Autumn ...

It's easy to stereotype Montana as being a place of endless winters and momentary summers ... but if you've lived here you know that this is a state of distinct and remarkable seasons. Springtime is often less than stellar here, but we have great summers, classic winters ... and almost always, autumns that are long and gorgeous.

Of course, up here those lovely fall weeks are often interspersed with the occasional Montana blizzard ... so it could be snowing one day and 60 degrees the next. We had a particularly insane October blizzard this fall, and while all the snow disappeared in a few days, the storm froze the leaves and robbed us of our autumn foliage -- the trees just turned from green to black. That's rare, though; while we're definitely no Vermont, much of the state usually displays some subtle but really lovely fall colors.

As proof, here's a shot I took in fall of 2006, heading up the west side of Logan Pass in Glacier Park: