Day 4, June 15, 2000 - Missoula, MT (No Flying)
Between MSO Airport and Downtown
I've only been to Missoula one other time, it was on the Middle Fork of the Salmon River trip I mentioned earlier. At that time I thought it was just the nicest large town/small city I had ever seen. I have always wanted to come back but you know how that goes. The magic cannot be recaptured. Well, I liked Missoula just as much this time. I spent a day just dinking around.
The day before, when I tuned in ATIS, they were giving an alert for parachute jumping adjacent to the airport. I silently ridiculed the controllers for not updating the ATIS. It was obvious to me that no parachute jumping was going on that day. There was a low overcast, rain and snow, and strong winds aloft. But, as I was leaving the airport after picking up my car, I looked up to the hilltop to the north and watched PARACHUTE JUMPING for about 30 minutes. Not the sport parachuting I am familiar with, they were doing static-line jumps, two at a time from a Shorts. The airplane was in a continuous orbit and everyone was landing in the trees up on the hilltop.
Homemade, in the Garage, Varieze Airplane in the Rafters at MSO Airline Terminal
This intrigued me a bit, so I looked into it today. Turns out that Missoula is the largest smokejumper training base in the country. There is a museum and tours. During my visit they were training 30 new people, both from the Missoula area, and other areas around the country.
Smokejumper Rigging Room
The tour was interesting, and the many busy smokejumpers at work, tolerated us tourists pretty well. We saw the sewing room, where they build and repair all their equipment, the tower (terminology?) where they hang the chutes to inspect them and the loading area where supplies come in to be distributed and packed up. It was here they had a display of how supplies are packed to be dropped. Most of the food was freeze-dried, and in fact the tourguide said it was all freeze-dried. I asked her about the standard can of Spam right on the bottom of the package. I think she missed the point of the question. This was not freeze-dried Spam. Maybe they just consider it shock absorption, but I don't think so. I know for a fact how good fried Spam can be for breakfast on a camping trip. While we were in the room, one of the jumpers was packing his 1,000th chute.
Missoula Smoke Jumpers DC3
Our tour guide took us out back and showed us the Shorts' and this immaculate, off the showroom floor, turboprop DC-3. Missoula is also a firebomber base, but the airplanes were gone to Colorado and New Mexico. I asked her what they are. She did not know, and did not find out, although she told us to ask her anything, and if she did not know, she would find out. I found out later, over at the Mountain Flying Museum, that they are P2V's.
Downtown Missoula
I can't say exactly why I like this town so much. It has kind of a small town feel but with some city amenities. Like many nice smaller towns, it is a college town (University of Montana).
Missoula Pedestrian Bridge over Clark Fork River
The conversation around town was a little different than where I am from. It ran more to the fact that the Salmon Fly hatch had ended, and what the best fly would be now. You see why someone like Norman MacLean, from this area, would write books both about firefighting, "Young Men and Fire," and flyfishing, "A River Ran Through It." If you haven't read "A River Ran Through It," I recommend you do, or at least see the movie.
Flathead Reservation
Some of the talk was just like home, how dry it is. Of course their definition of dry, see the three foot high green grass in the photos, is a bit different than our definition of dry. I could see that the rivers were unusually low. They said the rivers were at August levels.
Highway 93
Highway 93 is a road into the Flathead Indian Reservation that I drove after lunch. Look at the spray behind the truck. All the time I was in Missoula it was raining about every five minutes. Delightful weather to a desert rat like me. If it was not raining, you could at least see rain at about 10 different places in the mountains. It was also sunshiny about every five minutes. Lows were in the forties and highs in the sixties.
Fuel burned today, none. Miles traveled by air, none. Average speed zero.