Gnarled and brambly, the trees produce a plenitude of fruit in varieties forgotten in the 90-some years since William and Emma Randolph planted the orchard on a slope within sight of their patchwork cabin.
But it is the silence, not the harvest, that brings Allan Mathews back each fall to the Randolph homestead.
"It is such a place of peace," said Mathews, the city of Missoula's historic preservation officer.
In the two years since the city bought the homestead, Mathews has cataloged the contents of its cabin and outbuildings, looking for clues to the hardscrabble life of a family in turn-of-the-century Missoula. They left little behind, he said, because they had so little to begin with.
Everything on the homestead was cobbled together. Rusting patches cover patches on the cabin's corrugated tin roof. Sticks and ragged-toothed planks line the fences. Iron bed frames are the makeshift gates. Only the root cellar remains perfectly intact, cut into the grassy knob, framed from rubblestone and pine.
"Missoula has nothing else like this, and probably never will again," said Mathews.
But the city bought the Randolph property with money from its open space bond account, and there is interest in selling the homestead and using the proceeds to buy other land elsewhere in town - flatter land, better suited to organized recreation. Mathews opposes the sale, as do some residents of Missoula's North Side and the one resident of the homestead.
This week, the public will have its first and possibly only chance to see the homestead and the hills that shelter it during a pair of tours sponsored by the Missoula Parks and Recreation Department and Open Space Advisory Committee.
"People need to get out on the place and take a look at it," said Ron Erickson, chairman of the North Hills Committee, a subcommittee of the open space advisory group. "We all need to think about the next 100 years and what Missoula is going to look like 100 years from now, and whether or not we should keep this property."
Sell the Randolph land, which is protected by a conservation easement that allows construction of one house, and the open space bond account gets fatter, said Erickson. And the city rids itself of responsibility for managing 585 acres of increasingly weedy land and a ramshackle collection of buildings.
But there may also be reasons to keep the property, maybe for its historic value, maybe for the solitude it provides so close to town, maybe as an unconventional park and a sledding hill, he said.
When the Open Space Advisory Committee recommended buying the property in 1996, it did so with an accompanying recommendation that the land be protected with a conservation easement and then sold, said Kate Supplee, the city's open space program manager.
There are management problems, more than anyone imagined, she said. Knapweed covers much of the grassy hillsides, which include the hills facing downtown Missoula along Interstate 90. Wildfire is a worry in the summer. And the buildings at the old homestead are a safety hazard. That's why the homestead has been off limits to the public for the past two years.
"But there are people who just love this land," Supplee said. "And who can say that this wouldn't be a fabulous resource for Missoula in the future? It's not a flat park, but it is a large piece of land, and large pieces of land are getting rarer and rarer."
Thus the tours: from 5:30-7:15 p.m. Wednesday and from 2:30-4:30 p.m. Thursday. Both start at the City Hall breezeway, where groups will load into vans for the drive to the homestead. Advance registration is required by calling Supplee at 523-4669 by noon on Tuesday.
Each tour will include a look at the homestead and ample time to hike across the North Hills, past the peace sign to the Duncan Drive trailhead. Vans will be waiting. Some vans will stay behind for those interested only in the homestead tour. Everyone on the tour needs sturdy shoes.
Then, from 4:30-7 p.m.
on Thursday, Supplee and others will host an open house in the City Council Chambers at City Hall, 435 Ryman St. That's when the public can comment on the future of the property.
To get the discussion started, the North Hills Committee has suggested four options:
Sell or trade all 585 acres after placing new easements to stop any development on the hillsides facing Missoula and to guarantee public access to two popular North Hills trails. The appraised value of the land is $321,300.
Keep all the land in city ownership, and develop a plan for weed control, fencing and the old homestead. (The buildings almost certainly will be demolished, Supplee said.)
Keep the 233 acres facing town, and sell or trade the rest of the property. Keep the trails access. That plan would generate about $169,000.
Keep about 100 acres on the hillsides facing town, keep the trail access and place conservation easements on any unprotected land. That option would add about $295,000 to the open space account.
A $5 million fund when approved by Missoula voters, the open space account is down to $1.4 million, Supplee said, "and there is a lot we'd still like to see done with the money."
"There are still three really important needs," added Erickson. "Riverfront land, small parks and continuation of the trail system." Any money from the sale of the North Hills land would go to other open space purchases.
But so, too, is there a need for a link with Missoula's history, said Ric Munfrada, the only resident of the old homestead.
A city police officer, Munfrada was recruited a little more than a year ago to live on the property and protect it against vandalism. He is now one of its greatest advocates.
"I want the city to keep it," Munfrada said. "For the kids. In the next 20 years, young people are going to become so detached from the land. They need places like the Randolph homestead to reconnect with their heritage. I don't know of any other place where you can see so clearly what life was like a century ago."
Selling the property, he said, will almost certainly mean construction of a new house in the hollow, likely above or alongside the old orchard. "Once things are built, you can never erase their presence," he said. "You can never get back what you've lost."
In the orchard and among the bramble of plum trees that line the road below, Munfrada said he has found Missoula's past. It's a discovery, he said, worth sharing, and a past worth hanging onto.