Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
Festivals and Events
The
Hamilton Farmers Market
(Bedford St. between 2nd St. and 3rd St., 406/961-0004,
www.hamiltonfarmersmarket.webs.com
,
9am-12:30pm Sat. early May-early Oct.) offers
a bounty of local produce, much of it organic, along with local baked goods, arts and
crafts, prepared food, and family entertainment.
First Friday Hamilton
(
www.hamiltondowntownassociation.com
)
happens the first Friday of each month in sum-
mer and is like an arts-oriented street party with special sales and great food and drinks.
Montana Mule Days
(Ravalli County Fairgrounds, 406/777-2331 or 406/363-3411,
www.montanamuledays.com
,
$5/day or $10 for all three days, free for children 6 and under)
is a family-friendly event held over three days in mid-June. Attendees can take any one
of more than 100 classes including log pulling, driving, penning, and costuming, all using
mules of course. Spectators are more than welcome too.
Once the terminus of the Northern Pacific Railway, Darby (pop. 724, elevation 3,888 feet)
is perhaps best known for its place in some of the great logging debates of the 1960s-1980s,
along with one of the largest pro-logging organized protests in the country in 1988. Referred
to as the Great Log Haul, some 300 fully loaded logging trucks delivered their loads to the
Darby Lumber Company on May 13, 1988, to call attention to the plight of the loggers and
mill workers who were affected by the big timber companies' flooding of the market, which
led to plummeting prices and the subsequent closure of public land to prevent further log-
ging. Much of western Montana, and the Bitterroot Valley in particular, had relied on log-
ging for nearly a century; layoffs and mill closings had an enormous impact.
Festivals and Events
A great regional event is
Darby Logger Days
(
www.darbyloggerdays
), held annually the
third weekend in July. The two-day event celebrates the region's logging history with log-
ger sports, kids' activities, a parade, and a concert. Admission is $15 for the weekend, and
kids under 12 are free when accompanied by an adult.
Fishing
Without a doubt, this valley offers some of the best fishing in the West. The Bitterroot River
runs north from Connor, where the East Fork and West Fork (both of which offer great
fishable waters) join to form the Bitterroot, up the valley to Missoula, where it flows into
