YA GOTTA LOVE MONTANA

My husband and I take all our year's tax papers up to Wisdom, Montana, every February to hide out at the Nez Perce Motel and get organized for our CPA. It's a way of making the drudgery into an adventure because Wisdom offers an excellent restaurant (The Crossing), great cross country skiing (Steel Creek), and only 16 miles down the road, Jackson Hot Springs. Plus, since we don't "do" television at home, channel surfing the TV is a fun sport for short periods.

This year, we arrived at the motel ready to get serious, but no one was in the office. We could hear a loud speaker blaring a few blocks south in the center of town, which is a town of about 100 hardy souls, if that. It was 15 degrees that sunny early afternoon, and the snow was packed down to about three feet. We bundled up and wandered towards the noise. We noticed smoke, and later discovering it came from 55-gallon with wood-and-diesel fires so the participants of the SKI JORING CHAMPIONSHIP could keep warm.

So far I haven't met anyone in Hamilton who knew about Ski Joring, but we've been trying to get up to see it for several years. We got to see two runs before they took an afternoon break. In both cases the horses were having the best time, tearing down the (snow packed) 4-block street, with an enthusiastic rider, and a 33-foot rope behind to which a skier was holding on with stubborn tenacity, flying along, around beer carton gate markers (red on right, blue on left) and going over jumps measuring about 3'-4' high. The part that made me giggle the most were the beer cartons on the Official Championship course. About 100 folks stood around watching, drinking beer, pop and hot chocolate. The Big Hole Tourism Association had built a booth for hot dogs and chili on a side street.

This is the fifth year of competitive Ski Joring in Wisdom, and the various Divisions brave skiers can enter include the Open, Women's, Sport, and Century Division. The latter requires the combined age of 100 (not including the horse's age) and "attracts the old, the weak and mentally impaired!"

As the brochure explains, "Style doesn't count." And, "The skier must be holding the rope and must be on at least one ski when they cross the finish. Both ski boots must go through a gate but not necessarily both skis." Just the thought of the possibilities bring a tremor.

We completed our taxes after dark, and walked over to the The Crossing to find it full of noisy guests, mostly on the bar side, with raucous laughter and dozens of stories being shared about the day. One table in the dining area seated five older folks, dressed snugly in wool plaids and pack boots, with one poor fellow limping badly from an injury on the course. But he was in good spirits about it. Obviously, we'd arrived for the biggest night of the year, matched only by the previous night, since the Championship is a 2-day event.

Sorry to say our taxes are getting increasingly simpler as we age, and we might not have an excuse to make our annual trek to Wisdom. But I have a feeling we'll do it anyway, as long as we can afford it. Besides the biting clean air, the indescribable vistas, and the simplicity, Wisdom offers quiet, and an amazing blanket of stars that seem to reflect the sparkling snow. I have a picture of the handmade sign on the north end of town: Welcome to Wisdom. And really, in the autumn of our years (to put it poetically), isn't wisdom one of the accruing benefits?