The Corps of Discovery.

Cooper’s middle name Meriwether honors patrilineage in Laura’s family: the name was used a handful of times on the Patterson side of her family, and her dad traced the family’s connection to that of Meriwether Lewis. Lewis drew an impressive vita in his 35 years, though he’s best known of course for leading the Corps of Discovery. Much of the landscape of Montana, and even that of the Missoula Valley, is tied closely to Lewis and Clark’s trek westward and back east: there’s a state park honoring their encampment a few miles south of our house, there are historic markers detailing the journey up and down two of the valleys here, and there is a plaque downtown noting where the explorers walked. Much of this noted history is kept alive today because of the journals that Lewis penned and which were published after his death; they memorialize the journey as one of the greatest in American history. But while the expedition of Lewis and Clark was perhaps the West’s most famous, it was by no means the longest or most perilous of the early explorers, or even the most adventurous.

(The group traversed the Bitterroot Valley from south to North--right to left in this picture--after crossing the Continental Divide twice.)


The title of most adventurous goes to Jedediah Strong Smith, who in 1826 (when he was in his early 20s) crossed the Mojave on his way to California, and then crossed the Great Basin on his way to Utah. Of all the routes through the West, wrote Marc Reisner in Cadillac Desert, Smith chose the longest, driest, and least hospitable. Smith’s diaries are a record of discovery and description. Upon reaching the Great Salt Lake near the end of his cross-Nevada march, he wrote in joy, ‘Those who may chance to read this at a distance from the scene may perhaps be surprised that the sight of this lake surrounded by a wilderness of More than 2000 Miles diameter excited in me those feelings known to the traveler, who, after long and perilous journeying, comes again in view of his home. But so it was with me for I had traveled so much in the vicinity of the Salt Lake that it had become my home of the wilderness.’

(Today, Interstate 90 traverses what the group called the Headwaters of the Missouri, west of Bozeman.)


David Thompson, a Canadian explorer, trapper, and surveyor, traveled tens of thousands of miles across the Northwest, from Manitoba to the Oregon coast, and lived for years in primitive wilderness camps. Beginning in the late 1700s, he established posts in spots that would later become important waypoints and was the first Anglo resident of Montana. In total, he’s credited with mapping some 3.9 million miles of Northwest wilderness using only a sextant.

(U.S. 12 now makes the ascent of Lolo Pass much easier.)


The most harrowing account of Western exploration I’ve come across was that of Alexander Mackenzie, who in 1789 traveled to the Arctic Ocean. Three years later he crossed the Canadian Rockies near Jasper and descended toward Fraser Canyon before abandoning that route and crossing the glaciated Coast Mountains, arriving in what is now Bella Coola, British Columbia. He was forced to retreat almost immediately, however, after an attack by Indians; his journal includes a vivid description of an Indian placing a chokehold on his neck.

(Looking down the Hellgate at Missoula. Lewis' half of the split party, with Clark retracing the former route into the Big Hole, crossed the Clark Fork near the middle of the picture on their new-found shortcut back to Great Falls.)


While all of these travelers left journals which today portray the West as a place of unfettered beauty, wonder, and difficulty, none compare to those left by Lewis (and, too, Clark), whose journals do more to capture the beauty of the place than any I've come across. A few years ago the University of Nebraska republished the journals into an exhaustive nine-volume set which takes up the better part of a shelf in the Missoula library. I read the set last winter and together they detail a party of explorers who have found a landscape of unimaginable pureness and rarity, and the words themselves express revelry in the surroundings which has been unmatched before or since. Many of the images painted by Lewis live on today. This one can be found on many book covers, roadside monuments, and motel brochures:

'This immense river waters one of the fairest portions of the globe. Nor do I believe that there is in the universe a similar extent of country. As we passed on, it seemed as if those scenes of visionary enchantment would never have an end.'

(Past Lolo Pass into Idaho, the group crossed above this grove of giant Western redcedar.)


Others may be less poetic, but tell still the journey of the Corps of Discovery. Many of the most profound describe Montana. Here they are, unedited:

May 3, 1805 (central Montana)
The country in the neighborhood of this river, and as far as the eye can reach, is level, fertile, open and beatifull beyond description.

May 5, 1805 (central Montana)
Capt. Clark and Drewer killed the largest brown bear this evening hich we have yet seen ... it was a most tremendious looking anamal, and extrmly hard to kill notwithstanding he had five bullets through his lungs and five others in various parts he swam more than half the distance across the river to a sand bar and it was at lest 20 min befor he died he … fled and made the most tremendous roaring from the moment he was shot

(Across the Clark Fork, the party left the main river and followed the Blackfoot, which leaves the canyon on the center-left of the picture. Upon meeting Indians in Lolo, the party learned the previous summer they had taken a major detour through the Big Fork, to Salmon, and up the Bitterroot--a month-long journey which was now, with the correct information, shortened to a handful of days.)


June 12, 1805 (near Great Falls)
From this hight we had a most beatifull and picturesque view of the Rocky Mountains which were perfectly covered in snow ... they appear to be formed of several ranges each succeeding range rising higher than the preceding one until the most distant appear to lose their snowy tops in the clouds; this was an august spectacle and rendered more formidable by the recollection that we had them to pass.

June 13, 1805 (facing Great Falls of the Missouri)
I wished for the pencil of (a Titian) in that I might be enabled to give the enlightened world just some of idea of the truly magnificent and sublimely grand object, which has from the commencement of time been concealed from the view of civilized man ... I hope still to give the world some faint idea of an object which at this moment filled me with such pleasure and astonishment

June 14, 1805 (near Great Falls, after an encounter with a grizzly, a mountain lion, and a stampeding bison)
It now seemed to me that all the beasts of the neighborhood had made a league to destroy me, or that some fortune was desposed to amuse herself at my expence.

June 29, 1805 (near Dillon)
It may well be retained on the list of (attributes) of this neighborhood towwards which nature seems to have dealt with a liberal hand, for I have scarcely experienced a day since my first arrival in this quarter without witnessing the appearance of some uncommon object

July 4, 1805 (in the Big Hole)
I thought it seemed probably that these mountains might have derived their appelation of Shining mountains from their glittering appearance when the sun shines in certain directions

August 18, 1805 (near Lost Trail Pass)
This day I completed my thirty first year, and conceived that I had in all human probability now existed about half the period wich I am to remain in this sublimary world. I reflected that I had a yet done but little, very little in deed, to furhter the happiness of the human race, or to advance the information of the succeeding generation. I viewed with regret the many hours I have spent in indolence, and now soarly feel the want of that information which those hours would have given me had then been judiciously expended.

(Clark) Sept 15, 1805 (Lolo Pass)
From this mountain I could observe high ruged mountains in every direction as far as I could see

(Clark) Dec. 3 1805 (near Portland)
I am unwell and cannot eat. O! how disagreeable my Situation.

Lewis, June 2 1806 (near Lolo Pass)
We are obliged to have recourse to every subterfuge in order to prepare in the most ample manner our power to meet that wretched portion of our journy, the Rocky Mountain, where hungar and cold in their most rigorous forms assail the waried traveler; not any of us have yet forgotton our sufferings in those mountains in September last,and I think it probable we never shall.

June 24, 1806
...from this place we had a extensive view of these step down mountain principal coverd with snow like that which we stood we were entirely surrounded by these mountains from wich one unacquianted with them it would have seemed impossible to have ever escaped

June 29, 1806 (Lolo Pass)
...in passing of which we have experience cold and hungar of which I shall ever remember

July 11, 1806 (near Great Falls)
...through a level beautiful and extensive high plain covered with emmense heards of buffalo, and ther are such numbers that there is one continual roar

July 15, 1806 (near Great Falls, again, and at the close of a day with many run-ins with unfriendly wildlife)
There seems to be a certain fatality attached to the neighborhood of these falls, for there is always a chapter of accidents prepared for us during our residence at them

Visitors and Gifts and a Run for the Border.

Cooper was born on a warm, stormy night in October. We spent most of three days in the hospital in Missoula, which was nice but for the fact that the hospital was almost entirely windowless. I snuck out a few times each day to go home and get the paper, wash my hair, and walk the plott hound, and each time emerging into nature from the antiseptic confines of the hospital was a strange experience--I was surprised to see that day had ended, or barely begun, that winds were howling, or had grown silent, and that it was still warm, or cold air was arriving. The day we brought Cooper home from the hospital new snow ringed the valley and two mornings later the temperature on our backyard thermometer dropped to 21 degrees, bringing down leaves in constant flurry and ending what most people would call fall.



The arrival of Cooper also heralded the arrival of lots of friends and neighbors. We had a dinner train that showed up at our front door for more than a week, including one neighbor who brought over fresh Mexican from a downtown restaurant. There were baskets of goodies, parcels of gifts, and bags of used and new baby clothes. Two family friends sent quilts, one neighbor gave us a crib, my work gave me an Eddie Bauer high chair (!), Laura's work gave her a hand-made rocking horse, and a thoughtful friend gave me a very large bottle of beer.

Concurrent to these items arrived friends and family bearing more gifts and the warm scents of the South. Laura's sister Meri came from Atlanta for four days. The next week was followed by the arrival of Laura's mom, also from Atlanta, and later Laura's best friend Liz, yet again from Atlanta. (No word yet on when those direct flights to ATL will start.)



With Meri we went to the Day of the Dead parade; with Liz we went skiing on Lolo Pass and to the Lumberjack--yes, at age seven weeks, baby's first bar visit. (And by Montana standards, according to a woman there, a bit tardy.)



The final visitor of the year was my mother, who came from Houston. Around this time Cooper made his first smile. Among other things, we went to the museum.



Despite, or perhaps because of, all the visitors, I was able to get around some into the mountains this fall. I made it up Illinois Peak in the stateline area before snow closed the road for good. Later I did a stretch on the trail of Lewis and Clark.



I climbed Jumbo late one brisk afternoon.



And made my first turns of the season up on Lolo Pass.



The next week, the plott hound got some action up on Lost Trail Pass.



I made two early morning climbs up Sentinel: one to look down on fog



and one to look out on the moon.



Last week work told me I had a use-it or lose-it personal day. Like any new father, I decided to make a run for the border. After making it across the border (I get more grief crossing in to Canada than practically any other country in the world, by the way) I spent a day on Kootenay Pass in the Selkirks



and camped on the pass in the back of the truck. Next day I ventured into too-cute Rossland



and poked around the Rossland Range for two days, getting up close and personal with Old Glory.



I made it back across the border into Washington, and after a stop at the new Trader Joe's in Spokane (the Houston of the Northwest--my apologies to the Houstonians out there) drove across the mountains back to Missoula just in time for the start of winter.

(Cooper wearing the Christmas outfit I wore some ... years ago, which my mom somehow saved.)

The story of Cooper.

Laura and I each had lists of possible names for our baby -- boy and girl names each. I had better girl names, Laura had better boy names. I wanted Porter, but Laura felt it was too reminiscent of a dog I had when we met, who was, in fact, named Porter.

There are a handful of associations with Cooper, but Laura's main one was that on our second date she tagged along with me while I reported a story for Utah.com and the Tooele Transcript-Bulletin on the Hawkwatch International raptor count, atop Goshute Mountain in the remote Toana range. Near the end of our weekend with the biologists and bird counters, someone snared a Cooper hawk, banded it, and handed it to Laura who held it in her open palm for a moment before the bird realized the trick and resumed, in an instant, it's flight to South America.

I had a photo of Laura holding the bird before it fled, but that does not survive digitally--only in a now-yellowed paper copy of the Transcript-Bulletin. Here, however, is the Utah.com story, reprinted, which tells that story ...

Raptor counting with Hawkwatch

Pressing both eyes into his binoculars to peer at a flying object so far away it is not visible to the naked eye, Jerry Liguori calls out: 'Kestrel, over the Pequops, adult male.'

Looking another second at the hawk, he drops the binoculars and punches a multi-buttoned tabulator on a makeshift table here on Goshute Mountain, 9,000 feet high. Probably about a minute later I see what may be that kestrel as it zooms by, but by that point Liguori has picked up his binoculars and spotted a half-dozen more birds headed south. Shielding his eyes with a floppy broad-brimmed hat and draping red bandanna, he scans the sky and horizon northeast again. There are kestrels, males and females of unidentifiable age, sharp-shinned hawks over ridges to the north, a rare turkey vulture and Cooper's hawks and Swainson's hawks. In all, on this cloudless Saturday, over 1,600 raptors will be counted.



This is the 21st year Salt Lake City-based HawkWatch International has stationed volunteers, college students and raptor experts atop Goshute Mountain to count birds during the seasonal southward migration. That length of time makes the site, which sits about 25 miles due south of Wendover along the Utah-Nevada border, one of the best in North America for gauging the health of raptor populations.

The counting season, which typically lasts from mid-August until late-October, involves not just sharp eyes, good bird identification skills and altitude-adjusted lungs but also the sort of detailed logistics sufficient support a dozen or so counters - most of them in their 20s and 30s and almost all of them holding at least one college degree - on top of a mountain for a full season, through blinding sun, shivering cold and driving rain and snow.



But more than that, perhaps, it offers a chance to see a bunch of wildly beautiful birds up very close, and a glimpse into the rarefied world that raptors inhabit.

The reason for the count, said HawkWatch executive director Howard Gross as we stand atop the windswept mountain, is to gauge the health not just of bird populations but also of the environment in general. Raptors prey on a variety of animals, fly from one country to another, and are easily affected by pollutants or habitat degradation. Therefore, counts such as the one on Goshute Mountain offer a snapshot of the health of the roughly 17 species who fly by each fall.

Goshute Mountain is a focal point for counting due to its unique geographical setting. Northwest winds push the birds gradually east as they make their way south. But past the Goshutes lie the Bonneville Salt Flats - a dry area birds want to avoid. Trying to keep along the ridge tops and being pushed by upslope winds, almost all hawks end up flying over the peak, most at 20, 30 or even 40 miles per hour. They appear as a dot in binoculars for a few minutes, then come sailing by, some just feet above the observers. Wildlife observers call this the Intermountain flyway.



My friend Laura Patterson and I stand looking north, watching the hawks descend toward and past the peak like shooting stars. But as much as we look out for the hawks we also spend a lot of time just looking. I don't know how many of you have ever stood on top of a mountain but I have stood atop a bundle yet don't think I will ever entirely get used to it. From the peak, one mile down the valley curves away at weird fish-eye lens angles, lonely dirt roads cross playas and cow trails lead to water tanks. To the east, the salt flats shimmer, Deseret Peak near Grantsville sparkles along the horizon, and Interstate 80 is but a thin line on the desert. South, high peaks like Moriah, Schell and Wheeler poke skyward. Westward, the Ruby (one great mountain range, should you ever make it to Nevada), Independence, Peqoup and Humboldt mountains fade into the horizon. To the north, Pilot Peak is the beginning of hundreds of peaks that lead to Idaho. On this particular Saturday afternoon a patchwork of cloud and shadow blanket the surrounding 100,000 square miles - most of it devoid of humans - and virga cut across the sky.

Identifying the birds is much more complicated than seeing what color they are and then comparing that image to a picture in an identification book. Since the hawks are often so far away and backlighted against sky, clouds or mountainside they usually appear in relief, devoid of color. Identification then comes down to factors like stability in flight and proportional differences in head size, wing angle and tail length and width. Making an identification under these conditions take years of experience, said Gross, 'and a mind like a flow chart.' Liguori, who is from New Jersey, apparently has one of those mind. He once spent over 1,000 hours counting hawks from a site at Cape May, N. J., counting every day from August 15 to November 30 - save one, when he went to his brother's wedding. 'It killed me,' he said of the day off. 'I felt like I was missing something.'



Though Goshute Mountain, which straddles the Utah-Nevada border, is perhaps the most important raptor counting site in America, there are a handful of other sites producing significant and important wells of data. But it was the site on Hawk Mountain in Pennsylvania that started it all. Hawk counts there have been ongoing since the 1930s, and it is that data that Rachel Carlson tapped to show that the pesticide DDT was killing huge numbers of birds. Carlson wrote 'Silent Spring,' the book many think was responsible for the modern environmental movement.

Just downslope from Goshute Mountain's observation area, a group of about six men and women trap hawks and take detailed measurements of the trapped hawks. At a trapping area observers use a dove, pigeon and sparrow to attract passer-by hawks. The lure birds are in a harness attached to a tall pole, and when a hawk is spotted the lure birds are yanked into the air to mimic injured birds. If the observers are successful, the hawks will dive on the injured but get caught in netting traps. After an hour, the lure birds are given a break and freshies take their place. Once caught, observers like Debbie Sandack measure tail length, leg length, talon length, wing fat and determine if there is food in the bird's stomach. One Sharp-shinned hawk she held was amazingly patient, like a dog being assaulted by adoring children. Sandack held the bird as though it were an ice cream cone and the hawk, mouth open and eyes ablaze, looked back at her. Prodding finished, she tossed the bird, and it took off. From trapping to release, the entire procedure took just 15 minutes.

'This sparks a flame for people,' HawkWatch executive director Howard Gross said both of the birds and their restoration programs. 'We are often the first environmental group a lot of people join, and one of the things we try to do is expose people to lots of ecological principals and the effects humans can have on the food chain or their own environment. Oftentimes what we can do is get someone to adopt a power line, and have them go out and identify electrocuted raptors. When people start doing that, believe me, pretty soon the power company is out there putting up raptor detractors to keep the birds away. All of the sudden this person has power and has taken responsibility for what is going on, and then they can say, I feel that I have saved that raptor's life. This way we can work with these people and make them understand how they can have a positive impact on their environment.'

Pulse of the Planet



Sharp-Shinned HawkGross told the story of a HawkWatch observer who followed the Swainson's hawk migration to the southern pampas of Argentina. There, the observer saw tens of thousands hawks who apparently died after eating grasshoppers. The grasshoppers had been sprayed with a heavy-duty pesticide that killed the birds after consuming only a few of the bugs; the chemical had been applied by a farmer who wanted to kill the grasshoppers but who gave no thought to the birds who might eat them. Now, conservation groups have begun to work with farmers and government agents to protect wintering birds from previously unforeseen threats. Similarly, last winter Gross was bird watching in Costa Rica and while watching a black-necked stilt he realized the bird probably spends summer in the marshes around Great Salt Lake. He turned to his local guide and told him that the bird 'comes from my home, and at my home I do what I can to protect it. I hope you would do the same. His forehead wrinkled, but then you could tell that he got it.

'To me, the bird migration is really the pulse of the plant,' Gross continued. 'It is a measure to see the health of the planet, and it really is something you can measure.'

Back at the raptor measurement station, Sandack, who trades her position with other observers every hour or so, works out of one of about a half-dozen tents set up on the mountain. Over the summer the Bureau of Land Management brought up 20 helicopter loads of supplies, each load weighing 500 pounds, including about 1,200 gallons of water to last the summer. The dozen or so 'volunteers' - two counters, two educators, one project coordinator, one cook and six trappers - live on top of the mountain in what roughly resembles the backpackers' handmade village in that movie 'The Beach.' Several dozen tents are scattered about in a medium-density camper's village just off the top of Goshute Mountain, snuggled into a beautiful forest of spruce, single-leaf ash and vibrant bristlecone pines. There is a common mess tent, a composting toilet, a gathering area with chairs and assorted outbuildings and shelters that house supplies, observation blinds, measurement stations, and the lure bird aviary.



Most volunteers - they are paid per diem - stay for the entire migration season, taking one day off a week when they usually head down to Wendover to shop, do laundry and play the nickel slots in the casinos. (A Wendover casino owner gives observers free rooms while they are in town.) The hike from the trailhead back up the mountain covers 1,800 vertical feet and takes at least two hours.

'I've been here a month but I can hardly imagine what it is like to not be up here,' Helena Kokes, one of the educators, said one night as everyone sat on the 'back porch' - a slab of rock at the edge of the mountain - watching a fat red moon rise over Deseret Peak. To the north, lightning rang over the salt flats. I had only been there about six hours at that point, but I already could envision what she meant. Up on the mountain, watching the world turn from a solitary spot, civilization and cities seems very, very far away. Late at night, a single pair of headlights is visible for a half-hour as it winds through the hills far below and toward Wendover. A satellite flips through the air overhead. The volunteers read for a while, talk, maybe smoke a cigar, and call it a night. This is the world.

The next morning, within a half-hour of sunrise, Liguori is back at work on the peak. Hawks are soaring south. 'They are coming already,' he says against the cold morning wind. 'I had hoped to ease into it.' Later, he adds: 'This is not just bird watching. This is hard work.'



Most observers, when asked why they do it, cite the importance of data gathering for species and environmental health. But another certain draw is the simple beauty of the birds themselves and the metaphoric mystery of their lives. Most hawks weigh a pound or less yet commute every spring and fall from one end of the planet to the other - it is 9,000 miles from Alaska to Argentina. Kirsten McDonnell, one of the educators on the mountain, gently handed me a hawk the first afternoon I was there. She gave another to Laura, a transplanted Georgian with a sweet Southern accent who now lives in Salt Lake City. The bird wriggled some, but mostly kept still and stared back at me with clear, unblinking eyes. Its feathers were precisely patterned, its body honed by millennia of evolution.

On Sunday afternoon, as Laura and I were getting ready to troop down the mountain, someone brought out a small battery-powered transistor radio, and tuned it to Salt Lake's community radio station, KRCL, the best station in the world.* (* The second best, incidentally, is Radio One out of Dar Es Salaam, Tanzania.) 'It seems like we get every radio station in the world out here,' McDonnell said. Later, she handed me a Cooper's hawk. The hawk had been wrapped in her hand but she placed it slowly and gently into my palm. The bird, thinking it is still trapped, rests there, its heart beating madly. It looks forward then sideways, and in a seeming nanosecond it takes off on its unimaginable journey south.

On the radio, a folk guitarist sings:
We got things so good
it seems hard to believe
we live on the outskirts of town

Before/After

A few photos showing mid-summer 2010 vs mid-fall 2011 at the house in Missoula. It's an ongoing project, but I think to a large extent we can declare 'mission accomplished'. (You know, whatever that means.)

The garage, side view





The garage 'driveway'





The front





More of the front





The pergola





and



And the back





and

The Interlude.

I've thought of the month since we returned from the Oregon coast as sort of an interlude, one where I can tick off a few more to-do items around the house before winter arrives and where we can both get a few things done before that 'other thing' arrives (Oct. 22).

The day after we got home I decided to build a new driveway. I've owned two homes, and neither have had driveways. In North Carolina it was a simple procedure: I called around, got a few quotes, and two weeks later we were driving on new pavement. In Montana, where the official state motto is 'You're On Your Own', things were not so simple. We could find a paver who would not excavate, and an excavator who would not pave, and more than a few who said they really were not interested at all. So in the end, as with most things, it's just easier to do it yourself.



This meant about 45 cumulative hours of removing, by hand, some 60 years of compacted Glacial Lake Missoula sediment. Not fun.

When I wasn't excavating the bedrock that made up our driveway, I climbed Red Mountain, the high point of the Scapegoat.



And watched this thing from about 500 yards.



I'll never know what it was because I changed directions pretty quickly.

Jen and I hiked Boulder Point in the Rattlesnake. While I enjoyed the view, she enjoyed the excellent cell coverage.



Back at home, Laura bought a dresser for the baby/guest/gear room.



Suddenly, it was fire season!



What family doesn't love a good forest fire?



I partook of the brief, brief swimming season over Labor Day with a dip in the clear, cold Clark Fork.



We saw Acoustic Syndicate for free at the River City Roots Festival downtown; don't ask me who all these drunk people are. A lot of spectators actually wandered to the show fresh off tubing in the river.



I climbed Trapper Peak, the high point in the Bitterroot.



We made chimichangas.



And the Washington School band got in some practice time in our side yard.



When I wasn't looking, Laura finished the dresser.



And when Laura wasn't looking, I climbed in the gorgeous and empty Flint Creek Mountains.



And managed a side trip to the Pintlar Mountains above Anaconda.



Where I found, not altogether unexpectedly, that the larch are changing.



(These at-timberline trees did not get their leaves until the second or third week of July, making for a sub-60-day growing season.)

The view from the turnaround on Mt. Haggin. I realized six hours into it this is one of those climbs you need to start at 4 a.m. if you hope to finish by sunset.



And that leads us to this: more than three weeks, two tons of cobblestones, one ton of playsand, and one broken rake later, the driveway is complete.