It seems like most of my travels involve food and my recent visit to the Circle Bar Guest Ranch near Utica was no different.
Debi turned out a fine meal topped off with blueberry cobbler. If I had known the cobbler was coming I may have gone a little easier on the entree! Oh dear, I should have scheduled a hike, or a work-out!
The ranch is in the foothills of the Little Belt Mountains and also near the Judith Game Range, a prime wintering area for elk. The Judith River runs through the ranch. Over 200 years ago this river was named by Meriwether Lewis for a sweetheart back home. At times the river seems nonexistent, running underground, then it surfaces and you wonder where it came from. Yes, there are trout in this water.
If you continue driving south/southwest of the ranch you’ll go into some canyons with several forest service campgrounds. This area is part of the Lewis & Clark National Forest which seems to sprawl throughout the Russell Country tourism region. The terrain changes dramatically the more you drive.
The rain was beginning to ease up a bit, well, maybe just a bit.
Here’s a group photo of Mary giving us a tour around the ranch. Fortunately, we all appreciated the moisture and everyone seemed to not even notice the rain.
Central Montana has had it’s fair share of moisture this summer. Mary told us that a few weeks ago the grassland around the Circle Bar Guest Ranch had begun to take on some golden color from late summer heat. Recent moisture had changed the grass back to green.
A pretty sight in some mighty pretty country.