Spring in Missoula: Worth the Wait

By Brianna Randall, 3-21-09

If you’re planning a trip to Montana, odds are good March won’t be your month of choice.

January calls out to skiers and snowboarders, June and July bring out the fishers and kayakers, and September is prime backpacking weather.  But the shoulder seasons are tough in the northern Rockies, and the start of spring is an especially long, drawn-out and muddy affair. 

I can wake up any morning between now and mid-June and see either tulips budding under a cheery sun, or a few inches of snow burying those same tender green shoots.  In fact, many Montanans plan a trip out of the Big Sky state right about now, in search of warmer reaches after our going-on five months of winter.

But let’s not write off March completely, especially in Missoula.  The mystery of the slow-budding interspersed with the occasional arctic blast is what makes it magical.

Today is the first day of spring.  As luck would have it, this March Friday turns out to be the warmest of 2009 – a balmy 62 degrees.  In typical Montana fashion, Missoulians react with instant appreciation for the sunny spring day. 

Downtown is like a different city than yesterday, when it was 40 degrees and cloudy.  Caras Park, right on the Clark Fork River in the heart of Missoula’s “urban” core, boasts jugglers, teenagers in shorts, a drummer or two, professionals picnicking, and a few kayakers playing in the river’s surf wave.  The Kim Williams Trail along the river is a menagerie of bare-skinned walkers, joggers, and bikers.  The dogs are ecstatic, flinging muddy water droplets far and wide after their first dip of the year.

I skip out of work an hour early, biking two miles from my downtown office to a trailhead in the North Hills near my home.  I feel as ecstatic as those wet dogs when I hear my first meadowlark call.  A flock of bluebirds darts in front of me to land on a barbed wire fence, their blue almost too vibrant—it sizzles against the still-soggy hillside full of last year’s bleached grasses.

In two more months, the faded grays and browns of the long Montana winter will be a distant memory, replaced with green, flower-dappled vistas layered with 15 hours of sun.  The last chunks of slushy ice will melt from the north-facing slopes. 

But not before we get a few more dumps of snow on these hills before then.

On this spring equinox, I reach the top of the North Hills with the sun warm on my back.  To the south looms Lolo Peak, the Bitterroot Mountains stretching out from either side of the Peak along Missoula Valley’s western edge, riding the line of Idaho and Montana.  Turning north, I can just barely make out one of the runs at Snowbowl in the Rattlesnake Mountains.  In the east, Mount Jumbo and Sentinel stand guard over the valley, sun-gorged Missoulians zig-zagging up their grassy flanks.

I raise my hands to this precious March moment of sun and take a bow.  We survived another winter.  And spring in the Big Sky is definitely worth the wait.