Achilles healing near home

While I haven't been able to run, snowshoe or cross-country ski due to injury lately, I have been getting out on my usual morning walks with the dogs.

We've been taking it easy to give my Achilles tendon time to heal and hiking the short, level trails at the Tower Street Conservation Area on the edge of Missoula. It's not far from home and there isn't much to it - stands of cottonwood trees along the Clark Fork River - but it has been interesting to see through the winter.

Earlier this season, the river fully froze over and produced a big ice jam. When the water reaches the right temperature, slushy frazil ice forms and gathers in eddies along the river. And there's been a good variety of birds, including pileated woodpeckers, above, great blue herons, bald eagles and Canada geese, below.



See a collection of photos from the past month here.

Trailhead: A little more than 1 mile west of South Reserve Street on South Third Street West in Missoula, then about a quarter-mile north on Tower Street.

Distance: There are a variety of trails; the main loop through the cottonwoods, along the river and back to the parking lot is about three-quarters of a mile.

Photography fun on the go

Jen and I both recently bought smartphones with decent cameras and have been putting them to use in our travels and everyday life.

You won't usually see the snapshots we take with them among the photos from our adventures, but you can find them online. My Twitpic collection is here, and Jen's is here. I've also started to use Picplz, which has some creative filters. The photo above is an example, from a foggy day at one our favorite dog-walking haunts.

As always, you can find galleries of our hiking and travel photos here, and my Flickr stream here.

Fall wasn't forgotten

Been a while since I've posted anything, but we did get out and about in western Montana this fall before the snow fell, albeit close to home.

With Mom visiting in October, we took a stroll up to the lookout atop Blue Mountain. Saw a lot of yellow larch and aspen, some red huckleberry leaves and some drying thistles. See photos here.



We've also gone on plenty of morning walks at Missoula's Tower Street Conservation Area. Since first visiting a little more than a year ago, this has become our go-to spot to take the dogs in the morning; it's not far down the road from the house, but is away from the hustle and bustle of the riverfront downtown. Photos are here - they were a test of sorts from my fairly new cell phone.