Fighting Skeeters on the Way to Kersey Lake

Have you ever zipped up the tent only to find a mosquito stuck inside?

EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!

Despite that fact that you’re about 15,000 times bigger, this miniscule insect can drive you bonkers.  It’s a single insect, but it has the power to irritate and exacerbate.  Now imagine hiking along the Clarks Fork Trail on your way to Kersey Lake, surrounded by hundreds, nay, thousands of these irritating bugs.

If the mountains are calling, and you choose to go to Kersey Lake, make sure you bring bug spray so that you’re not eaten alive.  Then you can enjoy the easy 2ish mile trek to a deep lake that is teeming with brook trout in the heart of the Custer Gallatin National Forest.

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A Quick Hike to Slough Lake along the Phantom Creek Trail

The bacon was done sizzling.  The eggs were fried.  Orange juice was ready to wash it all down.  Father’s Day morning was well underway, but still not far enough along that the day was shot.  It’s the middle of June, the weather is great, and in the words of John Muir, “The mountains are calling and I must go.”

The problem: it was 9:30 in the morning already, so a hike longer than just a couple of miles would mean getting home late, the same goes for a drive to the trailhead that’s over 2 hours.  These limitations narrowed the choices considerably, and made the destination an easy choice: Slough Lake in the East Rosebud Valley.

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Spending Time in the Mountains Near Denver

I have a friend that lives in El Paso, Texas.  For the last several years we would visit each other.  Justin would come to Montana to go on some adventures, and I would go down there to go on adventures, most consisting of hiking, climbing, boating, fishing, and overall getting outside (perhaps in the future we can tackle some of the top 50 long distance hiking trails).  But it turns out there is only so much that you can do near us, and after 8 years or so we started running out of things to do (that don’t involve an extensive drive).  We decided to meet in the middle, and explore around Denver, Colorado.

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Neither of us had been to Denver (aside from passing through), so it seemed like a great opportunity to explore an area of the country that a lot of people love.  If you’re into mountain adventures, then here is my advice on things to do near Denver.

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Toward the end of hunting season, I was able to get out and harvest a deer.  It was the only day I was going to get out and hunt in 2015, so I wanted to make the most of it.

In the end, I shot a nice mule deer buck.  Enough to fill the freezer for another year.  When I went to field dress it, I discovered it was 100% female, but it had grown antlers.  I called it a hermaphrodeer.  You can check out the story of how it happened over on the Billings 365 website.  Here are pictures of the deer. More »