Old Haunts and New
Christmas in Helena:
Home for Christmas
This year, Pete and I spent the holidays in Helena at my mom’s house. Helena is actually where I went to high school, and I still love to come home and visit. The state capital is full of history and charm, from notable architectural beauties like the Capitol Building, the Civic Center, and the Catholic Cathedral, to the charming assortment of shops and businesses in Last Chance Gulch, the historic downtown. It is also a fairly picturesque city, nestled against the hills to the south, although it is continuing to grow further and further out into the valley to the north. So because I have clearly already spent quite a bit of time here, this post will be more about sharing some of my favorite old haunts, rather than exploring (although we did explore a little; Pete insisted).
Obviously, a great deal of the weekend focused on the whole gamut of family traditions: last minute shopping, gift wrapping, warm-fuzzy movies, a church service, cooking, baking, and over-eating. We had quite a bit of extra entertainment throughout all this, as my brother brought his new cat home with him, and our boys were not at all sure how they felt about that. Still, by Christmas morning an uneasy truce had been reached between cat and dogs, one of those little moments of peace on Earth. And of course, the whole visit culminated with the morning gathering under the tree. (Pete and I walked away with two matching sets of football mugs!)
Since everyone has their own versions of all these traditions, this post will focus more on our out-and-about adventures, but first you are going to have to indulge me while I share gratuitous adorable pictures of our pets being tortured with wrapping paper and bows:
There. Now that’s out of my system, we can move on…
Breweries
Helena has five breweries—Blackfoot River Brewing, Lewis and Clark, Ten Mile Creek, Crooked Furrow, and Snow Hop— more than we can to do service to in a brief visit, so we will only be covering two here. We promise to get to the rest eventually.
Snow Hop
We have previously visited all of Helena’s breweries except Snow Hop (which just opened this summer), so we decided to start there. It is a large, open modern feeling space decorated with beautiful pictures of the Northern Lights, as well as brightly colored stools and a few table tops with swirls of Northern Light colors. The brewery is located out in the valley—an up-and-coming area of town—and was advertising a lot of events and activities, such as trivia night, live music, and parties. The bartender (who we suspect may be one of the owners) was very friendly, and came to chat with us about our experience.
We mostly tried their darker beers, although each of our three flights (my mom joined us) had a lighter option. There was one very interesting beer: a Grodziskie, or Polish smoked wheat. It had a much darker, richer flavor than is common in a lighter beer. The bartender recommended that one as a red beer, or with food, although we did not have time to try either of those options. My mom and I both also found the Kolsch very drinkable. Unfortunately, their darker beers—the amber, Scottish ale, and vanilla porter—were fairly bland and generally underwhelming. I have found this to be common in newer breweries, however, and I still hold out hope that their recipes will improve over time.
Blackfoot
Because of our lack-luster experience—and because it is one of my holiday traditions—we also paid a visit to the Blackfoot River Brewing Company, usually just known as the Blackfoot. The Blackfoot is tied with our local brewery here in Polson as my favorite brewery ever. This is in part because, as one of the older breweries in Helena, I have a lot of history meeting up with friends and family there. But it is also due to the fact that they make DAMN good beer. As I have had plenty of opportunity to try their beers, I skipped the flight and went straight to my two favorite beers. The first was the Single Malt IPA which was introduced to me by my dad years ago (it was his favorite beer). Sadly, he passed away this summer, so we all had one in his honor. To all my fellow IPA lovers out there, this is the best one I have ever had. You need to try it. Seriously. There is nothing better, especially in hot weather, than coming in from a day spent playing outside and indulging in one of these.
My second was my usual winter preference: the Tartanic Scottish Ale. I am a big fan of Scottish ales in general. They are rich and flavorful without being as heavy as other dark beers like stouts or porters, and they have the added bonus (that should be enjoyed cautiously) of being fairly strong in terms of alcohol content. And Blackfoot makes a particularly good Scottish ale. While I usually stick to these two beers, they have plenty of other good ones. My mom really enjoys the cream ale, and I have to also put in a good word for the amber and the New England IPA. Plus they made a special edition pale ale this summer that was fantastic.
Along with good beer, the Blackfoot has great ambiance. It’s a rustic two-story building nestled into the side of the hill with a balcony over-looking Helena’s iconic fire tower and the historic buildings of Last Chance Gulch. There are bars and popcorn machines on both floors, and card games scattered throughout. While they don’t make their own sodas (as some breweries—including Snow Hop—do), they do have a selection of Coke products available.
Both of the breweries featured here are kid-friendly, but we left our dogs at home.
Broadwater Hot Springs
As I mentioned in the previous post, Pete currently has hot springs fever. So when he started looking up hot springs around Montana, one of his first questions was why had we never been to the Broadwater Hot Springs in Helena, when we had been there so often visiting family. I didn’t have a particularly good answer for him, other than the fact that I had been there once when we first moved to Helena and hadn’t been all that impressed. But since they have recently renovated, and I am no longer a jaded middle-schooler, he convinced me that it was high time I gave it another try, and I am very glad he did.
The Broadwater was originally built in 1889 by Col. Charles Broadwater, and has undergone numerous changes over the years. For example, for any of you who remember the old waterslide, it is no more. There are three main pools. The first is a rec pool, which while still warm, is cool enough for kids to play in. The second is a quiet soaker pool, with stairs behind a curtain that go straight inside. The final pool is adjacent to the Springs Taproom and Grill, and servers bring drinks out to you at the pool (because they provide beverages, they do ask that you don’t bring in your own, even a water bottle). Then there is a small hot tub next to the Springs pool, and an indoor sauna.
The facility is generally very nice, with large locker rooms full of heaters and fans to keep patrons dry and warm. There are day-use lockers, changing stalls, toilets, showers, suit-spinners, and plenty of benches. There is also a nice attention to cleanliness and safety concerns: plenty of mats to avoid slipping, for example. All-in-all, I’d say the changes have been good.
We—Pete, myself, my mom, and my brother—had a lovely soak and a couple of drinks. It was a wonderful break from the rest of the holidays.
Hiking
While there are plenty of awesome day hikes in the area around Helena, our favorite stomping grounds are actually right in town. One of the trailheads to Mt. Ascension City Park (part of the South Hills trail system) is just a block and a half from my mother’s house. Within minutes, we and the dogs can be in what I have always referred to as quasi-wilderness: frequently trafficked natural areas that are convenient and close to help. Obviously, you have to hike a fair ways before you lose the sight and sounds of Helena, but those can be wonderfully beautiful too. The first gulch we climb up perfectly frames the Capitol building, and the Cathedral bells can be heard striking the hour (on Christmas Day, they played “O Holy Night”!).
The South Hills have also been a wonderful place for us to train our dogs to hike off-leash, most importantly because while wildlife exists, the foot traffic keeps it very scarce. Rocky in particular has a weakness for chasing deer, but as Pete says both dogs “noses turn on, and their ears turn off.” These hills are a relatively safe place to get your dogs used to returning to you when called (we bribe them with copious amounts of treats). Also, because dog walkers are common, these trails have provided our dogs plenty of opportunities to learn to meet and greet other people and dogs appropriately. Plus, it is a great way for them to get exercise, since my mom does not have a fenced yard. And Pete and I love it too. The sunsets are amazing up there, and in the summer the hillside is covered in Arrowleaf Balsamroot. The main trails are named, marked, and well-maintained, but there are also numerous cut-across trails to explore. We have even given some of them names of our own, such as the “Ambler” which cuts from Easy Rider above Hoback St. to the Prickly Pear Trail, or the “Anne of Green Gables” trail that connects Easy Rider to the base of the Pay Dirt switchbacks (bet you can’t guess what I was reading at the time; it got its name from a tree stump cut like a chair that would make a fairy throne Anne would be proud of).
The hills were also a great place to try out our dogs new Christmas present: Findster GPS pet trackers. Each dog has a tracker which clips to his collar, and then Pete carries a hub that connects those trackers to an app on his phone. It shows us where our dogs are, so if they do run off, we know what direction to go looking for them. It also shows how far they have gone, and their present activity level. (Ok, it was really a Christmas gift for us.) While it does occasionally lose them in areas of spotty service, we have so far found that they work pretty well, and we are looking forward to using them as we take the dogs on adventures in less familiar terrain.
Our Christmas hikes were also a great opportunity to break in the new hiking boots Pete got me for Christmas. They are Merrells—I like Merrells and have at least three other pairs of shoes by them; they are durable and have great arch support—with Vibram soles and Gortex waterproof lining. So far, I really love them. They are comfortable, which is a huge improvement on the Muck Boot blister incident from my last post. (I also have been wearing a silk sock liner and trying some HikeGoo to help prevent any further blisters.) While I haven’t done anything too long or adventurous in them yet, I am hopeful.
So, with hikes every day, a good soak, and a couple of brewery visits, our holidays were fun and eventful, and I hope that all of yours were too. We are looking forward to a new year and new adventures.
Know of other good spots in Helena? Let us know.