The Ansel Adams view of Mom's Greek quarry.
Is the Parthenon really that big?
This erosion carved out another nice amphitheatre.
Mom sights La Barge rock ahead at mile 55.5!
I'm not far behind.
Meanwhile, across the river is a camp marking Lewis and Clark's 31 May 1805 campsite. Yes, these L&C dates are getting earlier--remember, they were traveling west, UPriver, and in enormously heavy boats at that.
Still, they somehow made about the same 20 miles a day that we were doing paddling light, modern boats DOWNriver, taking digital pictures of pelicans as we went.
Mom, do you LIKE putting pictures on the diagonal?
The pelicans posed for me, too.
La Barge rock is at mile 56.
I think that was the view behind us. (?)
And here's a view of La Barge from below-river.
I'd periodically pull up alongside Mom and Dad's canoe to say hello to Candy, who whined whenever my canoe was too far away.
By this point I'd started using my kayak paddle and given my aluminum canoe paddle to Mom, who found it a much better fit than their larger wooden paddles.
More igneous/sedimentary combinations.
Nature knows how to do right angles.
Here's what Mom saw...
...and what I saw. Great minds think alike?
Another funky lump of igneous something or other.
Mom likes igneous dikes, too.
Here I am taking the same darned shot again. Notice how much better her G2 exposed the shot, though.
Check out the grassy topsoil layered above and below the wall of sandstone.
And now Mom's shooting me shooting the dikes.
Big Sky!
Since they took a course further to the right, they saw these rocks high up that I couldn't even see from closer up.
Which forces of erosion would leave behind a shape like this?
See how the dike trails all the way down to the water.
We're approaching Kipp's Rapids, which weren't all that rapid, but the wind kicked up some hefty waves that steered Mom and Dad's canoe all over the place.
Meanwhile, my flexible canoe was tracking beautifully--I didn't have any trouble maneuvering.
Even from this angle, I can't figure out how such a corner got formed.
Another nifty dike, and whatever that other igneous thing is.
Tiny pillars with berets on top.
Mom and I agreed this was a medieval fortress.
Are you starting to see what I mean about Big Sky Country?
The volcanic activity that left these behind were part of the activity that formed the Highwood Mountains to the south and the Bearspaws to the north.
Mom and Dad, once again, showing scale.
Can yoou say "wide river"?
Citadel Rock at mile 61.8 was famously painted by Karl Bodmer. You'd think I'd be able to google us up a JPEG of his painting, wouldn't you? But no!
I so seldom remembered to look behind us to see the river the way Lewis and Clark saw it.
Another view of Citadel Rock.
It's hard to convey how huge this rock is. If I'm reading the contours correctly, it's towering 500 feet above the river.
Again I rely on my miniscule parents to convey just how huge these formations are.
That wind kept up several more hours after we made camp on the right bank at mile 63, so we were awfully grateful for this BLM shelter. By this time, we all had sunburn, windburn, and scratchy eyes.
Frank and Steve were courageous (or foolish) enough to join us for a batch of my four-alarm elk chili, which took both of our campstoves to make.
By the time we'd finished cleaning up from dinner, though, the wind had died down and it was pleasantly cool.
Wednesday evening treated us to most of the light-play tricks the big skies have to offer.
We were sharing this campsite with at least a dozen more people, so there was lots of gear around.
Mom's G2's "vivid color" setting was just the ticket.
See the tiny hole in the upper left corner of the wall? I said, "gosh, that looks like a hole in a wall over there..." Guess what it's called? "Hole in the Wall." Who'd've thunk it?
The view upriver in silhouette.
I was taking shutter-speed chances, so sorry about the blur, but check out the light!
A pair of BLM guys who were on a cleanup trip graciously vacated the shelter for us and set up camp down by the water.
The sky, the sky, the sky.