Trip Report – Montana – Week 2 of 4

Ennis, Montana and the surrounding area.

Continued from Trip report Week 1: here

We love this place and decided to spend six days here.

Coming off the really stressful driving day from the Bighorns through Bozeman, we drove into Ennis seeing active smoke and fires on mountainsides on the Northside of town with 40-60 mph wind gusts.

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Camping along the Madison River near Ennis was fantastic. Great fishing, great views, and overall super relaxing. On the downside, we’ve never seen it as crowded here as this year. Camping areas where you’d rarely see more than one other person this time of year were completely full on the weekends and very close to it on the weekdays.

I have mixed feelings when I see this overcrowding. It’s hard to know whether increased use of our outdoor resources is good or bad. On the one hand, it increases responsible stewardship and public lands are owned by all. On the other hand, the overcrowding damages said resource and somewhat reduces the experience of it all. I’m often left wondering if we are part of the problem or part of the solution.

We needed to make a few repairs to Derek’s bed as the wire cot frame was sagging a bit from us both lying on it trying to watch movies. In hindsight, using a wire cot for a long term trip wasn’t the best call. We should have taken the time to build a wooden bedframe. We definitely will make that change for next season. With a trip to the local lumberyard, Derek shored up the frame with some plywood and shims. Overall, Ennis was the perfect place to make updates and get some work down with cell/internet access.

We added a new paper towel holder and screwed in some new hooks throughout the trailer. It seems simple but its pretty crazy how disorganized stuff gets crammed into a small space. I also bought an “Ahhh Montana” fly-fishing art poster for decoration at the foot of my bunk. We got this great little softshell cooler to take while fishing and grocery shopping. We also hit up the local laundromat and handled all of the more administrative stuff in town.

My solar outside lights turned on as we were eating dinner one night. I thought they wouldn’t work at all. It felt like a little miracle to me. Derek and I decided to sit outside under our lights that night and I looked over at the grass field and off in the distance in the moonlight a huge bull moose was walking through the grass to get to the other field. At first, I thought it was a deer but as we kept looking at it we realized it was a huge bull. It was so beautiful and chill. No one was chasing it with a camera like they do in Yellowstone. It was a special moment for me.

Establishing our base camp here and day tripping around the area was the plan. We fished on the Gallatin River and shot a new bigfoot video there. It was exciting. I’ll make a post solely on my Bigfoot videos to date. Look for those here. Before heading down to the Gallatin we drove to West Yellowstone.

Visited some of our favorite small businesses.

My favorite store on the planet is there and it’s called Free Heel and Wheel. They sell and rent bikes and gear, fix bikes, and certain sports gear you would need in Yellowstone Park and the surrounding area. They have a great coffee bar and assorted cookie kind of snacks for the active. When I’m there I always tell them they are my favorite store on our planet!

The fly-fishing legend Kelly Galloup has his own store named Galloup’s Slide Inn that has the fly-fishing gear, guided trips, lodging, and a fly-tying material section of his store that is unmatched, says Derek. Kelly was there that day and I’ve seen so many of his DVD’s about fly-fishing that when I see him in person I get a little star-struck. A few years ago, I had him sign my sweatshirt with a sharpie pen like he was a rockstar! It was funny.

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Planning is everything when you have an adventure-packed day.
Ernie’s Bakery is the perfect place to order lunch to go. They have great sandwiches to choose from. They even have gluten-free bread! We picked some sandwiches and drove to the Gallatin River to fish in places Derek had never fished before but always wanted to try it out. When we were heading back to Ennis it started snowing and it accumulated on the side of the road. That was the first snow we saw in 2020. It ended up becoming a foreshadow for what we were going to experience later on in our trip. Stay tuned for that on Week 3.5 Trip report. Let me just say “Shit got real!”

We put the word “Adventure” in “Happy Adventure Club”!

Going into our fifth day in Ennis, Derek and I decided to investigate some new possible fishing areas for us. A nice jeep trail took us to a new fishing spot by some huge boulders that must have had mountain lions living around them. I always got that feeling I was being watched there. The sky was gorgeous that day.

While driving, we found a couple of abandoned properties on BLM (Bureau of Land Management) land that at one point was a working ranch. We even saw the shell of an old-fashioned car that had bullet holes all through it, a root cellar separate from the house and underground into the side of a hill, and several old wagons, tillers, and other misc. farm machinery (photos below). They were all falling apart and weathered. It was a fun day to see so much. It felt like a ghost town and we were the only ones left on earth. Social distancing was not an issue here.