By Alkali Springs Correspondent
This is a beautiful time to go exploring in the beautiful Bear Paw Mountains. Fall is a great time anyway for just about anything, but with Beaver Creek Park open again, this is a time to take the family and explore some of the old and beautiful campgrounds along good old Beaver Creek.
These days those autumn leaves are falling every day and typically this week will be the best of the season to see beautiful fall foliage. The storm of a week or so ago really sent a message to trees everywhere to put on their fall mantles and this is the time to really enjoy. A word of caution though. Don't put this trip off if it is foliage you are looking for because one great "poof" and all that foliage will be gone and the mountains will be more in their Halloween mode than fall foliage.
Where to go? Well, that is easy for of all the beautiful Bear Paw foliage there is really none any more beautiful than just driving up the Beaver Creek highway to the Ski Bowl.
What we recommend though is to pack a good lunch. Maybe some hot dogs and baked beans and head out somewhere to eat and just walk along the creek for an afternoon.
The leaves of the old mountain cottonwoods in some of the campgrounds above Kiwanis Camp are just cascades of gold coins like waterfalls above you wherever you wander close to the creek. On sunlit days, the colors are so golden that it is really hard to look at all that beauty without putting your sunglasses on.
And then those aspens! Wow! Is there any tree any more beautiful than a pod of aspen in their fall colors? Whole huge clumps or forests of those trees are anywhere from bright gold to the most beautiful green-gold that we have ever seen these days. Really, gentle readers, there is no way to describe the scenes you are going to be seeing this time of year in the mountains. Suffice to say that this is looking to be one of the best of the fall foliage seasons ever so get on out and enjoy it. And once again as good a place as there is to enjoy it is some of those old campgrounds filled with mountain cottonwoods and that beautiful meandering creek that has meant so much to so many for so long.
Don't overlook brush for fall foliage photos as well. Brush is where in the Bear Paws we get our oranges and reds that contrast so well with the brilliant golds of trees and the dark, dark green of the rich fir forests along the way.
We could go on forever, but it is getting so that if we write much more, we will drop our quill and get out there ourselves to sort of drift and dream a golden afternoon in our old and beautiful Bear Paw Mountains of Montana.
