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 A GORP Content Partner Adapted from Walking Down the Wild by Gary Ferguson |
Walking Down the Wild A Journey Through Greater Yellowstone |
An Early Summer Trek, Part I
For nature writer Gary Ferguson, a 500-mile-journey by foot through the Yellowstone Rockies was inevitable. As a boy in Indiana, he pored over maps and photographs of the West, dreaming of the day he would be a part of the magnificent Rocky Mountains.
Ferguson hiked to find what old-timers call "native wisdom" — knowledge of a place gained through personal experience. Ultimately, however, his quest was also a farewell journey. He walked into the mountains to confront his own feelings of desperation over how rapidly the wild Rockies are disappearing. He writes, "Walking with both eyes open through this landscape is like sitting by the bedside of a dying friend, hoping in some childish way that something said, some small thing done, might help bring a little measure of relief. There's a part of me that still thinks such optimism isn't entirely unfounded. But I also realize that to hope is to seek comfort, to establish some kind of connection from which one day I might better understand the need for the passing away of precious things."
In this excerpt from Walking Down the Wild, Ferguson describes an early summer hike in the region between the Gallatin and Madison Ranges, in the Gallatin National Forest of Montana, which lies at the northern border of Yellowstone National Park.
I'm back on the trail in early July, but spring is only just starting to gather steam along the upper reaches of the high country. Yellow-bellied marmots are hustling down grassy runways to their favorite feedings areas, already fattening for the long winter ahead. White-crowned sparrows unleash their melodic trills well past the setting sun, while water pipets can be found searching for insects along the edges of the snowfields. Coyotes, and even mountain lions, have returned to the tops of the mountains again, eager to hunt the greening sprawls of the tundra.
This southward trek between the Gallatin and Madison ranges is my first serious hike of the season, and by a mile out I'm regretting not having gotten into better condition. The truth is that I still think of mountain hiking in frames that I built in my early twenties. But that was fifteen years ago, and while my enthusiasm hasn't waned, my ability to dash up trails under full pack with impunity certainly has. The fact that I have a serious head cold and my traveling companion in the lead, Eric, has a bad case of gas, doesn't make things any easier. He christens me Captain Snotbox, I dub him Admiral Blowhole, and we trudge off through the foothills together like two kids in the throes of puberty, honking, tooting, laughing, and gasping for breath. Like clockwork, just when I'm starting to really falter, we stumble across an enormous bull moose, pushing hoofprints as big as my hand into the soft dirt. And once again, just seeing him leaves me feeling better.
The path makes a steady climb through alternating patches of spruce-fir forest wrapped in dim, murky light, as well as past brightly lit meadows stitched with geraniums, bluebells, paintbrush, forget-me-nots, and marsh marigolds. The paintbrush blooms are especially striking this year-ragged, raspberry-colored bracts tinged with a deep wash of scarlet. At the edge of one meadow is a large spruce tree; a good nine feet up the trunk are slash marks from some very large claws, as well as small tufts of bear fur. Bears have certain trees they rub against with delicious abandon, often standing on their hind legs and grabbing the trunk the way a cat leans up a scratching post. Some outdoorsmen believe that the height of the claw marks is a sign to potential rivals of the bear's size and stature (kind of like the four-foot-high line painted on the wall next to some of the crazier carnival rides: if you aren't at least this tall, move along).
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There are also several large stumps lining the path, cut not by chainsaw but by axe. Maybe the trees were firewood for some rancher back in the 1940s, a burnt, tawny fellow sat with the kids on bitter nights around his burning spruce logs, telling them of the days of gold and wolves, of buckboards rumbling up the Gallatin.
After nearly eight miles and 2,300 feet of climbing, we reach the long, narrow summit of Pika Point, named for that splendid little farming rodent who cuts grasses and turns them into hay by drying them on flat rocks. The place is thoroughly carpeted in buttercups, glacier lilies, and shooting stars, and offers nearly 360 degrees of astonishing view, the world tumbling for our feet in a riot of mountainscapes. Standing first on the western edge of the summit, we stare into the magnificent ramparts of the Madison Range. There is Lone Mountain and the mighty Sphinx, the latter home to a beautiful herd of snow-white goats. Imp Peak is flanked to the south by the rounded shoulders of Echo and Dutchman peaks, and then by the fat granite fingers of Hilgarde — a fortress that completely overwhelms the snow-and-ice-bound basins lying directly below it, and a stern guard against easy access to the high country lakes that lie beyond. Immediately beneath these peaks is a tight weave of emerald green meadows, a paradise of good eating for local wildlife. To the south the land drops more gently into the green folds of Carrott Basin, and beyond that, rises and falls in a series of high ridges toward the northwest corner of Yellowstone. To the east are yet more meadows to savor — long green twists of grasses and forbs, backed by tattered waves of high country in the Lee Metcalf Wilderness.
For much of the summer it would be hard to stay on Pika Point because of a lack of water. But this week there are still patches of snow scattered about which can be easily melted for drinking and cooking. Even though it's early in the day, having clearly found paradise we decide it would be foolish to go any farther, so we toss off our packs and set out on a long walk to explore the southern lip of the ridge. Upon returning we break out a happy-hour feast of crackers and cheese and powdered lemon-lime drink mixed with generous splashes of rum. True, there are times when roaming the high country with a heavy pack on your back can be a grueling experience. But sitting in a lofty garden like this one, no one around for miles, and little to do but sip drinks and sigh over the scenery, is to scour all traces of drivel from your brain. Savoring the last rations of rum as the sun settles toward Sphinx Mountain, we move into the main eating event, which tonight centers around beef stroganoff with fresh mushrooms. By the time dishes are done and the food is hung, the first elk are beginning to drift out of the forest into the lush meadows for forbs, dining on almost anything green they happen to find, be it geranium, lupine, or aster. Only later, when the forbs begin to cure and their nutrient content drops off drastically, will the animals switch to a diet made up predominately of grasses.
Go There: About four o'clock in the morning I feel someone playing with my hair. Just as I'm about to nudge Erik awake and give him the news that I'm not the woman he thinks I am, I turn to see a mouse standing on his hind feet at the head of my sleeping bag. That his great ball of nesting material has risen and is now talking to him seems to leave him more incredulous than alarmed; in fact, it takes a fair amount of coaxing before he finally turns and ambles out of the tent, perhaps in search of a hiker that sleeps more soundly than I do.
By now I'm thoroughly awake, and struck with the urge to crawl out of the tent and take care of some pressing business. Looking up through the cool night air I find a sky so shot full of stars that I very nearly fall over backward looking at it. There is Perseus, Cassiopeia, Saggita, and Pegasus;— all held against the "star trail," which is yet another name for what we know as the Milky Way. I spot a meteorite, and a minute later, two more. In this culture we often call these shooting stars; to many Native Americans, however, they are known as feeding or grazing stars.
Many cultures around the world believe that when a person dies, he or she rises into the heavens to become a star. Thus if a wife loses a husband or a woman a child, she will watch the sky night after night for the appearance of a new star; to find it holds nothing less that a sense of reconnection to the loved one who's passed on. Standing here atop this lonely ridge, I'm fascinated to think how it might feel right now to see the night sky as bursting with the spirits of my relatives and ancestors, all of them looking down on me with great affinity.
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The Pleiades seem to be winking especially bright tonight above the eastern horizon, a tight cluster of stars known to the Blackfeet as the six brothers. As the story is still told today, in a Blackfoot camp of long ago there was a very poor couple who had six sons. Unlike most families, the boys' father could not hunt well, and so never acquired the precious red robes that other parents fashioned for their children from the hide of the young spring buffalo. Seeing the boys dressed in their old brown robes day after day, many of the people in camp teased them constantly. One morning the oldest boy called his five brothers together for a conference in the middle of a lonely prairie. "If we do not get the red robes next spring," he said, "then we shall leave this place and go into the sky."
Move on to Walking Down the Wild: An Early Summer Trek, Part II
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