A Spring Hike in Montana's High Desert Hills

Cross country skiing down a steep, ungroomed runof Buzzy Trail at The Moulton last week, I made the turn at the bottom, took in a deep breath, and looked up at the azure blue Big Sky. I love to ski and am fortunate for having legs that have served me well into middle age and for having a excellent trails virtually in my backyard. Still, I have skied about 50 days since late November and was ready for a hike in snow-free hills. 

Spring is early this year in Butte America. Already, on the hill behind my home in Walkerville, the snow is nearly gone, the frost is leaving the ground, and tiny bitterroot (Lewisia rediviva) rosettes are beginning to green up:

My friend Dave and I, with Molly- and Jack-the-Dog in tow, headed for the high, sagebrush desert hills of the lower Big Hole River. The elevation is about 6,000 feet -- approximately the same as Butte -- but mountain ranges such as the Pioneers (shown here, with Torrey Mountain and Tweedy Mountain, the two most prominent peaks) create a rain shadow so the area is very dry--less than 10 inches of precipitation per year:

It's good Rocky Mountain Bighorn Sheep habitat, and we were barely parked and on our way when these three young rams ambled past:

Closer to the river, the carrying capacity for wildlife increases greatly, and it's common to see herds of Pronghorn Antelope:

The aridity means that bones, such as this rabbit skull, persist for a long time (note also the red-orange lichen that is common here): 

Luckily for the dogs, there are still some patches of snow that offer a welcome respite on a warm afternoon:

Limestone dominates the geology. Over time, the sedimentary layers have been lifted and tilted, and because it erodes easily, this makes for interesting patterns on the landscape:

Up close, the limestone proves equally interesting, sometimes eroding into feathery plates:

And sometimes showing a limestone conglomerate structure:

Though this area is very dry today, during the Pleistocene glacial periods from 2.5 million years ago to 10,000 or so years ago, it was very wet and experienced large run-off events during interglacial warming periods. At the mouth of coulees, the wash of sediments created alluvial fans:

Vegetation sorts out into very specific niches that you can read from a high vantage point like a book. Big Sagebrush (Artemisia tridentata), "a desert plant in search of water," likes the deeper alluvial or glacial till deposits. Curly-leaf Mountain Mahogany (Cercocarpus ledifolius), a favorite food of mule deer and bighorn sheep, is a limestone-loving shrub. Here you can see the sagebrush on alluvial deposits in the foreground, and mountain mahogany on the limestone outcrop in the back:

A desert shrub, Curly-leaf Mountain Mahogany is remarkably good at weaving its roots into the limestone's joints and bedding-planes:

Dave and I like climbing the limestone ridge outcrops or "reefs" that define the landscape here:

At the top of this one, we found an old, well-aid, cairn--a "Stone Johnnie." Basque sheepherders that tended flocks throughout this region a century ago built these stone piles to mark their grazing routes:

Well, the corned beef is in the oven, and it's time to start the cabbage and potatoes. I wish I could recall all of the poem Gramps used to recite each year on this day, but a few lines went,
   "He drank like a fish
    And ate like a savage.
    The only thing he didn't like,
    Was corned beef and cabbage."
Happy St Paddy's!