After leaving Helena my brother and I rode south to a wonderful campsite. It was one of many historical points of interest along the Lewis and Clark expedition route. We walked across the Toston Hydro-Electric Dam itself to access the far bank of the Missouri River. Half a mile downstream along the north-flowing river and parallel railway was a spring that flows underneath the tracks through two of the clearest bodies of water seen yet. A cerulean water colour contrasted wonderfully with the dark-green algae and neon-green leafy marine-plants. The aquarium appearance was completed with the prescence of a school of small fishes darting and flitting about the spring-pool. After filling the water bottles we headed back to camp in the twilight. On the dam, less than a hundred meters from cooking a delicious pasta dinner, I stopped dead in my tracks causing Thomas to nearly walk into me. I might not have been very magnanimous had he pushed me onto the snake I had stopped to stare at. When a rock was rolled onto the snake it instantly bunched into a coil and hissed a fang-bearing warning while rattling it's tail. We had encountered our first rattlesnake! When the rattle was first audible Thomas and I both jumped back, but there wasn't an easy way to walk around as the snake sat in the middle of the narrowest point on the Dam. A concrete wall to the left and chainlink fence didn't leave much for options but we scaled the wall and passed around the snake, constantly being watched by beady eyes.
Back at camp shortly after we cooked while a full moon rose over the nearby bluffs. An owl hooted throughout the bright and beautiful night while we lay near the calm water upstream of the dam. An idyllic camp teeming with wildlife.
