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10 August ~2008
When you live with dogs as smart as my two border collies, it seems natural to talk to them: "We are going to Montana, in the truck, We're gonna see buffalo." They both look at me and listen intently. Maggie cocks her head when she knows I am telling her something important.They might know more of what I am saying than I realize, since they watch me so closely, and know what every my action means. They understand when I put on my good Justin boots I am going out dancing, and they sit back and watch with bored eyes. When I put on my hiking boots though they know we are going on a walk or a hike, and stand close with excited and expectant dispositions.
Is it that much of a stretch for think that Ben and Maggie understand it is the time of year that us three head off in my pickup, to Wyoming and Yellowstone, to Montana and the Beartooths?
Somebody today asked me who likes it more - you or them. "It's the same - all three of us love it," I replied.
After a night or two in Cody, we will head up past Red Lodge and start at dawn up a Beartooth Mountain trail. We will climb for miles back into a glacial valley, past several lakes.
The dangerous part is at the second lake, where to continue on we must get over a wide deadfall of logs. The river runs fast beneath the last 30 or 40 feet of logs, and you do not want to slip.
Further on past the deadfall I found Grizzly claw marks on a tree last year. Most were up high beyond where I could reach, but down at the base where a few small ones, as if a cub was mimicing what big Mom was doing.
I have found a stretch in the river that is full of 15 to 20 inch trout which take about as long to catch as the time it takes to put your line in the water. I don't tell anyone the location - if it was well known I probably wouldn't have the solitude that I enjoy so much.
The risks you have to take to get up there probably ensures the river will remain mostly a secret - crossing that deadfall, then crossing the river again further up the valley. And there is the fact that it is beyond a one day hike. To go up there means you have to spend the night, with the local residents close by. (bear) I try to cook the trout early in the day, so the fish smell dissapates some. Then I burn willow leaves in my cooking pot, and stand over the smoke. I figure its much better to smell like smoke rather than a fish when you sleep where Grizzlies wander after dark.
For sure there is some lonliness up there alone, and a certain amount of danger - especially at night. That's all part of it though, and having a steady disposition and clear head is what is required. When it is all done, you walk out of those mountains with a stronger heart, carrying some of the spirit of the Wilderness within you.
I will never have a lot of money, own a bunch of property, take trips around the world. My gut feeling though is all that can't hold a candle to the beauty and mystery and freedom I experience traveling in the high Western Wilderness, with my two mountain dogs.
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