mile from home.  Lesson learned:  Do not leave home to test drive an old car if your cell phone is sitting on the bedside table.  Once I had walked home in the summer heat, Kevin drove me back to the car with a five-gallon can full of gas.  Gee, once it had something in its belly, it started right up and let me drive it back home.

Later yesterday afternoon, I was working on the internet and got a Skype call from my dear friend Reneé who told me that her 84 year old mother has a dream.  She wants to arrive at this summer's family reunion at the wheel of a bright red sports car.  Well, the TR7 isn't red, it's brown, and not a particularly bright brown at that, but I offered it up just in case and suggested I'd drive it to Kalispell so that momma can check it out and see if she'll be able to drive it.  Trying to find a time when both my schedule and Reneé's match, I agreed to drive to Kalispell (90 miles one way) on Tuesday, June 18th.  Yes, that's tomorrow.  Before I can drive that far, I have to make sure the car will get me around town, so that brings us to this morning's drive.

First stop once leaving home was at NAPA, Plains Auto Parts.  A couple of years ago the gas cap on the car broke, and I bought a replacement locally.    Victoria British, where I order most everything I need for my Triumphs, ran out of OEM gas caps two years ago, so that wasn't an option. The replacement looked good, but didn't really fit and wouldn't allow any kind of vacuum to form in the gas line.  It was time to do something about that.  Sam at NAPA was very helpful, but it still took one hour and two calls to other stores to find a cap that would actually fit and seal.  While I was at it, I bought a new fuel filter, ordered an oil filter, and got some rubbing compound and (very expensive) wax to see if I can't bring back the shine,  Once done at NAPA, I crossed the street to Town Pump where $34 put 9.4 gallons of gas in the car, filling the tank.  Now it was time for a real test.

 

View to the East from MT 28

Looking toward the Camas Prairie

and the Mission Mountains beyond

Sanders County, Montana

Montana Highway 28 is a short cut route for people coming from the west and heading to Glacier National Park, Flathead Lake, Kalispell, and all points in between.  It's southern (or western) terminus is Plains, from whence it climbs steeply for close to eight miles before crossing into the Flathead Indian Reservation.  Shortly after crossing the Reservation boundary, it passes alongside Dog Lake which is also known as Rainbow Lake, and which requires a Tribal Recreation Permit to enjoy the waters.  Beyond Dog Lake, the scenery opens up for a view across the Camas Prairie, and then, after a final climb, there is a 6% grade drop toward the town of Hot Springs.  Before you reach Hot Springs, however, there is a junction with Montana Secondary 387 which leads back down to connect up with MT 200 at Perma.  Downshifting to 2nd, I turned onto 387 and headed back down the mountain.

The Camas Prairie School

The grandparents of my good friend Doc Reynolds

taught here once upon a time

Sanders County, Montana

On the way south, I passed the Camas Prairie School and the assorted ranches that house the local population, and in no time at all I was crossing the Flathead River and turning right onto MT 200 to make the final leg of my test drive.  I love the drive along the Flathead, even the Perma Curves where a series of tight twists slow traffic considerably on this beautiful section of road.  Being able to make the drive with the top down was just the best.  This is a section of highway I would like to take by bicycle, and indeed on today's drive, I met a group of bike tourists right in the Perma Curves.  I waved to each and every one of the dozen or so riders, but they were concentrating heavily on the road and the lack of shoulder space through the curves so didn't wave back.  I wasn't hurt by that.

Out of the curves, the road straightens and widens as it passes the junction with MT 135, the road that connects us to Interstate 90 some 21 miles southwest of the junction.  Three miles beyond that junction is the town of Paradise, and seven miles beyond Paradise is Plains.  The car didn't give me any problems on my drive, and handled the mountain roads with aplomb, not losing power or cutting out once.  I did notice that between the speeds of 45 and 55 there was a lot of shimmy in the steering wheel.  It smoothed out above 55, but this was definitely something I needed to look into.  One of the first businesses you meet entering Plains from the east is Baldy Mountain Tire.  I stopped there and they agreed to check all four tires for air pressure and balance.  As a reminder of how bad the economy is around here, the manager offered to check just the front two tires, as their charge was $8 per tire.  I assured him that my life was worth more than $32, and please, check all four.  The good news is that there is lots of tread left on the tires.  The bad news is that there is enough dry rot to warrant replacing all the tires with new ones.  I will do that anon, but not today.  One tire in particular, the right front, was badly out of balance and had worn in an uneven manner.  That was probably the cause of my shimmy.  As a precaution, the good people at Baldy Mountain rotated my tires as well, and I'm happy to say that the shimmy seems to have disappeared.

One last stop on my way home was to see when Gary's AutoBody and Glass could change my oil.  How about tomorrow at 8?  Great, that will get the oil changed (and I'll have them replace the fuel filter at the same time), and will allow me to be on the road in time to have lunch with Reneé and her partner Linda in Kalispell.  I can hardly wait.  Now--if the thunderstorms in the forecast will just hold off till I get there and back...  More to come.

 

The Clark Fork River east of Plains, Montana

(Note the bighorn sheep in the lower right corner)

By the way.  This was a day for a test drive, not photography.  All the pictures shown above were taken over the past few months as I've driven around the area.  The picture of the TR7 was taken this afternoon in my driveway at 12 Kay Wood Drive, Plains.

13 Miles From Paradise

 12 Kay Wood Drive, Plains, Montana 59859

In the aftermath of closing our business, Kevin and I finally came to the decision that in order to pay off the bills, including the loan we had taken out to start the business in the first place, I would have to sell my beloved land in the Bitterroot.  This land had been in my family for almost sixty years, and it was the one place that was a constant as I grew up.  Even after we moved to California, we spent one month each year at the three-room log cabin west of Stevensville.  When Berkeley got to be just too much, and I wanted some solitude to write my dissertation, I asked my parents for the keys to the cabin and in January, 1975, I moved to Montana and lived in the cabin for eight of the snowiest months I've seen since I've been back in the Treasure State.  It was wonderful, I was twenty-five, and the healthiest I've ever been.  I never envisioned losing that place, and for the past thirty years I have dreamt of building my retirement home in a meadow behind the cabin with a glorious view of St. Mary's Mountain to the west.

Ah, but things do change in our lives, and reluctantly I came to understand that my dreams would not come true.  We placed the land for sale and it sold in one day.  Obviously we priced it too low, you can say, but nonetheless we were able to pay off the loan, and start remodeling the house in Missoula, preparing it for sale.  You see, we had decided that if we couldn't retire on our land, then it was time to reinvent our lives, and time to leave Missoula.  We started looking for new digs in June, 2012.

Looking across the deck on a snowy October morning

The first place we checked was Seeley Lake.  Kevin had lived in Seeley years before, and I own a time-share condo at the Double Arrow Ranch there.  It seemed like a good place to start.  A local realtor showed us several places, and one stood out.  I was ready to sign a contract, but the Stevensville sale had not yet closed, and I didn't want to commit money I didn't have in hand.  That's what got us into trouble in the first place.

The next area we checked out was Anaconda/Georgetown Lake.  We only looked at a few homes there, but they were among the most amazing places we saw.  One was a beautiful hand-built log home, high above the valley, and completely off the grid.  Gorgeous views, but did we really want to be that far up the mountain?  We did submit an offer on a home just outside of Anaconda, but in our offer we asked for more than the seller was willing to give, and we refused to counter.  In fact, purchasing the house with its twenty fenced acres, barn, horse stalls, and storage units would have really pressed us financially.  But we would have had enough space for all our stuff--if only by filling up the four storage units that went with the property.  The house even had a nice pond off the front deck.  When I asked if it was possible to swim in the pond, the response I got was "There are fish in it."  OK.  There have been fish in every river and lake I've ever swum in, so what's your point?  I was only wondering if the pond was deep enough for swimming.

One of the three "pet" white-tailed deer that stay around the house, 
driving the dogs crazy

We spent one day looking at property in Lake and Flathead Counties, seeing some beautiful homes just outside of Whitefish, but again, we didn't think the asking price reflected reality--at least not our reality.

In July we started looking in Sanders County.  I'm not sure why, as neither of us had any ties to that northwest corner of Montana.  We phoned several realtors, leaving messages, and one, Denise Goodwin, got right back to us.  Denise was amazing.  She led us all over the county, from Plains to Noxon, and everywhere in between.  The fourth house she showed us was all it took for me.  After seeing the house at 12 Kay Wood Drive, nothing else came close.  Of all the property we looked at in our quest, I had three basic reactions.  Several houses left me feeling that the property could only be improved by bringing in a bulldozer.  Other houses spoke to me saying, "You could make this a home."  The house at 12 Kay Wood Drive said quietly, but very, very clearly, "You ARE home."

We submitted our first offer in late July.  We noted in the offer that while it was possible to build a legal road to the house, there was no legal access currently in place.  The driveway to the house crosses another piece of property and there is no easement given in writing to allow us to use our own driveway.  This could prove to be a problem.  The property we were trying to buy included the house and approximately 6 acres of timbered hillside, subdivided from a larger ranch, with its own cul-de-sac road.  The house was the only house built on that cul-de-sac, the rest of the parcels remaining bare land.

The property we were trying to buy had been foreclosed, and we were dealing with a bank headquartered somewhere back East.  Their response to our note about the driveway was to pull the house from the market, saying that "Obviously the title company has made a mistake, and they will have to fix that problem."  Well, the way we see it, the title company had nothing to do with the driveway, and there was nothing they could do to fix the problem, short of building a brand-new driveway.

An October sunrise viewed from the deck

We submitted a new offer stating that we were aware of the problem and would deal with it ourselves.  The bank responded by hiking the asking price.  WHAT????  After a few more of these insane back and forth paper flows, we gave up, and walked away.  The house at 12 Kay Wood Drive was not supposed to be ours.

I took off the month of August, and spent it driving cross country in my new Saab 9-4x and visiting my family in West Virginia.  I've written up that trip at length in early posts.  Once back in Missoula, Kevin and I half-heartedly looked at some property near Missoula.  We saw one of those "I could make this a home" houses in Lolo, and put in an offer.  As it turns out, the realtor selling the Lolo house was the same one who had listed 12 Kay Wood Drive.  He told us we should put in another offer on the house we loved.  Our offer in Lolo was second, so we lost out on it, but when we went back to Denise, she found that the asking price on Kay Wood had dropped considerably.  We immediately put in an offer for the full asking price, including all the provisions we had stated earlier about the driveway.  This time the bank accepted our offer.  The sale closed on October 12, 2012, three months after we started the process, and I moved in that afternoon.

We've now been here three and a half months.  I'm beginning to believe that we will never be fully moved in, and when I look around, I still feel as if I'm dreaming, or vacationing, or have somehow ended up in a spectacular setting that isn't really mine.  When that happens, the house continues to tell me, quietly but firmly, "You ARE home."

The house sits at the top of the 6 acres, with views to the southeast of Pat's Knob, the second highest peak in the Coeur d'Alene range of the Bitterroot Mountains.  A few years back I wrote a post about spending Labor Day on top of Pat's Knob with Kevin's ham radio folk.  Now I can look out my windows and see the mountain every day.

Looking out our front door--our Christmas card for 2012

The house has an attached, oversized two-car garage, a pantry, a huge kitchen with lots of counter space and cabinets, a formal dining room, a living room with floor to ceiling windows looking out over the property and the valley beyond, a master bedroom suite with his and his closets and a master bath with shower, jetted tub, and two sinks and medicine cabinets (his and his again).  The front entry also sports a half bath, guest closet, and the stairway leading upstairs to the balcony which opens over the living room and three large bedrooms with a full bath.  We sit in the living room and watch our three "pet" white-tailed deer who seem to live on the land and drive our dogs crazy at some point every day.  We also watch our flocks of wild turkeys who strut their stuff across the land at some point every day. 

On the lower level, there is a 3/4 bath (it has a shower, but no tub), the mechanical room, a large family room with wet bar, another bedroom that Kevin is using as an office, and two blind rooms built back into the hillside.  These rooms are each nearly thirty feet long, and as they have no windows, I can put bookcases on all four walls and not block anything.  One of the rooms is now my library/study, where I'm sitting as I write this.  The other has two large floor looms, my piano, guitars and other instruments, storage for my yarn and record collections, and will soon have a 3-manual Rogers organ.

As I said above, for thirty years I had dreamt of building a retirement home on my land.  If the man who designed and built 12 Kay Wood Drive had had access to my dreams, he would have been hard put to come up with anything closer to what I actually wanted.  I am home.

We're out of the way, off the beaten track, but if you don't mind unpacked boxes in almost every room, you're welcome to come visit.  We can even put you up for a while as two of the upstairs bedrooms are fully fitted out with beds, chests of drawers, and dressers.  There's a hide-a-bed couch in Kevin's office as well, and with bathrooms on every floor, there's no need to wait.  Ya'll come.

Part of one of two large flocks of turkeys that visit regularly

Taken out the front door 

And why do I call this 13 miles from Paradise?  Way back in 1975, when Amtrak still crossed southern Montana on the old Northern Pacific rails, my friend Jim came up for a visit.  He crossed Washington and Idaho at night, and woke up when the train came to a stop around 6 am.  Looking out the window, he saw the station sign reading "Paradise."  Jim felt that he wasn't quite ready for that final destination, but I've never forgotten him telling me about it.  Well, don't ya know, our new home is just outside of Plains, Montana, the next town west of Paradise.  Jim's wake up station is just thirteen miles down the road from 12 Kay Wood Drive.  It's now thirty-eight years after I first moved back to Montana, and since Jim woke up in Paradise.  For now, I'm quite content being thirteen miles away.

By the way, should you want to write us, don't use the street address.  We have a post office box.  Our phone numbers are unchanged.  Here's our mailing address:  

Bryan Spellman and Kevin Kerr

P.O. Box 69

Plains  MT 59859 

Pat's Knob, Labor Day 2008

I know I need a small vacation.
But it don't look like rain.
And if it snows that stretch down south,
won't ever stand the strain.

--Jimmy Webb

Pat's Knob USFS Lookout (and Radio Tower)
Taken September 1st, 2008
Pat's Knob, Sanders County, Montana

Glenn Campbell can have it. I want no part of climbing poles, towers, anything else in a blizzard. It was bad enough just standing on the mountain watching (and photographing) the guys hanging from their belts.

If you read my previous blog, you’ll remember that Sunday, August 31^st, brought torrential rains. Monday, September 1^st, it was still raining, albeit not as hard, as Kevin and I headed out of Missoula at 6 am. We were on the way to meet friends of his in Dixon, Montana—a small Sanders County town on the Flathead Indian Reservation about 60 miles northwest of Missoula. Prior to this, Dixon was known to me as the place where the Beatty family, friends of my first partner Stephen Eberhart, raise melons. It is also the home of the Dixon Bar where poet Richard Hugo used to hang out. Now I know it to be the home of Keith Rogers, owner of the ham radio repeater station located on top of a mountain near Plains, Montana.

This is the story of how I spent a day on top of Pat’s Knob. Get your mind out of the gutter. Pat’s Knob is the name of a mountain three air miles south of Plains, Montana—three miles that takes roughly an hour to cross in a car. The US Forest Service has a fire lookout on top of the Knob, and the FAA, the Montana Highway Patrol, the Montana Department of Natural Resources and Conservation, and numerous other agencies and companies have transmission towers and antennae up there. The Knob itself is close to 7,000 feet above sea level, and being the highest point in the area, it’s subject to just about every weather pattern that comes through. That was certainly our experience on Labor Day.

The rain had stopped by the time we reached Keith’s home in Dixon. Another ham radio operator, Cory, joined us and while I took pictures of Keith’s flower garden, the three radio guys strapped a new 20’ antenna on top of Kevin’s Ford Expedition. Once we had everything tied down securely, we headed out on Montana Highway 200, cruising alongside the Flathead River toward its confluence with the Clark Fork near Paradise, Montana (home of the Pair-A-Dice Bar).

A few miles further west and we pulled into Plains, Montana, also known as Wild Horse Plains, or the place where the wild horses gathered back in the days when this was all Indian Country. Kevin and I were in the Expedition, Keith and Cory in Keith’s truck, and meeting us in Plains were Bruce and his son Tyrel, driving in from the West. We all met at Benji’s Restaurant, even though Bruce and Ty had already eaten. Keith pointed out that we needed time to commune with our fellow radio folk.

I hate to have my blog turn into a series of bad restaurant reviews, but I call it as I see it. Used to be you could get a decent meal at Benji’s right in the middle of downtown Plains. These days Benji’s is under new ownership, apparently the same people who own Quinn’s Hot Springs near Paradise, and one of the local motels. I’ll keep this short, but we probably should have taken it as a sign when the waitress asked everyone at our table if the bacon was fixed correctly. Unfortunately, it wasn’t. We all felt the bacon was too greasy and not fried sufficiently. There were two ham and cheese omelets on the menu, one with just Tillamook Cheddar and the other with a three cheese combination. I ordered the more expensive three-cheese omelet, and was charged for it, but I couldn’t find any swiss or pepper jack cheese in my eggs. I don’t think there was one of us happy with breakfast.

While eating, Keith realized that we had left Dixon with the antenna, but without the supporting rods that held the antenna to the tower. While Kevin, Bruce, Ty and I drove “SLOWLY” up the mountain, Keith and Cory returned to Dixon to pick up the remaining hardware. Keith told us at least three times to make sure we drove slowly.

I think the first sign for the lookout said that we had thirteen miles ahead of us. Thirteen miles of Montana mountain dirt road. Along the way we noticed huckleberries hanging full on their bushes, along with a few thimbleberries and even some wild raspberries. At least we wouldn’t starve to death on this trek.

Plains, Montana in the distance

Taken September 1st, 2008

Pat's Knob, Montana

The top of the mountain holds numerous microwave and radio relay towers. Keith had put a smaller antenna up many years before, but it was time to replace it with something stronger. The base of the Forest Service lookout is an enclosed concrete block structure housing radio set ups for various Montana state agencies. It also houses Keith’s repeater. Looking much like an unfinished basement, the room provided us with shelter from the weather.

Shelter wasn’t a concern when we first arrived. The sun was shining, the sky was blue with clouds in the distance, and the temperature was probably close to 60. It looked to be a beautiful day to work on a mountain top. The big concern was temperature. Last year, Labor Day had near record high temperatures, and no one was looking forward to broiling under the hot sun. We needn’t have worried.

As Kevin and Bruce unloaded the antenna from the Expedition’s roof, Ty and I did some exploration of the Knob. The views on all sides were wondrous, with vistas overlooking the Clark Fork flowing from the Southwest, the Clark Fork flowing toward the Northwest, and the Flathead flowing from the East. I played with all my lenses, and got out the new 2x extender which allowed me to pull up the railcars on the Paradise siding and the Sanders County Fairgrounds in Plains.

It wasn’t long before Keith and Cory arrived with the support poles, and work could begin in earnest. While Bruce and Kevin stayed on the ground, Keith and Cory donned climbing harnesses and ascended the tower. Using a series of ropes and pulleys, Bruce and Kevin passed each successive piece up the tower where Keith and Cory fastened them in place.

Keith and Cory fasten the first support in place

Taken September 1st, 2008

Pat's Knob, Montana

The first supporting rod went up fairly quickly, and the second didn’t take much more time. As we left Missoula, I had asked Kevin just how long we should expect to be gone. Kevin assured me that we’d be done by noon. My concern was that the Missoula Men’s Chorus rehearsals are on Monday evening, and I didn’t want to miss that with three performances coming up in September. Between stopping for breakfast and the long, slow drive up the mountain, we got to the mountain top around quarter of 11:00 and had the first support rod in place by 1:00. The second rod was in place by 1:30 and things seemed to be moving right along. Then the storms hit.

By 2:30, we were fighting snow and wind, not to mention rapidly dropping temperatures. As the men began pulling the antenna up the tower, the snow was making it dangerous to remain balanced on metal braces. Even wearing climbing harnesses, Keith and Cory found their footing becoming slippery. They descended from the tower and all of us tried to warm up and thaw out in the lookout’s basement.

The storm clouds meet to surround us

Taken September 1st, 2008

Pat's Knob, Montana

A break in the storm allowed our climbers to start the process of securing the top brace around quarter of four. But as we watched, the storm approached from the west, blocking out all visibility. The way the storm surrounded our perch fascinated me, and I snapped away at the clouds filling the sky on the south, on the west, on the north, and eventually meeting to our east. At that point we were completely encased in the storm.

The plan was to get the antenna and its three supporting rods up, attached to the tower and wired. Once everything was secure, the supporting rods would be pushed out moving the antenna away from the tower and minimizing any radio interference. Unfortunately, by the time everything was in place, the snow and wind had frozen the pipes to the tower and they could not be moved. If you look at the pictures from this trip on my Picasa gallery, you’ll see the snow blowing across the scene and sticking to our clothing. You may even find spots from the snow hitting my lenses. I tried to clean up the images, but in some cases there was just too much snow to eliminate it all. Besides, you wanted to share in the experience, didn’t you?

Cory covered in snow and hanging from the tower

Taken September 1st, 2008

Pat's Knob, Montana

At five, I knew I would not be back in Missoula in time for rehearsal. One thing about being on top of a mountain with lots of radio antennae, we had great cell service. I called the chorus director and explained where I was and why I wouldn’t be at rehearsal. I knew that we’d be on top of the mountain for at least another hour.

By six, it was clear that we would not be able to finish the project, so we cleaned up the area, packed up our trucks, and started down the mountain. An hour later we were back in Plains, and Kevin and I were back in Missoula by 8:30. It took another two days for me to thaw out.

We still have to return to Pat’s Knob. The antenna has to be moved away from the tower, and Kevin and I will be back to help Keith and Cory get that done. In the meantime, the new antenna is working well, and ham operators throughout the area are noting how much better their signal is.

Keith is after me to get my ham license, but as it is I have too many expensive hobbies I have no time to enjoy. Still, it is interesting riding along listening in to all these not-so-private conversations, and, at least in Montana, there still are places where cell service is non-existent but where Kevin can talk with others on the radio. I’ll have to give Keith’s urgings some serious consideration.

Just in case you were confused

Taken September 1st, 2008

Pat's Knob, Montana