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I sit alone on the banks of the Stillwater, watching the sky deepen to purple and begin to darken slowly. The mountains have given up their captive hold on the winter’s snow and the disappearing whiteness of the mountaintops races past me, carrying massive logs, sweeping away a winter’s worth of deadfall downstream to the Yellowstone and beyond.
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This is part two to this story, started here
3:00 P.M. We hadn’t seen much game and started thinking maybe they had cleared out with the wolf’s arrival. We decided to break back down the main Stillwater trail towards Woodbine and head for the West Stillwater trailhead before we lost the light. When we arrived at the spot where the wolf had howled, I glanced to my right, across the river, half hoping he would be sitting there.
He wasn’t.
What was, though, was a bull moose. Read More…
Many Plains tribes kept “winter counts,” pictographs of significant events strung together on buffalo hides and serving as a physical record of the year, a document of experience. This entry serves as the first in a series of winter counts.
4:30 A.M. Pitch black. Deep winter. Nothing but darkness and cold. Jack Ballard and I are making time up the trail before first light for an end-of-the-season deer hunt. The light from my headlamp swings back and forth, making me dizzy. I turn it off and move silently up the canyon. We’re aiming for a spot about three miles up and across the river. We want to get there before legal shooting light. Neither one of us is talking, just breathing and moving as rapid as we can. My breathing labors as we move up canyon. The gurgling sounds of the Stillwater racing down the canyon fill my ears. I’m finding my rthymn. Sweat starts forming under my hat.
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