One Wilderness, TWO AdvenTures

sTOries bymATT hOllOWAy And bill cunninghAm

Gateway Gorge and Big River Meadows in the Bob Marshall Wilderness Area in the Lewis & Clark National Forest. | Photo by Randy Beacham

Two seasoned outdoorsmen test their survival skills

in the Bob Marshall Wilderness

F

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For the first time in hours, the thick world of clouds parted and a landscape appeared far below—a deep valley threaded by a silver creek and lined with snow-flanked mountains. Two other large drainages flowed into this one at right angles and a mosaic of burn wove them together. I dropped my backpack on the snow and dug out the map and compass. I thought I knew which valleys these were—the North Fork of the Blackfoot, the East Fork and the Dry Fork—but I couldn’t make a mistake. This window of visibility might be the only one I got all afternoon to find a route down off this ridge and to the river. All morning, including going up and over Galusha Peak, had been a whiteout of snow and fog, but the terrain was mostly straightforward. Where I did get a bit disoriented, I had the luxury of following several-day-old grizzly tracks.

Believe it or not, getting lost out here was the sort of experience I was aiming for. My loose itinerary was to spend a month walking off-trail through the Bob Marshall Wilderness, from Lincoln to West Glacier, and that meant plenty of time to reinfuse a little mystery and imagination into the modern-day wilderness journey. My only real obligation was to meet my buddy, Kyle, for two food drops and my family for the third. As long as I made those, I could divert or change

plans as needed. I kicked out my feet, snowshoes flopped across

the snow, and sat on my pack. After glancing at the compass and reaffirming the direction, I held out the map. Just like I had guessed, the three forks of the Blackfoot converged in the distance. Which meant that the curving, half-moon shaped drainage that swept up to the ridge where I sat was Theodore Creek, and the smaller, side-ridge to the north was my ticket to the river and camp.

Perfect.I shouldered the pack and struck out across the

snow.Walking the ridge, I thought about how this

trip had become a pilgrimage of sorts—a mission. I needed to check the status of wildness in the northern Rockies—the Bob in particular—and I needed to check the status of wildness within myself. What worried me was that, over the years, the more time that I had spent roaming the mountains and getting to know the Bob intimately, falling as genuinely and viscerally in love with this place as if it were a person, the more I had come to think that a truly wild and free landscape might be a thing of the past. I needed to see that a real country still existed where a person could go and measure himself or herself against something bigger than just us. I had to believe that in my kids’ world—Harper

story and Photos by matt holloway

gOing sOlO

Outdoors expert hikes through the Bob to see if wildness still exists in modern-day times

I had come to think that a truly wild

and free landscape might be a thing

of the past. I needed to see that

a real country still existed where a

person could go and measure him

or herself against something bigger

than just us.

was a toddler and the baby-to-be was six months along in Corrie’s belly—there would still be that wild option.

Gazing across waves of mountains, I thought about how Congress defined wilderness as “an area where the earth and its community of life are untrammeled by man,” but I had yet to find such a place. Even in the Bob, human-imposed restraint

and control filtered down through abstract paradoxes like “wilderness management,” “wildlife management” and “wildfire management.” By definition, however, what was managed was not wild. And from what I had seen, the result was a landscape pared in spots of its own natural and wild order, and reduced to an artificial version of the real wild. A place where ranger station }Top: Holloway

prepares for his month-long adventure. Bottom: Matt Holloway self-portrait.

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complexes, outfitter camps, planes buzzing overhead, bridges, signs, highways for trails, massive and impacted camping areas, an active runway at Schafer Meadows and plenty other trammels that fit our recreational and economic agendas were accepted parts of wilderness.

I believed that man had his place in the wild—I knew I sure did. We had lived here for thousands of years and I considered it our truest of homes. But, the more I tromped around, the more I came to realize that the old wild, the one we once knew, a place of fiery, unbridled and self-determined life, with every species writing its own story at once, concomitantly and sustainably, was slipping from us. We were trading processes for appearances.

So for the next two weeks, I forded frothing creeks and freezing rivers. I bushwhacked nasty drainages and traversed steep snowfields, ice axe in hand, ready to self-arrest if needed. I climbed lofty peaks—Red, Scapegoat, Flint, Haystack, Larch Hill, Redhead, the Three Sisters and Hahn, to name a few. My lips cracked and bled in the alpine wind. Snow and sun split the days. Cold

stars froze the night sky. I bumped into grizzlies, elk, marmots and eagles. I saw ravens, coyotes, mountain goats and squirrels. One western jumping mouse, dozens of species of birds and wolverine tracks.

Forever careful, I stepped around early-season wildflowers that pushed from the broken ground: unbloomed arrowleaf balsamroot; tiny spring beauties; lupine that held perfect and clear balls of water cradled at the base of its leaves; drooping, yellow glacier lilies; a few nodding and hairy-stemmed purple pasque flowers; and hundreds of shooting stars, their maroon corollas wrapped with a yellow band. In the high-country, I side-stepped matted tufts of moss campion—all shades of pink and purple and scattered like tiny islands across exposed tundra and limestone. Nearby white, mountain avens opened like folded hands from prayer.

These were days of real wildness. Days of freedom that floated by like gentle, halcyon dreams. I followed no trail, saw no sign of man, and had only the complex, myriad and sovereign wild to measure myself against. Where

the land was the wildest and freest, I also felt the wildest and freest. I came to believe that the Bob still had a chance, and I knew that I still fit and belonged here.

Just as I was hitting my stride, however, the trip spun in a bad direction. In a three-mile-wide basin of conifers and meadows, I missed Kyle for the second food drop. I walked back and forth, turned circles, and my stomach knotted. Hot sun zapped prints from the snow, making tracking impossible. Knowing nothing else to do, I walked out and slept at the trailhead. And waited, and waited. Until the next afternoon when Kyle popped out of the trees and we pieced together the mishap, discovering how close we had come to one another. Exhausted, I threw the backpack in the car.

All night at the trailhead, I thought about whether to go back into the woods or to go home. Part of me wanted to keep going, to

keep exploring the wild and to keep exploring my own landscape of heart and mind, but something deep inside said that I was done here for now. Beyond that, I was mentally derailed and wanted to see my family. The wildness tank was full.

At 35 miles an hour, Kyle’s Subaru was a rocket ship. Hungry Horse Reservoir whirled by and we descended on the hustle and bustle of Columbia Falls like a missile. I had officially re-entered orbit.

At home, I paused in the driveway and looked in the direction of the Swan Mountains and the Bob—a wall to the east. Wildness was there now, writing its story, indifferent to my wants and wishes, failing to bend to any control.

I had touched it and breathed it. Felt its pulse.I bowed my head and smiled.

Matt Holloway is a freelance writer from Columbia Falls.

Where the land was the wildest and freest, I also felt the wildest and freest. I came to believe that the Bob still had a chance, and I knew that I still fit and belonged here.

Left: Matt Holloway’s self-portrait. Right: The Chinese Wall.

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Our guided backpack across the Bob Marshall Wilderness was fully booked when suddenly two of our guests had to cancel. Right after changing our website from “booked” to “only two spaces left,” we received an inquiry from Indiana. Charlie admitted that his backpacking experience was minimal but said he was tired of just reading about backpacking and wanted to actually do it. The trip he wanted was a 12-day trek across the Bob that we rated “strenuous.” After a few questions, we gave him the go-ahead to join us. Charlie camped at the Choteau city park the evening before, so Polly went down there to check out his gear and was appalled. His heavy tent wasn’t suitable for backpacking. The same was true of everything else. His walking stick was a truck window scraper. Polly had to force him to accept appropriate gear, but he wouldn’t give up his old backpack, a canvas bag with no support.

Our annual trek across the Bob, a different challenging route each year, attracts a seasoned group of elite backpackers we respectfully call the “A-Team.” Even before we started the trek there were signals that we should have picked up on that Charlie was not an A-Team kind of guy. We knew how much this epic adventure meant to him so we resolved to make it work.

After outfitting Charlie with as much suitable gear as he would accept, we got an early start on the long drive from Choteau to the Granite Creek trailhead west of the Divide. Our driver was Gene Sentz of Choteau, a grizzled guardian of the Rocky Mountain Front. The skies the dreary morning of July 2 were ominous with storms brewing to the west. Upon reaching the trailhead the rain let up and the sun seemed as though it might actually break through. Gene waved goodbye with a promise to meet at Benchmark on July 13. Each member of our intrepid party of eight was in a good mood, excited to finally be back on the trail, and even Charlie was grinning ear as his bulky bag jostled from side to side.

With me in the lead and Polly as “caboose,” we entered the Great Bear Wilderness, and made the six-mile descent to the Middle Fork of the Flathead, the “Big River,” without incident. The weather was turning cold, raw and windy but nothing could dampen our spirits. After all, we were roaming free in the flagship of America’s wilderness fleet—the revered Bob Marshall Country. After lunch we headed upstream to get as far as possible on that first of 12 days in the wilderness. Whenever the trail opened to the churning Middle Fork, we paused to soak up the

Our annual trek across

the Bob, a different

challenging route each

year, attracts a seasoned

group of elite backpackers

we respectfully call the “A-Team.”

A nArrOW escAPe

scenery, taking what I thought was a relaxed pace. Charlie didn’t think so. As he lagged further behind, Polly became increasingly concerned. When I finally dropped back to check on Charlie, he was in a staggering state of exhaustion, both physically and mentally.

I took some of Charlie’s pack weight and gave him a pep talk. “You can do

it Charlie; you just have to decide that you want to do it.” That helped perk him up and get him into our Morrison Creek camp that evening: 10 miles down with only 11 days and 80 more miles to the finish line. You can do it Charlie. Then came more rain, the skies darkened, and so did Charlie’s demeanor.

story and Photos by bill cunningham

Guided adventure becomes dangerous when the Bob refuses to have mercy on an unprepared backpacker

} Top and bottom: Hikers take in the spectacular vistas along the route.

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As soon as I knew that Charlie was taken care of, we had to leave if we were to have any chance of reaching our distant camp

that evening. Our immediate concern was how to cross the raging Middle Fork, swollen by incessant rain.

The following morning, Charlie wanted out. Our friend, Henry, a seasoned backpacker, asked Polly to step aside for a talk. Henry knew what had to be done and he suspected that Charlie did also. He did, but first Charlie needed to vent. He complained that I had misrepresented the trip although he acknowledged that it was rated “strenuous” with prior backpacking experience required. Henry explained that I design these “monster trips” to be about as tough as my clients could stand, that this was our idea of having fun in the wilderness. Henry nodded as he gently nudged Charlie to the only conclusion that would work for him and the rest of the group: He had to bail, but how? We were deep in the wilderness and we wouldn’t see our van until Benchmark.

In more than 200 guided wilderness trips since 1973, we have never had this need. We were only six miles from the Schafer landing strip, grandfathered in the 1978 designation of the Great Bear Wilderness. The popular floating season on the Middle Fork peaks in early July

when planes drop off float parties daily. We told Charlie he was in luck, and so were we. He had a way of leaving early, and we’d be on our merry way—a win-win for all concerned. I was confident that we’d be able to arrange his flight out at the Forest Service Schafer Ranger Station. When we got to Schafer, the station guard saw the need for Charlie’s evacuation. She made several radio calls and learned that a plane was due in around 1 p.m. and would be going back to Kalispell. Arrangements were made and a price quoted.

Then the question was how to get Charlie from Kalispell back to Choteau where his car was parked at our house. I gave him a few phone numbers, including that of Sentz.

As soon as I knew that Charlie was taken care of, we had to leave if we were to have any chance of reaching our distant camp that evening. Our immediate concern was how to cross the raging Middle Fork, swollen by incessant rain.

After reconning above and below the

landing strip I found a wide stretch downstream away from the trail that would mean tough bushwhacking for a couple of miles to get back to the Dolly Varden Creek trail. We crossed with the aid of trekking poles and careful angling relative to the swift current. I doubt if Charlie’s status even entered our minds during the several grueling hours it took for us to finally reach the luxury of a trail.

It would be 10 more days before we got the report on Charlie but, thanks to an interconnected radio network, Forest Service folks throughout the Bob Marshall Wilderness Complex knew everything.

As arranged, Charlie was flown from Schafer to Kalispell on day two of our trip. The next day was the Fourth of July and somehow he persuaded Sentz to pick him up in Kalispell and drive him back to Choteau. He was home long before we were.

Meanwhile, back on our trans-Bob route, day four was one of the wettest ever. The good news was that the food drop, which we’d backpacked up the Spotted Bear River a week earlier, was still hanging high in a tree. Not only

did we have our grub for the next eight days, we also had Charlie’s to divvy up. We were grateful for the extra calories during that cold, wet early July.

Hard rain continued into day five as we slogged up Wall Creek. Upon reaching the forested divide at the head of the White River, the sun teased us with an expansive vista of the Pagoda Range and the anticline of the Chinese Wall. This was the heart of the Bob, and of our trip, with five days to explore both sides of the White River. Here we would be farther from a road than anywhere else in Montana.

Basking in gorgeous weather, we wandered in wilderness bliss, bagging peaks, hiking cross-country, descending rocky chutes and seeing wildlife including the largest grizzly we’ve seen in the Bob.

Our final evening was spent in Grizzly Basin in the company of bighorn rams, below the towering escarpment of Hoadley Reef. We awoke to snow flurries, framing perfectly our 12-day adventure across the Bob.

Bill Cunningham is a freelance writer from Choteau.

These pages: Hikers encounter all kinds of conditions while on their Bob Marshall Wilderness backpacking adventure.

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