Missoula

6/6/2007
It was a rainy day today so we decided to go and take the Smoke Jumpers School tour. The school was only a few miles from our campground but a little difficult to find. We found out latter that all the signs directing you to the school were for coming from the other direction. The tour is free and last about an hour. There is a visitor's center with a short video and some displays. The tour guide first explains the type of clothing the jumpers wear. She then takes you to another building were they are actually making and repairing their own equipment. All Smoke Jumpers must learn to sew. They have a room full of commercial sewing machines. When we were there, there were two people working on making and repairing some equipment. The next room was the one below.
This is where they hang the parachutes to straighten them out to get ready to fold.

They use different color chutes for different things. The blue chutes are the primary shoot. The red chutes are the reserve chutes in case the primary shoot doesn't open. They didn't have any red chutes hanging there today.

This young lady is a Smoke Jumper and a licensed rigger. You must be licensed to pack a chute. She looks too small to pass the strenuous training they much go through to be a Smoke Jumper, but apparently she is strong enough to make it. One of the requirements is to walk 3 miles with an 80 pound backpack and do it in 90 minutes. There are other requirements that are just as demanding. Thirteen percent of the Smoke Jumpers are women.

In this view she is just starting to pack the chute. After the tour it was still raining so we drove down town to get some information on the bike trails in the area. We went to the office of the Bicycle and Pedestrian Department. It was located in the back corner on the second floor of the City Hall. He showed us on a large map where all the trails were in Missoula and gave us a small copy of the map. He also gave us a pamphlet about a trail that is about 80 miles from Missoula. It's called the Hiawatha and is a Rail to Trail bike trail. It is suppose to be one of the most beautiful in the country. It is 13 miles long, has some very high tressels on it and some tunnels, one of which is 1.6 miles long. There is a shuttle service to take you back to your car. The trail cost $9.00 to ride and $9.00 for the shuttle service. It will be the first time we have ever paid to ride a trail. Since it was still raining we went back to the motorhome and had lunch. Latter we found the Wal-mart and got some supplies. Tomorrow is suppose to be another rainy day so we are going to drive up to the National Bison Range. It's about 40 miles north of here on route 93 and 200. Route 93 is the route we will take to go to Glacier so it will give us a chance to check out the road.