Spring Hike: Being Al/l-O/one

My tolerance for what generally counts as human culture is about two weeks. For two weeks, I can be around people, function relatively normally, and not act like a total misanthrope. I can satisfy myself with my excellent walk to and from work, chatting with the local ravens, and watching the bitterroot rosettes spring to life:

And the chunky, early spring predator wasps working the sagebrush/knapweed prairie (they sting & paralyse an insect, lay an egg on the insect, and stash it in a small ground burrow):

But the terrible environmental ethics of people begins to get to me, and each day I have to witness ongoing processes of mutilation, such as this ATV track near Big Butte that gets wider and deeper each year:

So I "lift up mine eyes unto the hills from whence cometh my strength," and head out for a hike. Someplace where there is not another soul in sight. This fine day it was in the shadow of death, that is to say, in the shadow of the Anacona smelter. There are plenty of signs of bad environmental ethics here: the still-barren landscape was heavily damaged by arsenic, acidic fumes, heavy metals, and other fallout from Anaconda Copper Mining company smelters. Still, the damage is historical, and slowly fading away like this old fence line:

And there is remarkably good forage such as the grasses recover the land, and this old growth bitterbrush:

RTD and I saw a lone mulie doe and an enormous bull moose. Strangely, both were extremely skittish. This is normal enough for mule deer, although they usually run 100 yards or so and then turn to look back. This one ran clean to the other side of the open valley (a half mile or more away) before she even slowed down. And (as I learned from the tracks) bullwinkle hightailed it up over one ridge, through a shallow wash, and then up over the next ridge before heading down into thicker cover.

RTD and I also saw two large coyotes , or what I thought at the time were coyotes. We got just a fleeting glimpse of them as they trotted across a small snow field and up over a distant ridge. I wished afterward that we had hiked over to check out their tracks, for they did not look quite right for coyotes: their heads seemed large, and they carried their tail almost horizontally. Hmmmm... Wolves would explain that skittish deer and moose. Sure wish I had hiked over to check out those tracks.

We hiked up the drainage as far as we could go without snowshoes, taking in the good view of Short Peak and Mt. Haggin:

And pausing for a pot of noodles and a hot cup of tea:

Greatly refreshed, and ready to face the human world for another few days, we hiked down the ridges and back to the truck.

In Praise of Bitterroots (and other Late Spring Wildflowers of the Northern Rockies)

Well, here it is, well into June. The weather is spring-crazy, with snow one day and 70 deg F the next, and it has been exceptionally wet. The wildflowers love it, and I have never seen the bitterroots especially produce so many blooms.

In this view, you can see why they are locally known to the old-timers as "rock roses:"

For some years, I did not recognize the bitterroot plant. The flowers would show up in late June or early July (they are exceptionally early this year around my home at c. 6100 feet elevation), but the leaves had long died away. The rosettes of leaves are beautiful in and of themselves, as in this photo from late April:

Then, the leaves gradually die away (07 May):

The buds form (24 May):

And swell and multiply (01 June):

And then, one day, there is a tentative half-opened flower (04 June):

Soon followed by many, many more:

What joy as the lovely blooms paint the most desolate and dry slopes. Bitterroots (Lewisia rediviva) were an important staple of the native peoples in this region, and one of several root crops that helped keep the Lewis & Clark party from starvation.

Also in bloom, the lodgepole pines:

Whack a branch with your walking stick and watch the thick, rich pollen roll out into the still morning air. Ah, sex in the open air:

There is a worm in this garden. Well, they have to eat too--like this writhing mass of tent caterpillars on the old apple tree:

Just over the divide, on the wet, lush meadows of the upper Big Hole river, the blue camas light up the prarie. A large concentration of them looks like a sea of blue when viewed at a low angle from a distance:

The single stalks are lovely up close, too:

With their companion, the bistort:

Blue camas (Camassia quamash) roots, even more of a staple than bitterroots, were the bread of the Nez Perce and Salish. A maiden was judged, in part, by how many baskets of roots she could gather in a day. By steaming the roots, Indians converted their indigestible insulin sugars to readily digestible starches. By pounding and drying the roots in thin sheets (often flavored with other roots or berries), they could be preserved in earthen vessels for a year or more. When the US Army destroyed the Nez Perce caches of bitterroot, it helped lead to war.

Bistort (Bistorta bistortoides = Polygonum bistortoides) , sometimes called snakeroot, was also an important herb--used as food, as an herbal decoction for various illnesses, and as a poultice for wounds.