The Greatest Gift
Granite Lake, Cabinet Mountains Wilderness Area: A few years ago I hiked up to Granite Lake with my daughter Claire and she took this photo of me standing on the log jam, the same place I stood in 1968 at eight years old when this view grabbed my soul and never let go. My passion to spend time in wild places has only grown over the years.
The Greatest Gift
When I worked as a professional forester in NW Montana, I was in the field most of the time. I loved noticing the changes in the seasons on a daily basis. Whether it was the drumming of blue grouse (dusky grouse) in the spring, the first ripe huckleberries or the bugling of a bull elk during the rut. Sometimes the changes were more subtle like the first flipped rock by a black bear or grizzly in the spring, looking for grubs. Witnessing these changes fed my soul and prompted more questions about the natural world, some of which I'm still trying to answser.
During the summer months, I'd wrap up ten to twelve hours of forestry work, eat dinner and head back out until dark to learn more about the wildlife where I lived. I was fortunate to be stationed in Plains, Montana and McGregor Lake, between Kalispell and Libby. It was light out until 10:30 pm so I had several more hours to spend time in wild places. My workmates thought I was crazy to head back out after a full day of work. I'm so thankful for those memories from my twenties. One evening I saw a large bull moose, a small herd of elk and a sow black bear and her two cubs, all in the same view on a high ridge on Blue Mountain near Plains, MT. The air currents were in my favor and none of the animals knew I was there. I watched them for more than thirty minutes before they slipped through the timber and out of view. I could spend an hour telling you about that evening, with incredible detail, even though it was 42 years ago.
Winter is a magical time. Following tracks of different animals opens a window into how each species deals with the pressure of simply surviving, minimizing calorie loss while maximizing calorie gain. And that balance is most acute in the winter time where simply being outside results in a significant loss of calories for most animals.
After studying mountain lions for twenty years I've learned there are multiple ways this apex predator and keystone species deals with this balance between calorie loss and gain in the winter months. And they are all fascinating.
The first several of those twenty years were spent following lion tracks in the snow each winter, forwards or backwards, it didn't matter. I'd choose the direction based on topography, aspect and current snow conditions, always trying to maximize how long I could follow those tracks in the snow. As the snow reached a minimum four to six inches in depth the mountain lion would direct register it's back foot into the track of the front foot to save energy. During the rest of the year, without snow, the back foot would land in front of the front foot. I found this fascinating, that an animal would change its gait based on the substrate it was walking in.
The richness of my experience in wild places has a lot to do with slowing down and paying attention to multiple natural factors throughout each ecosystem I saunter through.
To share what I've learned and continue to learn with others is important to me. I feel compelled to pay it forward. My parents gave me the greatest gift to explore really wild places, with grizzlies, wolves and mountain lions, starting before my teenage years. Of all the gifts I've received throughout my lifetime, this one is the most valuable to me. It took a lot of courage and faith, especially from my mom, to see me hoist a backpack in the kitchen, and head into the Cabinet Mountains Wilderness Area, sometimes for several days. That gift changed my life forever.
