Author: Ross

Part of a series.

Thursday, Septermber 15 (continued)

Another stop had us looking out across an scrably plain before the distant Bitterroots. Small roads followed more strands of vegetation and cows grazed in disorganized packs, taking whatever pickings they found among the shrubs. I explained to my dad that this whole section of land was owned by the Bureau of Land Management, another federal agency charged with protecting these places and one whose work I reservedly admire. The BLM (as well as the US Forest Service) holds huge sections of the western US and manages limited exploitation of the land, such as the cattle grazing we were observing and takes a very permissive stance toward recreational use like camping, hiking, and hunting. We had seen pickup trucks coupled with RVs, surrounded by the trifles of temporary yards and figured that they were occupied by ranchers and cowboys who had paid the meager fee to raise their cattle on the plains.

As we continued on, the sun fell further in the sky and we needed to find a place to stay. I pointed that once again, unless there was a posted prohibition to the country and we weren’t interfering with the grazing, we could drop our tents anywhere around us. My dad was uneasy about setting up just anywhere, noting recent hoof prints and tire marks at some of the candidate sites we looked at. At another, a cow came happily trotting in our direction when she spotted our car. He complained about the possibility of a herd of cattle being driven over us…

Well, that’s reasonable.

Carrying on, we passed a lonely cafe around on bend on the highway and beyond it found a developed campsite kept by the BLM. And a free one at that! We set up and by the time our tents were arranged, we were rewarded with the sight of the full moon creeping above one of the nearer Bitterroots. We took photos.

We swung back to the café for dinner and were greeted with smell of cigarettes. The bartender smiled, a patron at the bar turned in welcome, a dog in the corner stirred, and an elderly woman reclining in a rocking chair under a blanket nodded her head. “What can I do you?” asked the bartender, playfully sardonic. We said we were after food and he apologized, saying the grill closes at eight – ten minutes prior to our arrival. We left, a little bit dejected, but I felt some gratification for seeing that homey little scene. We returned and cooked ramen noodles on our stove by the campfire.

People often ask me if I’m lonely when I go off into the woods for a couple of days on my own. I’ll fancifully connect it to notions of perfecting idyllic solitude and, even if they don’t really comprehend such things, they understand that there’s supposed to be an element of romance by cultural rote. Henry David Thoreau and all that. In truth, it doesn’t matter if the nearest person is a room away or a mile away. Where I go to at night, this doesn’t make a difference. Crude imitations of a feeling of companionship include leaving Netflix or the radio on. But when I’m off on some mountain side, well… sometime I’ll find a way to explain to you how all woods are haunted. Those hauntings become my company.

This night was a little bit different. The Sun had left with its colors and threw the shifting lights of its twilight upon the mountains as the moon rose in its second, dimmer, sunrise. After this ceremony, the moonlight was strong enough to just give shape to the land and to blue to the sky. We walked the length of the campground. Coyotes could be heard in the distance. We speculated one pack was in a pass among the foothills and another behind us somewhere. They sang their songs and their pups chattered. They were a good haunting.