ARTICLE: The City Girl's Guide to Winter in Montana

My, my, blogosphere, it has been a while since last we talked. 

I did it. One whole year in Montana. I'll actually be leaving on my first anniversary. There's so much I could say, but instead I'll post this piece I wrote not long after my arrival here (in fact the first article I wrote for the Philipsburg Mail back in October 2012, which I've been scribbling for ever since). It's actually hilarious to go back and read my blog posts from Cherrymont Farm in PA (where I only spent a month) after having braved life on an off-grid homestead for a Montana-style winter.

More to come later. Enjoy!

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The City Girl's Guide to Winter in Montana

By Reecy Pontiff

With the first dustings of snow covering the mountains here in Montana, Philipsburg is abuzz with a completely foreign concept to me: winter.

I'm a dyed-in-the-wool city girl – and to top it off, a Southerner. I relocated to Philipsburg about two months ago, and while I grew up with the occasional snow during my childhood in Virginia, I haven't spent a whole winter north of Louisiana in almost a decade. The nighttime temperatures here have already dropped well below what we see during the coldest months in New Orleans – when it hits 60 degrees we're shivering in our parkas on the Gulf Coast. My beau, a Rocky Mountain native, and I have already argued over whether popcorn snow is “real” snow or not a number of times – of course it is, I say – and it's not even “real” winter yet. I've avoided winter for a very long time, so long that it's become a mythical beast in my head. This year it's time to face my fear.

TIMBER! Felling my first tree.

But ultimately, this is all an adventure to me, and living on the side of a mountain a few miles outside of town I'm experiencing firsthand what must be accomplished before a thick blanket of snow creates extra challenges for outdoor projects. Most of this is all new to a city girl like me. Before I moved here, I thought sawyers were just relatives of Tom, but today I felled my first tree with a chainsaw. Earlier this month I helped thresh the kale seeds and harvest onions and potatoes from the garden. Soon we'll be cutting the rest of the firewood and canning up stews. I'll be going on my first hunt, though thankfully we won't be relying on my skills alone for this year's meat.

When I tell Philipsburgers where I'm from, many say I'm really in for it come winter time. Fortunately far more folks say that winter is their favorite season here in Montana and that I'm in for a treat.

So while the cold and the dark are daunting, I am looking forward to fun in the snow. I grew up skiing on the icy, groomed slopes of the Appalachians and can't wait to carve into the powder of the Pintlers.

Here on the mountain we'll be gearing up for my first snowshoeing expedition and I've been promised an ice luge to sled down once the snow is deep enough.

We'll build wooden sculptures to burn in a bonfire for the winter solstice, and I'm hoping that at least once or twice I can commute to work by snowmobile – that'll boggle some minds when I tell my friends down in New Orleans.

Perhaps most of all I am thoroughly charmed by the romantic vision of snuggling up with my mountain man and the dogs and a steaming mug of chocolate by the blazing wood stove, reading aloud from a favorite book as the fluffy snow piles up outside the window, dancing the limbs of the Lodgepoles in the gulch. It's a writer's dream, really.

Yes, if my thin Cajun blood can stay pumping in the cold and my vagabond soul can withstand the cabin fever, my first Montana winter shall be a wonderland indeed.

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