Arts and Music Festival, Trails Day weather weekend storms

Things looked pretty grim for the success of the 3rd Annual Lincoln Arts and Music Festival and the first Lincoln Trails Day event last weekend, as a series of major rainstorms headed toward western Montana, trigging flash flood warnings across the area.

When all was said and done, however, it seemed like things had gone pretty well.

"All the music played and 90 percent of the artists stuck around for most of the two days, so it was a success in my book," festival organizer Karyn Good said.

The weekend kicked off with a Saturday that was sunny and pleasant, if a bit windy, for most of the day, giving the 40 vendors at the festival a better than expected turnout from potential customers.

Nikki Gulick of the Fairfield-Augusta area said folks from Great Falls admitted the forecast prompted some people to forego the trip over Rogers Pass for the festival, but she said Sunday morning her Saturday had gone well for her.

"People were here, and people were buying," she said.

On the opposite side of Hooper Park's central circle Diane Hausmann, another artist from Fairfield, said she also had a good day Saturday, selling a painting and several prints and notecards.

On Saturday evening, things did take a turn for the worse as heavy rains rolled into the area at about 6 p.m. The downpour drove away all but a handful of die-hards who stuck around for the evening's musical performances.

With about a dozen fans huddled in front of the stage, just inside the Hooper Park Pavillion and barely out the rain, Arterial Drive kicked off the headlining performances. Milton Menasco and the Big Fiasco followed, with Shades of Blue, wrapping up the evening's performances around 11:30 p.m.

Despite the lack of a big crowd, Good said the attitude of all three bands was "We're here, we're playing."

By Sunday morning, the concern about the impact of the high winds expected overnight proved mostly unfounded, as all the vendors tents and canopies remained firmly in place, much to the relief of the organizers.

"We didn't lose a single tent, which is more than I can say for last year," Good said Sunday morning. "We lost two last year, but I was prepared this year. I walked around to every single tent and made sure they were staked in and tied down, and had weights. I was like, 'We're not messing with that. We're not having people's tents blowing away.'"

While most vendor had lightweight, pop up canopies that had to be firmly secured, veterans like Hausmann and Jackie Van Heel of Great Falls weren't too worried. Both artists use heavy display panels to display their artwork, which has the added benefit of providing a stable anchor for their shelters.

"I've weathered plenty of storms with this," Hausmann said.

This year, organizers made a change to the vendor layout based on feedback from last year. Rather than having the outer ring of vendors face outward and the inner ring face inward, they simply faced all the vendor inward, toward the pavilion and the stage. It was a simple change but it seemed to be popular with vendors and customers alike.

"I think it worked much better," Good said. "We thought what the heck, we'll try it."

Good also credited Lincoln Park Board President Nyle Howsmon and Ron Gibson for the job they did trimming the limbs on the trees on the circle up to eight feet, which allowed for better access for everyone.

"I think that really opened it up. People don't realize how much more open that is. that really helped."

In conjunction with the second day of the Arts and Music Festival, Sunday also marked Lincolns first Trails Day event. Trails Day, based on a large event held by the Continental Divide Trail Coalition in New Mexico, is the first such event in Montana for the Continental Divide Trail, said Lauren Murray, with the CDT coalition out of Helena.

"We're really excited to be a part of it and seeing Lincoln take ownership of this and being super motivated and excited about the trail," Murray said.

The Lincoln Valley Chamber of Commerce hosted CDT Gateway Community Celebrations held in 2017 and 2018 in honor of Lincoln's designation as the first gateway community in the state of Montana, but this year's event went a step further by incorporating hikes, a mountain bike ride and an ATV ride to highlight the area's trails.

The day included horse and mule packing demonstrations by the Back Country Horsemen and Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks Game Warden Ezra Schwalm.

Unfortantley, the gloomy weather Sunday, accompanied by waves of drizzling rain, took a toll on some of the activities, with only about seven people braving the weather for the three-mile hike to the top of Lewis and Clark Pass. The other events were cancelled due to the rain.

As he set up the table for Bike Walk Montana, Doug Habermann admitted he "called an audible" on the ten-mile mountain bike ride he was slated to lead that morning, due to the torrential rainstorm that hit earlier in the morning.

Despite the setbacks, Good was happy with how well everything turned out in the end

"It went really well, considering the weather," she said. "It really did. Everybody seemed to think it was well organized; we had some good weather, we had some bad weather, but we just made the best of it."