140 miles east of cool » Encountering the Wild

Acceptable Blasphemies: Reflections on Opening Day

Brad Johnson — Wed, 27 Oct 2010 14:27:33 +0000

The cottonwood leaves, like teenagers, can’t sleep. They rattle nervously and drop to the ground or simply hang in the breeze waiting for someone to blow through and lift them away.

Werner Herzog Reads Curious George

Brad Johnson — Fri, 29 Jan 2010 18:30:44 +0000

Well, it’s not Herzog. One would have a hard time nailing the Herzog accent, though as my family will tell you I try rather too frequently. Some of the lines quite wonderfully recall Herzog’s philosophies.

National Park Fee Free Days, in a word, glorious

Brad Johnson — Thu, 16 Jul 2009 08:00:58 +0000

While Yellowstone is posting record numbers of visitors this year, National Parks as a whole have seen attendance slide in recent years. In hopes of reversing the trend and re-introducing folks to our wonderful public lands heritage, Interior Secretary Ken Salazar announced back in June that the Department would waive entrance fees nationwide to all parks on three prime summer weekends. This is no small offer as park entrance fees have really climbed in past years. Nearby Yellowstone sits at $25 for entrance (that does give in and out privileges for 7 days).

Crane Songs

Brad Johnson — Mon, 15 Jun 2009 13:55:53 +0000

From out in the fields I hear what has become a familiar spring sound, a loud rattling karooooo-oooooo of a family of sandhill cranes. A sound unique to this season, one that reaches out from primal history:

In Celebration of Spring (and weekends…and public lands)

Brad Johnson — Fri, 29 May 2009 04:44:39 +0000

One of the best times of the year to be in Montana. The heat and crowds haven't descended. The world is green. The mountains are starting to give up their captive snows. Just goofing off with my camera (and the girls) on a hike in the Absaroka-Beartooth Wilderness.

Such an Uncomfortable Place to Hang Your Ass

Brad Johnson — Wed, 27 May 2009 16:05:26 +0000

When we were kids growing up in the Bible Belt, my mother used to threaten to wash our mouths out with soap if we told dirty jokes. Like a lot of kids in that era, in that place, my older brother and I used to try and juke her out by using off-color biblical references that involved the hint of slightly naughty words.

my brother: "Hey punk, who was the the most flexible man in the Bible?"

A Small Natural Grave

Brad Johnson — Tue, 26 May 2009 04:03:31 +0000

This Northern Flicker egg dropped at our feet while we goofing around with intertubes on the Stillwater River this Memorial Day. It seemed a fitting natural elegiac moment for a day given to remembering the dead.

Wolf Kill, Absaroka-Beartooth Wilderness (Winter Count #2)

Brad Johnson — Tue, 05 May 2009 16:50:42 +0000

He wasn't very large by bull moose standards, with a fairly small set of antlers. He didn't look healthy in fact. He was standing ankle-deep in the river, watching us, not moving, almost unsteady on his legs. Something about the way he was standing didn't seem "right." Of all the animals I do not want to tangle with, a bull moose, particularly a sick one, ranks near the top.

The Darkness is Light Enough

Brad Johnson — Mon, 30 Mar 2009 00:21:47 +0000

Last night, like many around the globe, we shut off our lights in solidarity with Earth Hour. Now, it's easy for me to get really cynical about these kinds of things. The event is, after all, a symbolic and licensed subversion which rather than producing the effect it desires, produces only a spectacle of that effect without any meaningful change (which is a kind of fascism, but I digress!

Sioux Charley Trail, Absaroka-Beartooth Wilderness (Winter Count #1)

Brad Johnson — Sat, 07 Mar 2009 14:42:18 +0000

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...Out of nowhere it hits us â€” a howl comes straight out of the darkness.

The Shear Delight of Wool

Brad Johnson — Sun, 01 Mar 2009 16:05:03 +0000

17a, a pregnant Romney, ambles into the chute and stops. Her fleece corkscrews out from her body sending out shoots of thick wool in all directions. Grace, my ten-year old daughter, buries her hands deep into the wooly fleece and smiles. She runs off to find Anabel Lombard, the ewe's owner, to have her to hold 17a's fleece once it's sheared. Grace has never chosen a fleece before. She goes with her intuition; with the way her hands feel buried into the ewe's wool, with the way the ewe stops, tilts her head back, and looks up at this girl leaning over the railing, as though asking to be chosen.