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BullMountain to the
Boulder River, days 20 - 25
Day 20
After the beautiful moonlight walk to the Jefferson River, I camp in a Montana State Fishing Access Site. Really just a parking lot in a swamp. But Luna makes it easy to set up the tent to hide behind a mesh barrier from the mosquitoes. It is well past midnight when I arrive, so it is a shock when two rigs pull in early - a construction company filling a huge tanker truck from the river. Kind of shatters the atmosphere for sleeping in. I eat a few handfuls of crunchies and start walking. On roads. Imagine that!
I pass farms and ranches as well as a good number of country homes as I head to the interstate highway. I stop at the Cardwell Store, Casino, and Campground to wait for my resupply. I buy a beer at the casino and sit outside in the campground to wait. It is hot in the river bottom today. I contemplate the issue of the farms and ranches subdividing off land for rural residential development. In this area, the migration corridor for wildlife is up against enough of a barrier in the interstate. The large predators and ungulates may have an extremely hard time here with the addition of many homes dispersed throughout the landscape, complete with dogs, many fences, light, noise, and lots of activity. The area is wonderful; who wouldn't want to live there. But what are our long-term costs to the "nature" we move there to be around?
Chaucer and Beth arrive and reload me with food. For a "people" animal, the afternoon is tricky. I have a narrow route of state-owned land to follow past the Golden Sunlight mine, a huge gold mine that is eating up a mountain for our personal adornment. (for more info on that issue, contact the Montana Environmental Information Center or the Mineral Policy Center.) To walk so close to this huge mine for many hours makes me realize its scope and intensity. Finally I turn north and head for Conrow Creek. What a relief. A pair of jittery antelope, blooming cacti, and a fresh, clear stream refresh me before I head up the canyon. I smell the change in the air and make camp just in time to beat an evening gulleywasher. It is nice to see the tracks of elk, deer, and antelope instead of Fords, Chevys, and Dodges.
Day 21
The grass is so thick on the trail that it is like walking through a foot of snow. Other trails through the grass lets me know others have been here. I smile to myself to know it is not people, and no sign of cows ... yet. I lose the trail once and as I am scrambling through the brush I startle a mule deer from her day bed. Sorry. At a high spring I encounter bear scat; I am not the only one who thinks it is a good place for lunch and a drink. It is nice to just pop the water bottle into a little gusher coming out of the rocks. This is what water is supposed to be. From here it is a steep climb up to the main stem of the Bull Mountain ridge. I pass the most prolific patch of Bitterroot flowers I have ever seen. When I break into the open parks at the top of the ridge, it is a wonderful view. But not for pictures - big, thick, black clouds obscure the views south back over the Jefferson River valley and the Tobacco Roots.
To the north, the ridge continues to climb with great, open parks winding around the higher points and treed canyons. When I hit the open, I also hit the jeep trails again. The map show many, but most are closed to the public. The land is checkerboard - every other section public land, the rest private. The grazing association that owns the private land, in cooperation with Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks, and the Forest Service has closed most of the roads to motorized use. Good. Good for wildlife. But fences and cows. Lots of cows. I think I will walk with the cows a while. I stop in a low spot to let the thunderstorm that has found me pass before I climb over Wilson Ridge. In the park below I see a pair of bucks, one a tawny color and the other gray. When the lightning has passed, I continue on, following very fresh coyote tracks in the road. I am getting a case of tired feet, but I want to get over this next bump before I camp. Some water would be in order. It is a welcome surprise that when I cross the next fence, there are no cows. I wander around a little and find a nice spring down the east side of the ridge and dub it Now Park. It is a pretty little meadow with great views down over the Boulder River and on over several mountain ranges. I can see the Crazy Mountains.
Grazing public lands in the mountains is a hot issue. What are the impacts on wildlife? And water? I can't help think here on Bull Mountain it may be a benefit overall. The roads are very restricted. I see lots of wildlife and sign, and as long as grazing continues to be lucrative, the private land on this big, long mountain will remain undeveloped, especially if conservation easements are put into place.
Day 22
Before I even make the ridge I startle a nice herd of elk, maybe 75 or more. Better than the oatmeal and cocoa I had for breakfast. I realized last night that I have to rush. Business calls. I am supposed to meet Paul in the morning, not the evening, a couple days from now. The road swings back down off the ridge top in a mile or two, and the rest of the mountain is a bushwhack through timber as all these beautiful, open parks end also. The wind is blowing hard today. When I break out onto the highest point on Bull Mountain, it is hard to stand on the jumble of rocks. It is difficult to even hold the binoculars still to look over my route as it heads west into the Whitetail/Haystack/O'Neill roadless area. Below me I see a subdivision development that is a ways up Little Whitetail Creek from the town of Whitehall. Here is our issue again hitting us in the face. It is a beautiful place, but just how long, how far can we develop private land before we have made the islands of high mountains biologically unviable for wildlife in the long term? We must all think about that when we make our choices about a place to live.
I still have a few miles of bushwhacking to go. So on I plod. A photocopy of a 50's era map I have shows an old lookout used to sit on the last high knob on Bull Mountain, but it is gone. In the saddle to the east I find number 9 telephone wire on the ground, proof enough that it was there, but I pass on the climb, as I have a mile and a half of north slope bushwhack to get to the east-west trail I am shooting for. I take a compass bearing, check the time, and align myself to my shadow in preparation for the next hour or so. Everything is in order and I'm off. I haven't even gone a 100 yards when I cross a good trail, well graded with a nice tread. It is not on the old map; it is not on the new map. But it beats bushwhacking and generally seems to be going my way, so I follow it like a well trained puppy. I call it Scapula Trail, as I soon step over an old, bleached bone of that previous use to someone. I am amazed by the condition of this trail, which is easy to follow and after a while I even pass some very old Forest Service blazes. It takes me out to the west and I finally lose it as I hit the open shoulders heading down into Little Whitetail Creek. After I hit the timber early in the day I saw little wildlife sign except by a spring where I see a few elk tracks. The critters must stick to the more open high country I have passed through. I cross a couple miles of low pastureland, the last ranch (where two kids are racing up and down, up again and back down the road on ORV's. ), and head on up State Creek road to set a nice camp in big old doug firs just at the edge of the public land.
Day 23
Patented mining claims are my issue today. Several to go through and past. The road ends at the State Creek Mine (and garbage dump!) where the Forest Service trail begins. But at the end of the road I meet approximately seven "PRIVATE PROPERTY" and "NO TRESPASSING" signs and enough orange paint to fill a shelf at Sherwin Williams. (In Montana, orange paint is a legal marking for private property that is not open to the public.) And garbage. Garbage everywhere. A class-act mess. But no trail access markings. Plan B - back to the Forest Service road end facility to take a second trail that takes a more northerly route. Well, the private inholders, the patented mine, has also obliterated or blocked off this trail. I have to bushwhack to find the trail beyond their land even though both trails are legal public access. Once on this trail, which is actually an old 4 wheel drive road, it is a nice hike, up past another patented mine (this one clean with the trail very well marked) and a very steep downgrade into the Little Boulder River. Up the river to a meadow camp in No-see-um-ville.
Day 24
Moments after the sun hit my tent I groggily remember the ambiance: I was brought to consciousness by elk snorting above me. That was what I had gone to sleep by when my tired head hit the wad of clothes I call a pillow. Peering out the bug net, trying to focus, I make out a pair of elk at the edge of the trees practically glowing in the early light. I ever so slowly dress, boot up and exit the cocoon. They are still there. I quietly rummage the pack for the camera and look to check on them. They must have moved behind the trees. As I stand and take a step -Crash! I wheel around just to see them run through the creek and disappear into the fir. I'm up and camera-ed, so I'll do a little hunting. Up the slope I go, cut a well used game trail, and follow it up the draw, past a spring with lots of trampled grass, and head back out on the slope on the other side. I hear something. Stealth. I worm my way through the timber and ... Cows. Oh, well, time for oatmeal. I spend the day hiking into the Whitetail/Haystack/ O'Neill area with Paul and Charlotte, my resupply team. A nice day in rolling, wooded country. On the way out, moose a couple times; I've not seen any since the Madison Range.
The Whitetail/Haystack/ O'Neill roadless area is unique as roadless area go. It is an extremely large "hydrologic sponge" of fragile wetlands that recharge many underground aquifers including the water supply for the town of Whitehall. The area is targeted by the Forest Service for increased off road vehicle (ORV) use. Severe ORV damage has already occurred in the wet meadows around Whitetail Reservoir and Delmoe Lake.
Day 25
Another day of access problems and impossible trails, thanks to the Deer Lodge National Forest and private land inholders. Frustrating. Very frustrating. No way in Hades can the average recreational user follow the trails shown on the newest F.S. map. I would bet big that neither the Forest Service District Ranger nor his boss could follow them. Again, private landowners have obliterated and obstructed legal public access across their land in many places. But I persevere as the creeks and meadows and mountains are quite nice and I am seeing lots of wildlife sign. Then it is the logging obliterating the trail. So I am stuck with roads going who knows where. I cross a creek and decide to follow it - I'm tired of roads - and I startle an elk out of her day bed so close I get her flies when she runs. I hear another critter shortly thereafter running off and soon see a muley doe. Finally, down low, I cross the main creek and hit the Forest Service trail and a million and one cows, maybe more. When I get to the trailhead, it is a nice setup, with good signs telling you all the places the trail goes and how far. I camp. It has been a very long day. Later I talk with the people who have the last house on the road and they also tell me that in years living there, they, and many of their friends, never fail to lose the trails and never have found Berry's Meadows (one of the access messes). Reminds me of an old saying: "I've been to seven World Fairs, seen three windmill greasings, and watched a pair of buzzards f-----g, but I ain't never seen nothing like this!" The Deer Lodge National Forest.
