yesterday, a doe hurrying along three smaller companions, their coats mangy and uneven in this late spring—the porcupine, the raccoon, tell me either that I must begin earlier, before rays of sunlight begin lighting the world, or that wildlife is better at watching me, than I it. How many sets of eyes might that be, hidden by thick trunks and fields of vibrant yellow balsamroot? The thoughtful hunter knows his quarry stalks him, just as he does it. I am a hunter of wildlife, but my weapons are none. A gently whispered good morning and my slowly moving body on a bicycle are the worst with which the deer and porcupine must contend. My hunting results only in my own deep gratitude for each brief sighting of bird or beast. And what do I miss when I blink, turn my head at the moment something flits by in the opposite direction? The more aware I become, the more I will see.
This canyon I claim is not my own but is Emigration Canyon, the Donner-Reed party’s path of entry into the Great Salt Lake Valley, now speckled with homes. The road winds gently upward for eight miles before reaching the crest, long ago named Little Mountain. The final mile-and-a-half climb is uninhabited by humans, though parcels with water rights are for sale. Were I wealthy, I would buy them all so that the deer and owls, the rabbits and raccoons and hawks could retain their stomping grounds. From the summit on, the land is governed by multiple agencies—and one corporation—with plans and leases: two different counties, the federal government, Chevron, and a watershed. To my delight and benefit, the result of this confused management arrangement is a peaceful land devoid of homes.
Following the road down, now on the eastern side of the crest, I coast toward Little Dell Reservoir, a body of water barely large enough to kayak or canoe in—perhaps a mile from dam to distant shore and a quarter mile across. I sometimes see a fisherman quietly contemplating life or nothing at all as his line dangles into the gray or blue or green water, depending upon the clouds, the sun, the fickle wind. Some days the reservoir is Caribbean blue at its edges, other days it is glass-like, mirroring the pine-covered hillside to the south. Wind can chop its surface into millions of white caps. Predawn mornings render it glossy and iridescent as a gray pearl.
In the hollow of a curve halfway down, between summit and reservoir, deer graze then hearken, heads lifting, eyes alert. A moose munches willows in the pocket where snowmelt collects in the spring, and I grin in delight as rabbits and chipmunks dash across the road before me. A few summers ago I saw fox kits, leaping and jumping upon each other, full of energy and mischievousness in this same hollow. Hawks swoop and soar, and the rare peregrine falcon sits, regally, in a stark gray tree not yet lush with spring’s buds. My soul is damn happy, awash in a delight that springs loose and bubbles to my surface.
After riding past the reservoir, I skirt over dirt around the edge of a still-locked snow gate and begin the climb up Big Mountain. I’m still following the path of the Donner-Reed party, yet in reverse. I continue east, an anti-pioneer emigration route.
While Little Mountain is beautiful and a beloved place to visit, Big Mountain is wild. Pine and aspen coat north-facing hillsides, while those that face south are sagebrush-speckled red rock and dirt. Hawks circle, porcupine amble, deer dart and bounce and hide behind willow and dogwood and gambel oak. It is at once arid and richly riparian. A beaver dam impedes the creek, its sticks, twigs, and logs gray, weathered, and organized in that complicated way only beaver know, instinctively, to arrange. Nests rest in meeting place of trunk and limb, and when I pause to listen, at least one winged or fleet-footed critter is always calling or chattering. And all of this wildness I see from the two-lane blacktop road I travel. It is far from truly wild, yet more wild than any other place I intimately know. It is here I connect with something more genuine, more authentic, than almost any other piece of my life.
When the Mormon settlers walked and rode from the Midwest to Utah, they determined the best route into the Salt Lake Valley to be one that the Donner-Reed party had broken in 1846, a path that led from the Wyoming territory south and west through Echo Canyon. The pioneers then traveled up a long, rather gentle grade to a hill called Hogsback—a short, steep climb and descent. Next came a few miles of creek-laced path, until Big Mountain jutted into view. The final trial. The name came from Shoshone who lived nearby, and was uttered with respect. At its base they circled left, choosing the most manageable path up the side of the steep, dramatic ridge. For the next half century, wagon tracks dug deep into the earth were scars traveled by those who followed. Today the hillside is brush-covered, those tracks all but healed, and a paved road climbs a different face of the mountain. At the mountain pass, 7,400 feet above sea level, the original pioneer path and the tarmac meet in a graveled parking lot where cyclists and motorists often pause to absorb the view. Hill after hill fall away, each layered with growth both ancient and new. As far as one can see to the east, the south, the west, statuesque mountains—snowcapped peaks luminous for much of the year—rim the horizon.
At Big Mountain’s crest, the pioneers tied logs to the backs of handcarts and wagons. They descended a steep ravine that wound past rocks and trees, the descent easing after a tense mile. Logs were removed. They could now proceed downhill without fearing gravity’s speed would spill or overturn their carts.
Today’s two-lane road takes a different route down, switching back and forth, hairpin turning a time or two or three. Red dirt hillsides, scrub oak, grasses as tall as my waist. Tightly woven nests hide in branches, creek water trickles over mossy rock. It is this, the western side of Big Mountain, that I cycle up and down most often, that fills me with wonder, that I still consider wild. Half of the year, the top six miles on either side of the pass are gated and closed—no winter maintenance. These months, from late November to mid-May, are the months I find myself most in love with Big Mountain. I am often the only human on the road, surrounded by the intensely un-quiet quiet of this environment that is almost untouched, whether astride a bicycle before snow buries the road, or on snowshoes or skate skies once the asphalt disappears. No, Big Mountain isn’t truly wild, but it’s the closest thing to wild that I’m able to access an hour away, by bicycle, from home.
Mark is driving again, and we’re miles northwest of Yellowstone, far outside park boundaries, traveling through a state that loves, hates, and spends a great deal of time and energy managing wolves. Montana.
Snow-tipped mountains edge the plains, their valleys rocky and steep. The road rises through a pass chiseled into umber rock. Where sheer faces aren’t exposed, where soil has burrowed into cleft and crevasse, the hills sprout green. Grasses, brush, pine, leafy aspen. Soon Hellgate Canyon winds narrow, each larch-covered hillside leaning into us. Sunlight barred, duskiness presses as we drive alongside the tumbling Clark Fork River and cross the Blackfoot River’s crashing core. I suppress my breath. Around the bend light shatters the gloom and Missoula beckons. Rooftops glint. I blink. We cross the Clark Fork again, again, each time whetting my appetite. We hug a brown dust hillside, then exit the freeway and enter a city that borders land inhabited by more than forty packs of wolves.
The next afternoon, Mark, Kirsten, Liz Bradley, and I are in Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks’ tiny Missoula office building, in the conference room because Liz’s office is so packed with desks, chairs, and cabinets that there isn’t room for all of us. We sit in large wheeled chairs around a boat-sized table, the space behind each of our chairs only enough to squeeze through, one hip against chair, the other touching wall. Wolf packs, forty-five of them, are depicted on the large wall map by black stars. Liz is one of six wolf biologists in the state. Her job is partially funded by the federal government, a funding stream that will be phased out in 2015, as dictated by state and federal agreement.
A tall brunette with straight, shoulder-length hair, Liz is athletic and unpretentious. If she’s wearing makeup it’s invisible. However, I’m not sure of her real feelings about anything we discuss. Liz says the bulk of her job consists of outreach and education in an effort to help people adjust to the 2011 law that removed wolves in Montana from the endangered species list. With the delisting came management plans that include hunting and trapping. And a lot of politics. But Liz isn’t worried about the wolves’ overall numbers.
“Wolves have great long term viability—they breed quickly,
