Getting out and doing some exploring

How's it going folks!  The snowboarding season has not started yet and I'm chomping at the bit!  I guess I got spoiled in Colorado when a lot of places opened up before Halloween.  Here in Montana I have to wait until after Thanksgiving.  

Well in order to pass the time.  I got my butt off of the couch and did some hiking and exploring yesterday.  I went into the Pryor Mountains south of Billings.  The landscape was wild.  During my trip I saw multi-colored quasi-desert areas.  I saw deep canyon lands and even some area that reminded me of my native Idaho.

Driving into the Pryors from the south west is interesting because of the abrupt transition from grassland to mountains.

Once I left the flat grassy areas, the topography of the land became a bit more interesting.

The first road I drove on was designated as a 4 wheel drive road.  I didn't feel like beating up my truck too much so I parked it and walked up the ridge.  I wanted to get some exercise anyway.

As a bonus I could really check out stuff with the binoculars and camera.  You cover more area driving but you miss a lot of stuff that you can easily investigate by walking.

Here is a picture of Red Lodge Mountain from near the top of Big Pryor Mt.  I think this picture was taken facing west (maybe a smidge north).

After my walk I did some more driving.  It kind of sucked because there were some more features I wanted to investigate but I wanted to "loop" the Pryors and was running out of daylight.  However, I couldn't resist pulling off the road and snapping a few pictures though.