montana headwall 4.3

FALL 2012

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FINDING KISHENEHNA trail in Glacier’s forgotten corner leads to thepark’s northernmost ranger station—and a lost era

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FORCE OF NATUREThe gospel of Jim Harrison

LONG SHOTSHitting the target gets a whole lot harderwhen it’s 10 football fields away

Cover photo by Tony Bynum

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On Belay

Contributors

Head LinesFalling gracefully

Freeriders hope to find a homeThe fall of the Bitterroot’s first highline

Head Light Can you see me now?

Head Shots Our readers’ best

Wild Things Cat power

Grub Stew it up

Head Trip Take it to the limit

Head Out Schedule your hunting season

and other adventures

Head Gear Canvas cabins

The Crux Containment theory

STAFF EDITOR Skylar BrowningGENERAL MANAGER Lynne FolandPHOTO EDITOR Chad HarderADVERTISING SALES MANAGER Carolyn BartlettPRODUCTION DIRECTOR Joe WestonCIRCULATION MANAGER Adrian VatoussisSPECIAL PROJECTS COORDINATOR Chris MeltonMARKETING COORDINATOR Tara Shisler

CONTRIBUTORS Alex Sakariassen, Nick Davis, Erika Fredrickson,

Matthew Frank, Chad Harder, Courtney Blazon, Ari LeVaux,

Tony Bynum, Brad Tyer, Kou Moua, Chris Dombrowski, Jack Ballard

COPY EDITOR Brad TyerART DIRECTOR Kou MouaPRODUCTION ASSISTANTS Jenn Stewart, Jonathan MarquisADVERTISING REPRESENTATIVES Tami Johnson, Steven Kirst, Alecia Goff, Sasha PerrinFRONT DESK Lorie RustvoldEDITOR-IN-CHIEF Matt Gibson

Please recycle this magazine

317 S. Orange St.• Missoula, MT 59801406-543-6609 • Fax 406-543-4367

www.mtheadwall.com

Montana Headwall (ISSN 2151-1799) is a registeredtrademark of Independent Publishing, Inc. Copyright2012 by Independent Publishing, Inc. All rights reserved.Reprinting in whole or in part is forbidden except by permission of Independent Publishing, Inc. Viewsexpressed herein are those of the author exclusively. And yeah, we’re having fun.

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INSIDE

Chad Harder

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Chad Harder

It took him four tries, but Nick Davis finally hit pay dirt, strik-ing the motherlode on a Montana Headwall assignment. Overthe past four years, we’ve conscripted Davis to land a state

record fish, dared him to conquer the logistics of a cast-and-blastextravaganza, and obliged him to fly fish in the middle of win-ter—all with the uncompromising expectation that he’d comeback with a gem of a story for our readers. Or else.

Being an exceptionally fine writer and an all-around goodsport, Davis obliged. But everywhere he went for us, hard timesfollowed him. The fish didn’t bite. The ducks banked safely outof range. Woebegone barmaids stumbled over the pronunciationof “Corona.” Davis has endured torment of Homeric proportionsfor us, yet made all of it sound like fun, if not downright heroic.

But this time, on assignment for “Take it to the limit,” Davisstumbled into riches, lucking into a perfect day of upland birdhunting on extraordinary ground with amiable partners and finedogs. He knows it will be hard to top that outing.

Davis isn’t the only Headwall writer who’s been having agood time. Chris Dombrowski drinks in the genius of JimHarrison in “Force of nature.” Erika Fredrickson shoots thebreeze with Missoula’s low-key cabal of world-class marksmenin “Long shots.” And in “Finding Kishenehn,” Aaron Teasdaleadmires the forest primeval from a remote cabin tucked into thefarthest corner of Glacier National Park.

If you’re reading this magazine, you already know: Montana offers an abundance of spectacular outdoor adventures,more than enough to sate even the most committed sportsman.After finishing our fall issue, we hope you’ll be eager to havemore. Enjoy.

Matt GibsonEditor-in-Chief

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Aaron can usually be found roamingthe planet’s wild and endangeredcorners with pen and camera inhand. His wife and two sons comealong whenever the shackles of civi-lization (school, work, etc.) allow it.Though he has called Missoula’sNorthside home for 13 years, hisheart resides in the North Fork ofthe Flathead Valley, where his familyhas a cabin near Polebridge. You cansee more of his work in Sierra,National Geographic Adventure,Mountain and Adventure Cyclist.

Nick lives in Missoula with a gorgeous wife, a fantastic son, alumpy old dog, and a cat that urinates on his stuff. In terms ofregular employment he is currentlyin a “transition period.” He fervently hopes this period will last through hunting season.

Courtney is a graduate of ParsonsSchool of Design now working asan artist in Missoula. Her art has

been featured at local and regionalgalleries, at the Missoula Art

Museum, on Juxtapoz.com andGoogle’s artistaday.com, and in New

American Paintings and Studio VisitMagazine. She’s had solo shows at

Pony Club Gallery in Portland,Victrola Coffee and Art in Seattle,

Dana Gallery and the University ofMontana UC Gallery. She received a

Montana Arts Council 2011 ArtistInnovation Award.

Erika is a graduate of the Universityof Montana’s creative writing pro-gram and received her master’s in

environmental studies in 2009. She’scurrently the arts editor at the

Missoula Independent and has beenpublished in Montanan, Vision, The

Sonoma Review and Camas. Whennot hiking in the woods, she'sworking on local food issues.

Though she hasn't won any worldrecords for 1,000-yard shooting

(yet), she's still hoping to fill herantelope tag this fall.

Courtney Blazon

Erika FredricksonAaron Teasdale

Nick Davis

ENJOY YOUR HEALTH

Montana Headwall Fall 2012

GEAR UP FOR EVERYTHING

and more

OUTDOORS

MISSOULA — HAMILTON —

BOZEMAN — HELENA —

BUTTE —

LIFTOFF

Falling with styleRen Huschle used to fall. He started

skydiving near Kalispell when he was22. Three years later, after moving toCalifornia, he started BASE jumping offcliffs. In both cases he just tumbledthrough the air, waiting to deploy hisparachute. He fell.

Now Huschle flies. He still jumpsout of planes, and off of cliffs andbridges, but when he does he opensthe wings of a special suit with flapsof fabric under each arm and betweenhis legs that catch the air, slow hisdescent and make him look some-thing like a flying squirrel. Your aver-age skydiver falls at around 120 miles

per hour. In his wingsuit, Huschleglides at half that speed.

“You open up your arms and youpretty much lean the way you want togo,” says Huschle, now 34 and livingin Bozeman. “You’ve got time to lookaround. If you jump with other peo-

ple, you can fly next to each other. Youcan fly in formation like planes. Youlook at a bird flying, and that’s what itfeels like.”

Over the past seven years,Huschle’s done some amazing wing-suit jumps. He’s flown extensively inEurope, including a launch off TheEiger, a 13,025-foot mountain in

Switzerland’s Bernese Alps. He’sjumped in Idaho and California. Mostnotably, however, he’s one of only twowingsuit jumpers to have flown inMontana. He’s secretive about thelocations—one jump was in “south-west Montana” and another in “west-ern Montana” is all he offers—but it’sclear he sees his home state as a newfrontier.

“It’s unexplored territory,”Huschle says.

Huschle believes he’s one of only afew in Montana who have even triedthe sport; Huschle knows of someactive BASE jumpers, but none whohave tried wingsuits yet. That leaveshim mostly on his own when scoutingnew cliffs. It’s a tricky process becauseMontana’s mountains don’t have asmuch relief as, say, the Alps. But the

Japan’s Shin Ito set the world record for fastest speed reached in a wingsuit, hitting 226 mph in May 2011.

Ren Huschle

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technology has improved enough inthe last few years to put Montana

peaks in play. He says flying is“safer, easier” than it waseven five years ago.

It’s still far from a beginner’ssport. Wingsuit flights requireintense training and evaluationwith a coach, and that only happensafter a recommended minimum of200 traditional skydives. Huschlesays one mistake, one distraction,one extra second of flight and evenhis parachute may become useless.He’s made mistakes, but never afatal one.

“If you’re not paying attention,you’re still falling out of the sky,”Huschle says.

The words catch in his throat fora moment. He’s been liberal with theword “flying” up to now, but themention of falling seems to makehim reflect. “We’re not flying yet,”he confesses. “We glide. Poorly.”

Alex Sakariassen

HEAD ONLINE

Only at

100 Miles to GloryA leisurely afternoon ride this is not. JohnLehrman writes about one mountain biker'sepic pedal adventure, spanning approximately105 miles and climbing about 16,000 feet—allin 18 hours.

Buggy in the BitterrootsHeadwall photo editor Chad Harder summits

Saint Joseph Peak and finds thousands—literal-ly thousands—of ladybugs waiting for him.

Sky Full of PheasantsDuring an unforgettable hunt detailed in thisissue, Nick Davis quickly shot his limit ofupland birds. Chad Harder, however, didn’thave to stop shooting. The bullets and feathersfly in his online slideshow.

PLUS:• Read Trip Reports—or add your own• Search an extensive database of regional destinations and trails• Explore Montana Headwall’s full issue archiveRen Huschle


BIKE BATTLE

Freeriders hope to find a homeOn a recent summer day, a Missoula mountain

biker cruised through a stand of pine toward a ricketywooden ramp. Decked out in a full-face helmet, glovesand kneepads, he had little protection from whatthreatened to be a bone-crunching fall. He hit the ramp,rocketed 20 feet above an abandoned Forest Serviceroad, and disappeared back into the brush.

This is freeriding, a version of mountain bikinggaining in popularity for its emphasis on tricks, person-al style, and technical trail riding. The catch? It doesn’thave a home yet, at least not a legal one.

A decade ago, Missoula’s freeride community waslargely insular, just scattered groups of like-minded,passionate bikers, says longtime freerider Cris Winner.They rode wherever they could, including abandonedfields, backyards, and remote stretches of forest. Withlimited opportunities, some riders took to ForestService land to illegally create new trail features, con-tributing to the sport’s less-than-positive public image.

Winner is working to change that reputation, and hesays a lot has already been done. The freeride communi-ty has grown “five-fold” since he started riding 10 yearsago, and freeriders have developed legal parks and trailnetworks across the country. “You show up at trailheads,there’s other freeriders there,” says Winner, specificallynoting work done in Whitefish and Bozeman. “You seepictures of people riding. It’s all over the place now.”

Missoula, however, remains behind the curve.Winner runs a freeride camp for area youth, but com-pares the sport’s growing pains to those once experi-enced by snowboarding and skateboarding. Freeridingisn’t widely accepted, so his camp kids turn to the oneplace they can legally ride: private property. Otherscontinue to ride illegally on Forest Service land.

“It’s really hard because none of us are old enoughto drive,” says Peter Rice, 14, a member of Winner’s

Man-made freeriding features include teeter-totters, drop-offs, raised ramps, log rides, and high, narrow bridges.

Chad Harder


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KNOT RIGHT

How to keep your kill from falling off your car

advanced class. “We can’t go to allthese people’s houses because they liveout of town.”

Missoula bikers have attempted tolegalize areas in the past, but the ForestService has been less than receptive, cit-ing concerns for public safety. Winnerbelieves those concerns are beingaddressed. Last summer, a group beganraising funds for an in-town bike park.The Tanner Olson Memorial BMXPark—named in memory of localfreerider Tanner Olson, who died in acar crash in spring 2011—would offerfreeriders of all ages an easily accessible,safe and legal venue. Missoula Parks &Recreation is aware of the park proposal,and initial discussions about potentiallocations are already underway.

“You could build a really fun bikepark in a week,” Winner says, “if youhad the right tools and the right people.”

He says at this point, Missoula is onthe right track.

Alex Sakariassen

Make a slippery half-hitch in middle of rope.

Tie off at end

Make a turn arounda bar, cleat, etc.

Pull tight

A. B. C. D.

Finish withone or twohalf hitches(overhand knots).

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Get yourself some rope.

If all else fails, resort to extreme measures.

Employ the trucker’shitch. If you’re not usinga trucker’s hitch, you’re

doing it wrong.

Chad Harder

Illustration by Kou Moua


David Hobbs called it “The Plank.” He was referring to the roughly 80-foot-long,inch-wide length of webbing he strung across the top of the North Rim of Mill CreekCanyon last summer, the first highline in the Bitterroot. It took Hobbs months to planit, and then three days of trying over two weekends before he successfully walked it.But the high didn’t last long.

Hobbs, 23, a University of Montana nursing student and veteran of the U.S.Telemark World Cup Team, discovered in late May that someone destroyed the fivebolts comprising one of the highline anchors.

“They were all pounded flat, like someone used a big hammer,” he says. Hobbs guesses the hammer-wielder is a frequenter of the area who doesn’t

approve of Mill Creek’s transformation into a playground for adventure-seeking high-liners and rock jocks.

Mill Creek, about an hour south of Missoula, is quickly becoming a popular rock-climbing destination, largely because its many sport-climbing opportunities are wellsuited to beginners and intermediates, providing a point of entry to the sport that thegreater Missoula area has largely lacked. Climbing pals Ken Turley, Dane Scott andMichael Moore, among others, began bolting the routes back in 2009; now there are44, and counting.

“Mill Creek has surpassed our expectations in terms of how popular it’s become,and we’re delighted,” says Turley.

He wrote last summer in the Mill Creek Report (millcreekreport.blogspot.com)that Hobbs’ highline upped “the adventure quotient…several notches.”

The vandalism has the Mill Creek climbing community ticked—and “ticked” is theappropriate word, since ticks pervade the place (hence route names such as “TickMagnet” and “Witness the Tickness”). The climbers defend their right to recreate onpublic land and Turley notes there’s legal precedent for prosecuting bolt choppers, ref-erencing a 2007 Massachusetts case.

Hobbs says he’s reluctant to re-bolt the highline anchor and risk more vandalism,but he’s otherwise unfazed.

“There are plenty of other cliffs out there to highline between,” he says. “We justhave to find them.”

Matthew Frank

David Hobbs

The fall of the Bitterroot’s first highlineCUT NO SLACK

November’s wan light drainedfrom the sky as I walkedalone into a forgotten cornerof Glacier National Park. As

night grew from the shadows, noises inthe forest grew louder. My head jerked atthe sound of a branch brushing my pants.A foot of fresh snow obscured the tracksof an oversized carnivore on the trail thatled me into dark timber. Everywhere wasblackness, the world reduced to my head-lamp’s bobbing orb of light. It seemedinevitable it would suddenly be filled bysome variety of toothy creature.

I checked the pepper spray canisterin my pack’s side pocket. Then I remem-bered the propellant in pepper spraydoesn't work in temperatures belowfreezing. It was 20 degrees.

"Well, this is exciting," I thought tomyself.

I’d gotten a late start but was deter-mined to reach the old Kishenehn rangercabin where my friend Benjamin Polleywas waiting. Though I’d navigated thefaint trail many times, the deepeningsnow made route-finding a challenge. Bythe time I reached Kishenehn Creek itsicy flow was being swallowed by the

night and thickly falling snowflakesclouded my headlamp beam. I took amoment to steel myself and then forded.But in the chaos of snow and darkness, Ipicked the wrong spot and couldn’t findthe trail on the other side.

This was the point at which I becamequasi-lost. Not lost-lost, mind you—Iknew where I was, more or less. But Ihad no trail and the darkness was clos-ing in around me. As I bushwhackedthrough the black unknown an owl tookflight from the night and took a coupleof my heartbeats with it.

I was reminded of the writer whosaid fear is an essential part of thewilderness experience. This is why Icome here to this unruly, forgotten forestin the far northwest corner of Glacier. Tobe wild again, the way we used to be.

The night before, as I lay in bed inthe civilized confines of Missoula, Ithought about how I would be complete-ly off the human grid on this hike—nophone, no people, no contact with themodern world—and how rare that’sbecome. I like that feeling. With no safetynet between myself and the wild, every-thing seems more alive.

The first time I attempted this trail wasover a decade ago, after discovering it

on a yellowing map that showed it leadingto a mysterious ranger station. Current parkmaps show no trails or ranger stations here,and it felt like I was the first person in yearsto follow the indistinct path. Eventually Ireached that same Kishenehn Creek cross-ing where the trail simply disappeared. Atthe time, I figured that was it—the area hadbeen abandoned to wilderness.

Five years ago I learned this was onlypartly true. The area had indeed returnedto wilderness, if it had ever been anythingelse, but the Kishenehn Ranger Stationwas still there, hidden in thick timbernear the North Fork of the Flathead River.More importantly, my friend Ben, a long-time park employee, had been invited toman it during hunting season. His jobwas to patrol for poachers, the originalreason this outpost is here at all.

The first cabin was built at Kishenehnin 1913, three years after Glacier's cre-ation, as the northernmost link in a chainof log-cabin ranger stations encircling thepark. A wilderness park where naturehad primacy was a new concept, andpark managers wanted to shield it fromneighboring homesteaders who bristledat the notion of a place where they could-n’t hunt, trap, graze and log. To protect it,the Kishenehn ranger was tasked withpatrolling the area’s scattering of trails.

Local residents eventually acceptedthe park, but tourists never arrived atKishenehn due to its inaccessible loca-tion, lack of amenities and mountain-obscuring forest, and the rangers wereremoved. Except for rare visits byrangers or wildlife researchers, the cabin,woodshed, and log barn sat unused fordecades, vestiges of a lost era.

But the modern-day threat of poacherslives on, and Ben now hikes here everyfall. For each of the last five years I’vecome to visit, always on the cusp of winterwhen the air is bracing and larch needlesturn to gold. I don’t come for the views, Icome to recalibrate and feel the rhythms ofthe wilderness. I’m a sucker for knock-you-upside-the-head grandeur as much asthe next guy, but over the years I’velearned to prefer slightly less spectacularplaces with wilder character, where theanimals don’t come for handouts, theycome for prey. That’s Kishenehn.

In the farthest reaches of the North ForkValley, 13 miles of ragged dirt road

north of Polebridge, itself some 30 milesof rough road north of Columbia Falls,


there is an unmarked trailhead. Beyondthis entry point lies a land of primitivetrails, towering forests and wildlifebeyond counting. A literal blank spot onthe map, here in a corner of one ofAmerica’s showpiece national parks is aplace virtually nobody goes. When Benand I are hiking in together, we invariablygo quiet after the first mile or so as theKishenehn acclimation begins. The call ofravens and the jackhammer of pileatedwoodpeckers replace our conversation.We share a love of tracking wild animalsand there are always tracks upon tracks of

elk, moose, wolf, lion, grizzly. Thenmaybe a tuft of hair. Then a hoof, the toesof a deer, lying on the ground like a dis-carded toy. Inevitably, the carcass paradebegins. We gather around the tracks, prodand smell the scat, excitedly studying thekill sites like young boys at Christmas.

The trail here is more like a gametrail than the park’s well-poundedexpressways, and after five miles it dis-appears in the cobble along KishenehnCreek. My first trip in, Ben showed mewhere to pick up the faint trail to theranger cabin on the far side. Fording thecreek—never deep, always cold—is likecrossing a border into the wild heart ofKishenehn. The trees are bigger, thebeaver ponds never-ending, and the trailpaved with lion and wolf scat. BesidesBen and our friends, I’ve never seen

another person here.We always come with good boots,

good books, and good wine. Sometimeswe take a day in the cabin to drink teaand read, and Ben, who vows to some-day write a book about this place, pensepic paeans in the station’s logbook,which is otherwise filled with taciturnranger entries. But most often, like thoseearly patrolling rangers, our daysrevolve around movement.

A hike we took one cold, cloudyNovember day perfectly illustrates theKishenehn experience.

The howling of wolves woke us at sun-rise. In less than an hour we were steppingout of the cabin’s grizzly-proof, metal-gratefront door with a day’s provisions in ourpacks. Not more than 200 yards from thecabin were lion tracks, fresh on the morn-ing’s dusting of snow (there’s nothing bet-ter here than a fresh dusting of snow). Benand I high-fived. A lion—a lion!—had justbeen here. As we followed its tracks downthe trail, wolves howled in the distance. Wefollowed the old Kootenai Indian trail upKishenehn Creek through a towering forestof old-growth larch and fir and aspen tat-tooed by bear claws.

At the antler- and skull-litteredmeadows near the Canadian border, wesat and ate in silence. But Kishenehnsang as chickadees filled the air withgood cheer and wedges of geese flew

overhead in jumbled, bicycle-horn sym-phonies. Later we saw the tracks of awolf that had come to the meadow’sedge, seen or heard or smelled us, andturned away.

On our way back at the end of the day,we split up for the last two miles and Iexplored off-trail in the encroaching shad-ows. Grizzly tracks appeared just before Ireached the cabin. Had it gone before Benor after him? Following the tracks byheadlamp led me directly to the cabin.

Ben was standing on the porch andannounced, “This griz came right up to

the cabin, with smoke coming out of thechimney, smelled our pee, and thenflipped over the pack rat we threw outand kept going up the river trail—wherewe’re going tomorrow.”

The lesson here is that while the bigcarnivores won’t cavalcade in front ofyou in Kishenehn’s old forest like theymight in, say, Yellowstone, there’s noquestion they’re here. The other lesson isthat if you trap a pack rat and toss itscarcass in front of the cabin to see whatwill come eat it, you don’t have to worryabout it being a grizzly bear.

Sometimes the wildlife encountershere are less oblique. Consider the

time we were walking along the borderswath, that 40-foot-wide treeless line inthe sand our country maintains up and

Current park maps show no trails or ranger stations here,

and it felt like I was the first person in years to follow the indistinct path.

Continued on page 58

down mountainsides for reasons onlybureaucrats can understand. Ben waswalking a short distance ahead of me asI snapped pictures. Then the ravensappeared, circling loudly over SageCreek. We immediately squatted downand watched. We suspected a kill site,but we couldn’t see down into the creekbottom.

As I stalked my way toward the bankbehind Ben, he came speed-walking backto me furiously waving his hands. I’dnever seen him so rattled. Quietly butwith a fierce urgency he said, “Go, go, go!There’s a huge black grizzly bear on anelk carcass in the creek bottom.”

He was terrified in a way only some-one who has just seen a murderous griz-zly at close range can be. It hadn’t seenhim, he said, but it was swinging itssnout from side to side trying to sniff outthe intruder it knew was there. We had toleave, he said, now.

Some people say the value of largepredators is that they teach us humility.At this moment Ben was a spouting foun-tain of humility. Clearly this was more ofa wilderness experience than he waslooking for.

I, on other hand, desperately wantedto see this bear. How many opportunitiesdo you get in a life to see a huge blackgrizzly bear standing on an elk carcass?All I had to do was creep to the edge ofthe bank, look down 30 feet, and boom:bear sighting of a lifetime. The wildest ofthe wild was within my grasp.

But what if I reached the bank and thebruin was right there, climbing up afterour scent? I have kids. I didn’t want todie here in this stupid swath. So after afew moments of contemplation, I reluc-tantly turned around and we trudged theeight miles through a foot of snow backto the cabin.

While every day in the teeming landsaround Kishenehn carries the

unpredictable, kinetic hum of a self-willed landscape, for every dramaticencounter there are five days filled withthe kind of dynamic calm that only deepwilderness provides. Often we simplytromp to the nearby beaver kingdom,where the impossibly industrious rodentshave dammed the spring that is also ourwater source. Their concentric dams cre-ate a terraced series of pools reminiscentof Asian rice paddies. They’ve also engi-neered a network of deeply worn, four-foot-wide channels through the sur-rounding spruce forest.

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Can you see me now?Focusing on how to improve your smartphone’s camera

We know you’re out there, having epics and snapping photos.Instead of cursing them with an anonymous death in hard-drivepurgatory, go for the glory and send your best images to us [email protected]. Include the location, your name, thenames of all people shown and any information you think is use-ful. We’ll take it from there.

Chad Harder

Phone users now upload morepictures to the image-sharingsite Flickr than users of any

other camera—more than Canon,Nikon, anything. The iPhone cam-era, like those in other smartphonebrands, has improved exponential-ly in recent models, and in manyinstances even beats the perform-ance of dedicated point-and-shoots.Self-contained adventurers find the five-ounce phone-camera a no-brainer alternative to luggingaround yet another piece of equipment.

The key to the iPhone’s popu-larity on Flickr is, of course, con-venience. Wherever the phonegoes, so goes a decent camera. It’swhy more and more people rely onthe saying that the best camera isthe one that’s with you. But savvyshooters know that simplicity andefficiency don’t always get the bestimage. Smartphone cameras

remain limited—at least withoutsome help.

Consider the lack of lensoptions. While nearly every mod-ern dedicated camera comesequipped with a zoom, lenses iniPhones and Android cameras are“fixed focal length.” That meansthey can’t stretch wide for land-scapes, nor can they reach into thedistance like a telephoto.

This is finally changing as after-market lenses become available forsmartphone shooters. These clip-ons come in varying qualities andprice ranges, but we prefer the ver-satile Olloclip. Weighing less than acar key and costing $70, this unit isno telephoto, but it does expandyour versatility. We found it to produce reasonably sharp imageswith its wide, fisheye and macroconfigurations.

The current crop of clip-on tele-photo options, however, leave a lotto be desired, primarily becauseattaching fat tele glass onto a razor-

thin smartphone has proven nearlyimpossible. This may change soon;a June 14 Apple patent applicationimplies the company is developinga next-generation lens system withsupplementary lenses and filters,optical zoom, and image stabiliza-tion. For now, though, none of theclip-on telephoto lenses on themarket are worth a damn.

Regardless of brand, most after-market smartphone lenses are inex-pensive, simple to use and, to thetypical viewer looking at a screen,capable of producing well-exposedand sharp-enough results. Eagle-eyed shooters may remain frustrat-ed, but perhaps it’d be helpful topoint out they just took pictures witha cheap accessory lens clipped to aphone.

The technology is far from per-fect, but it is getting better. So aslong as the best camera is the onethat’s with you, you should maxi-mize its capabilities.

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A mule deer buck surveys his domain froma hillside above Missoula.

Paul Queneau

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The sun silhouettes bowhunter CarsonRauthe in his treestand while waiting for elkabove a favorite game trail.

Carson Rauthe


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275 W. Main St • 728-0343 www.tanglesmt.com


Iam sitting at theHitching Post inMelrose drinking vodkawith Jim who steals,

between sips, a scant glance athis beloved barmaid Nicole’srear, puffs from his AmericanSpirit, and says: “Do you want toknow how you can believe in God?”

Smoke purls thickly from his ciga-rette, and in the window-parried shaftof evening light his face looks quite con-jured with its blind eye wandering oppo-site his working eye, one of them—I’mnot sure which—glancing often at somebird darting just beyond my mortalmeans of perception.

“Absolutely,” I say. “I totally wantto know.”

Around us at the bar, ranchers andfishing guides lean in to order beers orfries or shots from Nicole, whose brownhair fairly gleams against a white tanktop as she leans down to reach for bot-tles, revealing ample cleavage, that spaceon a woman’s body, essentially nothing,that so entrances the male heterosexual.

“It’s a vacancy,” Jim says, limpidlybraiding our theological conversation withthe sexual, “the absence of something thatmakes men incorrigible. A nada.”

With his singular own, Jim catchesNicole’s dark eyes, and asks to buy a drink(Knee-cole, he pronounces her name) for hisfriend Craig, who just arrived at the doorin his wheelchair. Crippled from the waist

down last winter in a car accident, Craig isNicole’s ex-boyfriend and would likelyreceive a free drink anyway, but Nicoleobliges, laces ice, vodka, a splash of sodainto a short glass, and then, as if by instinct,fills our glasses as well.

Jim lifts his glass to mine:“Peacock”—this is Jim’s friend, theauthor and grizzly bear expert, DougPeacock—“tells me that new indis-putable”—he puffs vigorously on his cig-arette again—“evidence points to the factbears have been feeding on migrating

cutworm moths inprecisely the same

drainage in the FrontRange near Glacier

National Park for overthousands of years, and

recently Peacock deter-mined the bears now arrivebefore the moths, and waitout the moths’ arrival,whereupon they gorgethemselves into a food coma.I’ll order us two steaks—

Knee-Cole, two steak sand-wiches rare, please, and anoth-

er vodka for Craig. For a bear,there are more nutrients per partin a cutworm moth than in a cut-throat trout.”

By now I have finished myvodka and I am staring straight at

Jim, his tanned face gullied withwrinkles and crow’s feet.

“That’s how you can believe in God.”

How I got to know Jim Harrison—outdoorsman, roving gourmand

and man of letters, “untrammeled rene-gade genius” and beloved author ofmore than 30 books including Dalva andLegends of the Fall—is another story, theshort version of which goes: I was bornin his hometown and grew up on

JIM HARRISON—AUTHOR, POET, GOURMAND, FLY FISHERMAN—KNOWS HOW YOU CAN BELIEVE IN GOD. IT STARTS WITH A CUTWORM MOTH.

by Chris Dombrowski • illustrations by Courtney Blazon


Harrison Road and he takes kindly toriver guide/poets with a penchant forgood cheese and cold vodka.

For now, though, we’re going fishingon the Big Hole where Jim spends 50 or60 days each summer, and, Carharttedfrom head to toe but for the Muck boots,he’s knocking at the screen door to mycabin: “Are you ready for some sausagepatty, Son?”

“I don’t know if I can handlesausage,” I say. “I’m still a tad jangledfrom last night. How about you?”

“A little bit hung-over but that’s to beexpected of a Marine of fly fishing. I’mfamished from forging the smithy of my

soul. I wrote a poem this morning!Come, we must find sustenance,” hesays, in what I think of as his “imperialvoice,” aiming his substantial frametoward the Hitching Post's café that sits amere 50 yards from the cabin door.

Inside the café we find our friendand fishing partner, novelist David JamesDuncan, chatting up the guides who arepicking up their sack lunches fromSherri, Nicole’s aunt, queen of the morn-ing shift. We sit down to hot drinks andDavid tells us what he’s learned from thelocals: that the river rose with anovernight rain, and while it has crested,

won’t likely fish well till the afternoon.It’s still springtime in Montana, and theBig Hole’s trout feed mostly when thewater warms away their lethargy.

“How about the bugs?” Jim asks,referring to the fabled pteronarcys califor-nica, the salmon fly hatch coveted by theangling masses.

“Mostly in the canyon or up above,around Silver Bridge,” David says.

“Good. We should go downstreamthen and cover a big chunk of water withstreamers. Stay away from the loons.”

The loons will arrive momentarilyfrom Bozeman and Butte and Spokaneand Salt Lake to chase the 3-inch-long

stonefly’s upstream matingflights and the toilet-flush-

rises these aquatic rib-steaks induce from the

trout. Only immensely

well-cultured anglers such as ourselveswould prefer to fish downstream of thehatch; we prefer the solitude and goodcompany, we tell each other, but we alsoknow the downstream brown trout havealready gluttoned up on the stoneflies,and, if we can put a streamer deepenough under the right cutbank, westand to catch the fish of the season, a 2-foot, 6-pound brown.

“How about Glen to the Notch,then?” I suggest. “I know a perfect lunchspot, and I have some morels and chick-en to heat up on the stove.”

“I rolled a whopper down there lastweek,” Jim says, “but I missed it ’cause I

was watching two garish tanagers fightover a mayfly. The birds insisted theirbeauty was more important than my life-time brown trout, and who am I to dis-agree with such creatures?”

Jim’s response recalls something Iread in a recent interview he gave to apublication in France, where he is a veri-table folk-hero:

“Do you believe in the supernatu-ral?” the interviewer asked Jim.

“Of course I do,” Jim said, “because Ireceive special instructions from thegods. In America, I have a book [ofpoems] called In Search of Small Gods. Doyou really expect one God to create 19billion galaxies? And did you know thatone teaspoon of cosmic black holeweighs 3 billion tons? Think how strongthis teaspoon has to be. So, if there are 19billion galaxies, why can’t I have a soul,

even if it is extremely small? As small asa photon, or better yet, as one of my neu-rons. It never occurred to me not tobelieve in the Resurrection.”

“Where’s your flask?” Jim asks me.The drift boat is anchored a few

miles downstream from Glen Bridge andwe’re snacking on a wedge of Manchegowhile David plies a side-channel on foot.The grass along the bank of the rivuletgrows thick and high, the seed-headsalready heavy, and from our vantage


David’s hat and moving fly-rod are theonly human intrusions visible on thelandscape, the graphite glinting witheach cast or when it bows under theweight of a fish or bucks with a fish’srun; when David kneels to unhook andrelease a fish, he disappears altogether.

“You mean my vodka flask?”“Last year I was flying to Paris with

Dustin Hoffman and wewere lamenting the spateof interviews we had linedup upon arrivals. ‘Dustin,’I said, ‘how do you put upwith it all?’ And he said,‘Jim, it’s easy. I just fill upa water bottle with vodkaand sip off it all throughthe day.’ And I told him, ‘Ha! I know apoet and a fishing guide in Montana whodoes the exact same thing!’”

“It did protect against inane clients,but I quit bringing it during high water.Too easy to make a mistake sober, letalone buzzed.”

I don’t need to expound for Jim. Twoyears ago, he, legendary Livingston out-doorsman Dan Lahren and I floatedRock Creek at flood stage the daybefore a very competent oarsmanflipped his boat and lost a pas-senger to the cold swift waterand ultimately a sweeper. Fromhis home in Livingston, Jimread the news and calledme. He sensed I feltsome guilt for takinghim down such atreacherous stretchof river. “Dommer,”he said, “don’t feelbad. The world is acruel place. Thismuch we know.”

“Let me see thatrod of yours,” Isay. Jim’s had afew tugs onhis stream-er—one vio-lent slashfrom a bigfish that senthim into a near-orgasmic state of excite-ment—but the last hour of fishing hasbeen exceedingly uneventful. “I just sawDavid hook another fish. I’m going totrail something off of your Yuk Bug.”

“Not a worm!” Jim says, referring tothe dreaded San Juan worm, an imitationof an aquatic worm whose fly-ness isoften disputed in angling circles. “But Iknow what you’re thinking. Trust me, I

worked in Hollywood for two decades.Nymphing is like bare skin to the filmindustry. Whenever things get slow…”

“Show ’em some tit?”“Precisely, son! Now, no nymphs for

me. I’ll take my lumps. Let’s try aLahren’s Little Olive,” he says, referringto a number 10 woolly bugger tied raggedand wrapped with significant lead.

And take the lumps he does. WithDavid back in the boat talking Ikkyuwith Jim (“Clouds very high look,”Ikkyu wrote eight centuries ago, “notone word helped them get up there”) wedrift downstream. Jim covers the wateras thoroughly as a flight of swal-lows covers the air above theriver at dusk—there isn’t aninch of holding water that

he fails to twitch the flyseductively through,

but no grabs from the big brownswho have shied away from the high

sun. I’m rowing hard against the snow-fed currents, trying my two-armed bestto hold the boat adjacent to the primelies, so I see only Jim’s tan fly line at theedge of my periphery, zinging back andout against the banks. Every now andthen he stops casting to marvel at a war-bler or a tanager, to feel, as he says inone of his poems, “the grace of theirintentions,” and then he returns hisattention to the water and his casts.

He’s practicing what I’ve long

thought of as “Jim Yoga,” focusing hisattention alternately skyward (moun-tains, birds, clouds) and at ground level(dogs, trout, plants). It’s a ritualistic wayof moving through the world that’srevivified him, a way of seeing througheyes other than his own—and those of uswho’ve read his books have been revivi-fied as well. “If you spend a fair amount

of time studying theworld of ravens,” he’ssaid, “it is logical indeedto accept the fact thatreality is an aggregate ofthe perceptions of allcreatures, not just our-selves.”

Save the squeakingoarlocks and the water lapping at thehull, the boat is wonderfully quiet.Flicker calls, warbler note-cascades,wind, around us the scent of buddingcottonwoods. Then Jim says:

“Come on trout! You don’t want tosee little Jimmy throw a tantrum, do

you? You know, Davey, I oncecaught a 3-pound brown on this

left bank coming up. Right—”Jim pauses and

waits for hisLittle Olive toslap againstthe bank—

“here!”And before

he can strip theline, a chunky

brown trout cart-wheels out of its ele-

ment for the fly, latchesonto the hook, and Jim

let’s out a whoop. Weare all three more

than a little bitdumbfounded.David and I

exchange glances ofsubstantial bafflement as I slip the

net under the fish.

We lunch on my favorite island inthe world: a cottonwood-laden dry

wash that divvies a slow side channelfrom the hard-rushing main river, whichpasses the land, then slams hard into atall sandstone cliff, pivots sharply to theeast, and hurtles downstream. The twocurrents meet and form a lazy back eddy,above which swallows are usually on thehunt, and above the water, adjacent the

“I don’t drink before four in the

afternoon, but of course wine at lunch

on the river is not drinking."


cliff, sloping steadily to the north, a deepswale hosts tall grasses and sage.

I say “we lunch,” but I have forgottenthe propane for my portable grill (I couldbuild a fire and cook over coals, but weexpect the fishing to turn on within thehour). In the cooler, I have chicken thighsmarinating in olive oil, Tabasco, salt,pepper and thyme, some fresh asparagusand, as an aperitif, some morels I gath-ered a few days ago from a burn nearMissoula—but no gas! And thus, no firefor the roving gourmand who doubtlesssees the disappointment in my eyes andoffers: “I have some Washington cohothat I grilled last night.”

“And a bottle of wine,” David says.“I don’t drink before four in the

afternoon,” Jim says, “but of coursewine at lunch on the river is not drink-ing. Here, son, cut yourself somesalami—did I show you thiswine key and knife awoman gave to me inFrance? We’ll have a tidysnack and then howabout a nap in thewarm sand?”

We eat the coldsmoky wild salmon andwash it down with gouts ofCôtes du Rhône, chew onthick slices of salami, and soon,we’re lounging in the shade of someyoung cottonwoods with our handsbehind our heads like old cowhands.We’ve all three had long years—healthissues, legal issues, money issues—butlike good migratory creatures we’re backalong a familiar shore, contemplating thecurrents. Dangerous as the river is, Jimwrote recently in a poem, that “only thewater is safe.”

I ’m not so much startled awake,because I wasn’t really sleeping, but

Jim’s nasally voice surprises me: “Youfound yourself a nice island here,Dommer.”

With a smile on his face, David is stillsleeping, so I tell Jim in a whisper abouthow several years ago I camped herewith my wife Mary and our infant son,and how, after nursing all night, our sonstill wouldn’t sleep, so I held him in thecamp chair before dawn so Mary couldnod off. The river rushed around theisland, slammed hard into the sandstonecliff wall, then caromed through an audi-ble riffle that charged through a short

box canyon. The stars wheeled, the earthturned, but momentarily I felt that we,my son and I, sat outside of time. Itgrinds the mind down, the sound ofshallow water, and as the old goateedpoet next to me once wrote: “The mindground is being as it is.”

“That’s a wonderful story,” Jim says.“We must honor it with a 4-poundbrown this afternoon. Davey, wake up,the fish await with open mouths!”

What I love most about Jim is that,since he’s constantly altering your per-ception of him, he allows you to alteryour perception of yourself, to be mal-leable like the current. Without a soft

mind, someone said, you cannot bevery strong. Jim is ox-big these daysand I wouldn’t ask him to outrun amule, but his mind moves like ajackrabbit. At 70-something years old,he seems to be certain of only a fewthings: good wine, garlic, and thenecessity of time on the water. Whenwe’ve catalogued only 15 percent of theworld’s species, he seems to say, whybe certain of anything?

A few moments later though, fishing,he is quite certain that a red-bellied YukBug—a white-legged, grizzly-hackled,squirrel-tailed, three-inch-long beast— isprecisely the fly he needs.

“I had a fish strike this so hard lastyear,” he says, “it yanked the rod out ofmy hands!”

We find no such denizens down-stream, but the bite is on. Solid fishswirl on our streamers on the dump (asthey land), on the swing (as they hookdownstream with the current), and onthe strip (as they dance at the hands ofthe anglers turned puppeteers). David

has a personal retrieve. He strips linevigorously and darts the rod tip backand forth at the surface of the water,which makes his streamer, an articulatedcreation that we call The Fly-Fisherman’sRapala, look precisely like a flaggingminnow, but makes him look like he’splaying air guitar. Tugged upstreambeside a riprap bank, the fly zigzagsacross the surface and is engulfed by aviolent buttery swirl. Big brown. David’srod bucks with animal energy, thenstraightens as the fish comes unhooked.Jim hollers—he’s latched onto a 20-inchrainbow that Riverdances across the riffleon its tail. I net Jim’s broad-shoulderedfish and we pledge to toast its surface-

skimming leap tonight, its lengthy exitfrom its watery world.

D riving home on theBurma Road, we

pass an old dilapidatedhouse—doorless, win-dowless, roof caved in bya windfall cottonwood.

It’s home, if you ask thelocals, to one of the largest,

most seething dens of rat-tlesnakes in the valley.

“Son, do you see that old house?”Jim says.

“Sure I do.” “Good. Do you know what it says?”“No, what does it say?”“It says: Don’t let your life become

the sloppy leftovers of your work.”It’s evening and the light across the

green-for-a-few-more-weeks hills makesthe sage look like suede. I want whatJim said to sink in, to eddy in my brainand take root, but the moment vanisheslike a cloud shadow on the snowfieldsof the distant Pioneers because we passa roadside pond, a ditch, really, andDavid says:

“Chris, slow down! Back up!Phalaropes in the pond!”

I back the truck and boat trailer care-fully up the road, and see them: foursmall birds spin around and around,dervish-like, on the dusk-lit water, dis-lodging food from the weeds belowthem that they dip down occasionally toeat. They turn and turn like oblong tops.They are doing something we humanscouldn’t do. We are silent for a longmoment. Then Jim says:

“My God. Four phalaropes. We areblessed!”

fat tire amber ale is brewed by new belgium brewing fort collins co

Tom Mousel

On a rainy June morning,Tom Mousel acts like a catstalking a bird. One veinpops on his shaved head as

he peers through his rifle’s scope, histhumb and forefinger poised on thestock and trigger. He’s as fierce as he iscomposed. Nothing moves as he locksin on his target.

Twelve other shooters are lined upalongside Mousel at the Deep CreekRange, all of them aiming down a stretchof grassy valley flanked by pine-treedmountains covered in light mist. Theywear hearing protectors that look likelarge headphones. They cradle sleek,custom-built rifles mounted with high-end Nightforce scopes. Their targets, farin the gray, drizzly distance, look likesmall white rectangles that you can bare-ly make out with the naked eye. Eventhrough the scope they’re blurred asthough submerged in a dirty aquarium.It’s understandable that the bull’s-eyesare so hard to see. After all, they’re 1,000yards away.

As in, more than half a mile. As in, 10 football fields. The line officer yells, “You have six

minutes for practice. Ready on the right.Ready on the left. Insert your bolt…Theline is hot!” That’s when Mousel beginssqueezing the trigger, his shots ringingwith the others on the line. After sixminutes of practice, “cease fire” iscalled. Mousel makes small adjust-ments, emphasis on small. He’s judgingevery little element—wind, rain, theplacement of his rifle—that can affectwhere his bullets hit on the other end ofthe valley.

“There isn’t a human on Earth thatcan see every little thing that affectswhere the bullet’s going,” Mousel says.“We’re not trying to overpower MotherNature or outsmart her, we’re just tryingto outrun her. So you run the gun withone hand and cross your fingers with theother.”

When the line is called hot again,the real competition begins. Mouselfires 10 shots in quick succession. Someshooters drive their guns steady andfast, like Mousel, while others take a lit-tle more time with each bullet. In amatter of minutes, the tournament isover. A thousand yards away, menwho’ve been tucked into a 10-foot-deeppit below the targets, mapping theorder in which each bullet hits, gatherthe sheets and drive their trucks back tothe top of the range to tally the scores.They meet the shooters in a pavilion


near the range caretaker’s sage-coloreddouble-wide, behind a cattle-gateaffixed with warning signs: “No guests.Check the rules.”; “Members Only”;and “Slow down: your not in L.A.”[sic]. Top prize in today’s competition isa modest $65.

It’s not so much about the money. It’sabout the challenge, the camaraderieand, at least among theseshooters, the notoriety.This crowd boasts threeregulars—Mousel, LeoAnderson and CodyFinch—who betweenthem hold half of all the1,000-yard benchrestshooting world records.Mousel’s adjustments onthe line may be small, but they oftenhave significant impact on the sport.

Afew Montana shooters travel to theWorld Open each year in

Williamsport, Penn., the recognized home

of 1,000-yard shooting, but the biggestcompetition for Deep Creek regulars is theone they host. The Montana championship,put on by the Northwest 1,000-YardBenchrest Association in August, features$37,000 in prize money and draws shootersfrom Montana, Idaho, Washington,Oregon, the Dakotas and California, plus astray shooter or two from Missouri, NewMexico, and even from Williamsport.Smaller weekly competitions begin at DeepCreek in March and culminate with thethree-day championship event.

Shooters contend in two officialweight classes: light-gun and heavy-gun.Light guns have to weigh 17 pounds orless and heavies can weigh as much as90 pounds, though there’s no maximum

limit. “If you can haul it to the bench,you can shoot it,” says Bill Brown, theMontana group’s president. After eachround of competition—or “relay”—shooters put their guns on a scale (like awrestler weighing in) to make sure theirpiece is legitimate and the score quali-fies. After several relays in each class, theshooters tally the scores.

Scores rely on two factors: targetpoint value and group size. The targetpoint value is based on how many shotsa shooter can squeeze into the bull’s-eye,or “10 ring,” which is 7 inches in diame-ter. The highest possible score is a 10 outof 10, or 100. While shooters aim for a

high target point value, the group sizeshould be low. Shooters try to get alltheir bullets to hit in the smallest possi-ble cluster; the diameter of that cluster isthe group size.

A shooter has 15 minutes in light-gunclass and 10 minutes in heavy-gun classto fire 10 shots. Most use a fraction of theallotted time.

“The wind is your biggest enemy,”says Mousel, who may expel all of hisbullets in as little as 20 seconds. “The bul-let’s in flight for a second and a half. Ifyou get your 10 shots in as quick as youcan, it gives Mother Nature less time tomess you up. Or you’ve got to be goodenough to read the wind each and everytime. I don’t know a gunman that can

honestly do that. They might tell you theycan, but it’s not possible. Not to the inch.”

With such small margins, techniquematters. In a relay, shooters don’t havetime to observe exactly where the bul-lets are going. Sometimes, under theright conditions, they can make out abullet-hole in the target, but mostlythey’re making tiny adjustments

according to wind and,most importantly,mirage. Sunny, warmdays create a shimmer-ing illusion across theirfield of vision. It’s both ahindrance and an aid.

“Mirage helps youand it kills you at thesame time,” says Mousel,

who holds world records in two differentlight-gun categories. “It indicates whichdirection and how fast the air is movingbut it also makes a target that is for surenot moving, appear to be moving.”

Mousel talks about other adjustmentsa shooter can make, but admits that after

a while it comes down to gut feel andperfect execution.

“Been wrong. Been right,” he says ofmid-relay adjustments. “You’ve got tomake up your mind, though. Sometimesa mosquito can fart on it and it’ll go fourinches to the left. I don’t know. There’sso many variables. There’s so manythings that can happen.”

Mousel, 37, is a fairly serious loverof guns, to the exclusion of nearly

all other interests. He also has a smart-ass sense of humor about his passion.

“What’s key to this,” he says, “is youdon’t want to get married if you can helpit, so then you can spend all your

“Sometimes a mosquito can fart on it

and it’ll go four inches to the left…

There's so many variables.”

Leo Anderson

resources on guns and ammo andyour time on tuning them. Yeah,you don’t want to have to answerquestions.”

He smiles slyly and adds,“Well, I like the one I’m withnow, so we’ll see. I just gotta dothe test. I’m gonna drag another75-pound gun home—I thinkthis winter I’ll build one—and ifthere’s no bothers about it, well,she’s all right.”

Mousel, who lives in Kalispell,got into the 1,000-yard gamewhen he met Leo Anderson at aWhitefish shooting range in 2008.He noticed the light gunAnderson was using with its laminate stock, “clear-coated and pretty.”

“I was just shooting somevarmint rifle and I was emptyingout some ammo or something andI saw the gun and I was curiousabout it,” Mousel says. “Thatnight he had me back at 1,000yards shooting clay pigeons with his gun, and I was hooked right then and there.”

Like so many Deer Creek shooters,Mousel’s priorities are hunting first,1,000-yard shooting second. There’s areason the 1,000-yard shooting seasonends in August: Come September, theseguys—and the club’s few female mem-bers—are out in the mountains lookingfor bull elk, even if that means missingmajor events, like the 1,000-yardInternational Benchrest Shooters com-petition held the first weekend inSeptember in West Virginia.

“That probably works out for thosepeople over East that don’t know what

an elk is, but we got better things to docome September,” says Mousel.

The ability to shoot 1,000-yardbenchrest doesn’t necessarily translateto hunting. Duane Capehart, a 1,000-yard benchrest veteran, says somehunters will join the club thinking thatonce they develop the skill it’ll be acinch to shoot animals at a long range.“It don’t work that way,” he says. “It’slike driving a car at a racetrack. You candrive around at 120 miles an hour but ifyou try to go 140, you’re not going tomake it around.”

Translating the skills to huntingtakes practice and patience. Capehartsays he once shot an elk at 1,265 yards

and his wife, Pat, also a 1,000-yard shooter, got her bulk elk at900 yards. He smiles proudly,then adds, “Of course, going andgetting it was a little bit of work.”

Capehart counts himselfamong the founders of the

Northwest 1,000-Yard BenchrestAssociation. In 1996, he and twoother shooters built the shootingshed and the pavilion, whereeveryone gathers for barbecuelunches and to tally scores. Backin those days, Capehart regularlybroke records and won relayswith a heavy .308 barrel.

“I had a lot of records untilthese two came along,” he says,nodding toward Mousel andAnderson. “I had the best gunprobably in the United States.And I was hard to beat.”

At one early national champi-onship held at Deep Creek,

Capehart took his place in the middle ofthe firing line with nine other competi-tors from across the country, and beforethe line went hot, climbed up on his

Duane Capehart


benchrest and yelled, “Which one of yousons of bitches is shootin’ for second?”

You can’t afford to lose a relay withthat kind of attitude, and Capehart didn’t.

Capehart shoots in the 5-inch groupnow, with average scores of 99.5, butwhen he first started a shooter could wincompetitions with 7-, 8- and 9-inchgroups. Back then, he says, no one couldget all their bullets in the center ring fora perfect score.

“Chasing that first 100, that’s themilestone that eluded us forever,” saysAnderson, who now holds world recordsin two different light-gun categories.“For years I shot 98s and 99s and won.”

It took some time for the equipmentto catch up. Just glanc-ing at the rifles at theshooting range, it’shard to gauge how farthe sport has come inrecent years.

Most shooters atDeep Creek use 6mmdashers that are morestreamlined than hunt-ing rifles. The gunstocks have large slab-like front ends andlong barrels to helpwith balance. When ashot is fired, the spentcasing drops smoothlyout of a hole in the bot-tom rather than rashlyejecting from the gun.It’s a more gracefulmotion, perfect for a rifle that’s leveland locked into one place and requiredto be free of recoil.

“Those are strictly for benchrest,”says Mousel of the setup. “You wouldn’twant it for shooting a squirrel out of atree because you’d hold it at an angleand the [case] probably wouldn’t fall out.It’s fast coming out and then you’ve gotanother one going in.”

While shooters bemoan the constantchallenge of changing weather condi-tions, they at least maintain control overthe quality of their equipment. As withgearheads in any endeavor, 1,000-yardersown several guns each—at least two foreach weight class—and they have anaffinity for anything custom-built. Forstarters, a shooter orders an action (thosemade by Viper, Bat and Defiance arepopular) and ships it to a FederalFirearms License-holding dealer, whereownership is legally transferred into theshooter’s name. Then it’s a matter ofpicking out the goodies: a barrel, stock,

optics and trigger. The average setupstarts between $3,000 and $6,000,depending on gun class.

In the earlier days of competition, noattachments to the gun stocks wereallowed. The rule was dropped recently,meaning shooters can create wider stockswith add-ons. They can also attachtuners, which slide up and down thebarrel to change the distribution ofweight, altering how the barrel vibrates.

“This game is good equipment,”Mousel says. “And the equipment hasevolved. The shooting part is up to theindividual, but to be competitive at thisyou have to shoot the best equipment.”

Ammunition is a key piece of the

game. Devices meticulously sort andtrim each bullet to lab-quality precision.“A lot goes into a bullet before it’s shot,”says Anderson. “It’s all about consisten-cy and uniformity.”

A gun must also be re-tuned forevery batch of new bullets. “The graindifference has an effect,” explains EdJanikowsky, a heavy-gun champ. “Youre-tune it by moving the bullet in andout. It can make a big difference whereit’s seated—by the two-thousandths [ofa grain].”

Gunpowder also affects the weighttransfer, and Mousel uses a high-techscale to weigh his. The scale is encasedin a plastic chamber. It has a slidingdoor that he can open and stick hishand through to place the powder onthe scale. Inside the chamber it’s safefrom anything—sudden drafts or air-borne particles—that might distort themeasurement.

“It reads to five one-thousandths of agrain, which is like an eyebrow hair,” he

says, laughing. “Does it really matter?No.”

“That’s a little too anal,” Andersonagrees.

In 2008, Anderson shot what wouldstill be the light-gun group world

record at 3.426 inches and 100 pointscore. He didn’t weigh his gun rightaway, though, unaware of how well he’dshot. Breaking that rule cost him an offi-cial record recognized by Williamsport,though the Montana club honors it.

Now that equipment has gotten soprecise, down to the weight of an eyelash,these records aren’t getting easier to catch.

“I broke one worldrecord the first seasonout and I broke one thenext year,” says Mousel.“I broke two last yearand I didn’t break anythis year. We’re trying tobreak our own recordsand they’re getting hard-er to beat.”

The group haslearned some interest-ing lessons over theyears: Conventionalwisdom says the heav-ier the gun, the steadierit’ll shoot. But inMontana, at least, thelight-gun aggregatescores right now beatthe heavy guns. The

fact that you can shoot a 17-pound gunin either light or heavy classes makes itall the more interesting. Ed Janikowsky,for instance, shot his 17-pound gun in aheavy weight class and got a 3.399group and 100 point score. It wasn’t arecord in the heavyweight class, butwould have been in lightweight. That’sjust the breaks, and mostly these guystake such strokes of bad luck in stride.

On one rainy summer weekend,Anderson’s target got so wet while hewas sighting in during the practiceround that he wasn’t able to make outwhere his bullets were hitting. He endedup off mark during the relay and shot 92,a low score that will impact his aggre-gate for the year. After the relay, theorganization’s president, Bill Brown, feltterrible and apologized to Anderson infront of the other shooters for not chang-ing out the wet target for a dry one.Anderson induced a fit of laughter whenhe smiled, shrugged, and said, “Ah, it’sjust world records.”

There is a certain wuss factor at play identifying as a cat per-son rather than a dog person. When it comes to domesti-cated pets, canines are associated with tricks on com-

mand, undying loyalty and Lassie-like smarts. Felines, mean-while, get pegged as languid and apathetic. Dogs are every-where, especially in Montana. Cats hide under beds. Boastfulmoments can be hard to come by for the cat crowd.

That is, unless you look to a handful of cases in the Bitterroot.The most recent occurred in May, when Montana Fish, Wildlife& Parks biologist Liz Bradley found one of her radio-collaredwolves half-eaten and covered with woody debris in an areawest of Sula, near Warm Springs. Clumps of fur littered the siteand the radio collar was oddly unattached to any part of any-thing. Amid the carnage, Bradley found the wolf’s head and aclue to what had happened.

“Mountain lions have a distinctive kill pattern,” she says.“For a lion, one of the things they do is approach from behindand bite through the top of the skull or the back of the neck to killother animals. We found a single puncture wound going throughthe wolf’s skull. You’d normally think of two puncture wounds,but the second canine [tooth] in a lion is usually going throughthe orbital.”

This wasn’t the first time Bradley had come across such agrisly scene. The May kill mirrored another in January west ofLolo, and a third from 2009 in the West Fork drainage. All wereattributed to mountain lions, and Bradley suspects two otherradio-collared wolves found dead in 2010 resulted from conflictswith lions over territory or food. In each case, Bradley discoveredsimilar puncture wounds and hair-plucking around the point ofentry, a meticulous step taken by lions before they consume themeat. She also noticed two of the dead wolves had been cached,the un-eaten portions of the carcass buried and saved for later,another common characteristic of a lion kill. Bradley cautions

that these instances are “unusual,” but make no mistake: The lionproved king, affirming its standing among western Montana’smost vicious megafauna.

Mountain lions have long lived at the top of the foodchain in the Rocky Mountain West. Before European settle-ment, the big cats were the most widely distributed landmammal in the western hemisphere, ranging from northernBritish Columbia to the southern tip of South America.Hunting, loss of habitat and prey decimation forced the ani-mals primarily to the western states, but legal protectionshave helped keep numbers high. Since the MontanaLegislature classified the cats as game animals in 1971, lionhunting has been regulated and the species has regainedmost of its historical range in the state.

Mountain lions—also referred to as catamounts, cougars andpumas—are known for being adaptive to their environment.Fiercely territorial, they are brutally efficient hunters who typi-cally feed on deer and elk. They possess powerful limbs and canleap as high as 15 feet and as far as 40. A typical adult maleweighs between 85 and 125 pounds, and stretches up to 8 feetlong from head to tail. Despite being significantly smaller thantheir preferred prey, it’s not unusual for one cat to bring down a400-pound elk. They’re also one of the few predators unafraid totake on porcupines.

For all the lion’s notable hunting skills, it still shares somecharacteristics with its domesticated brethren. Both attack thesame way: in crouching position, with tail erect. Lions also avoideye contact and, if noticed, dramatically feign disinterest. Likehouse cats, cougars prefer to be alone and stay close to estab-lished territory. Males keep within a 100-square-mile “homerange,” and remain solitary except during courtship. For this rea-son, human encounters with Montana mountain lions are rare.Wolves, it seems, are not so lucky.

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Sometimes, after a tough day pursuing ungulates, a hunterneeds more than calories from dinner. The evening mealcalls for rejuvenation, warmth and perhaps a chance for

camaraderie among friends. A good red chile stew can provideall three.

Note the “e.” That single letter helps distinguish the meaty NewMexican version of this dish from the bean-packed concoction widelyknown as “chili.” The latter has no place at hunting camp for obviousreasons. But a good red chile stew offers an invigorating mix of hydra-tion and sustenance, a homemade comfort- and capsicum-inducedendorphin rush, all of which add up to a potent and tasty meal. It’slike backcountry medicine.

Meat-filled red chile stew, unlike a bean-filled chili, cooks quickly.Most people don’t realize that beans taste good only when cooked forhours. There’s no time for that at hunting camp. With its focus onmeat, onion and spices, a flavorful batch of chile stew finishesfaster and precludes hunger-induced bickering as yourparty waits for its meal.

For four hearty servings, start by cuttingtwo pounds of meat, preferably from arecent kill, into inch-thick cubes. Brownthe meat in oil in a Dutch oven. Addone chopped onion.

The interaction between siz-zling browned meat and juicyraw onions is crucial. Stir theonions and meat together, mak-ing sure to scrape the bottomof the pot to prevent buildup.When the chopped onion hasgiven up all its water andstarted to brown, add redchile powder.

I f you have pepper

powder choices where you shop, go for the brightest and mildestpowder, with mildness being the most important quality. Why mild?It’s important to note that powder adds vital flavors to your dish aswell as heat. In order to pack as much of that chile flavor into the stewas possible—without sending anyone to the ER—it helps to go mild.For four sizeable servings, I add half a cup of powder.

Stir the powder in well, along with two tablespoons each of yourchoice of thyme, marjoram, herbs de Provence and oregano, and threeor more tablespoons of garlic powder. Stir it all together and then addtwo quarts of water or stock. My preference is Better Than Bouillonbrand beef, chicken or turkey. If you want potatoes in your chilestew—a staple in New Mexican green chile stew, but just as deliciousin the red version—cut them into one-inch cubes and add them now.Be sure to add half a cup of water for every full-size potato.

At this point, heat a stack of tortillas, wrapped in foil. It’s best ifthey warm slowly, perhaps close to the wood stove, near where

the boots are drying. As the red chile stew cooks, season it with salt

and pepper, red wine, vinegar or lemon. Thestew will thicken a little over time, but expect

it to be more watery than traditional chili.Simmer, season, sample. If you added

potatoes, be sure they’re completelycooked before you consider serving.

Season some more, simmer a littlelonger, sample again, and thenserve, with warm tortillas.

No matter how low thetemperature drops at huntingcamp, you’ll stay warm aftera bowl of this red chile stew.And you’ll be in bed a lotsooner than if you waited

for beans to cook.

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Take it to the limitA sports fan’s friendly wager leads to a sportsman’s dream

T hough the words differ only by aspace and a letter, the worlds ofthe sportsman and the sports fan

are leagues apart. The sportsman is bynature a supreme engager, a nurturer ofthe wildness within himself, an allegiantto the animals he chases and the placesthey live. The sports fan is by nature asupreme observer, a nurturer of theoften-failed competitor within himself,an allegiant to entities with whom hehas no direct contact.

Thankfully, we live in a country thatoffers not only an embarrassment ofriches for each type, but also the free-dom to fully embrace both approaches,should your personality accommodatesuch variance. Mine certainly does—though outside of sharing a boat or ahunting blind with a like-minded sportsfan, those split personalities have neverintersected. Never, that is, until last year,when the two worlds collided with aglorious result.

•••The deal came about when the

Green Bay Packers met the PittsburghSteelers in the Super Bowl in February

2011. My colleague Stacy Ratliff, an avidSteelers fan, proposed a bet that wouldhave had me playing fishing guide for aday to Stacy and his brother, Jay, in theevent of a Steelers win, or Stacy and Jayplaying host to my hunt on their familyfarm in central Montana should myPackers prevail. To me, each of Packerquarterback Aaron Rodgers’ threetouchdown passes that day looked likethe flight path of a wild pheasant, andhis right arm earned him an MVP trip toDisney World while simultaneouslypunching my ticket to pheasant-huntingnirvana.

Any day of hunting pheasant is anexceptional one, but this had the mak-ings of an epic. To begin with, I hadnever before hunted over a pointingdog, and Stacy’s reports on Slick, Jay’s 9-year-old German shorthaired pointer,were glowing. The kicker, though, wasthat Jay presides over nearly 500 acres ofprime pheasant habitat, and had vowedto keep a section free of hunters for thefirst three days of the season so that we,on the fourth day, would be chasingbirds that had not been shot at for thebetter part of a year—if ever.

Getting an early start from Missoula,I met the brothers Ratliff shortly afterdaybreak at a crossroads near the farm.Time spent around Stacy and his imme-diate family had convinced me that the Ratliff clan is constructed of excep-tional moral fiber, and Jay added furtherproof when he confessed, at our intro-duction, that he himself was not aSteelers fan and that he was carrying his brother’s load because, well, that’swhat brothers do.

From the rendezvous we headed forour destination, the roads progressingfrom smooth pavement to frost-heavedasphalt and then to washboard dirt. Wepulled into the corner of a large fielddevoted to CRP—short for ConservationReserve Program, a highly effective pieceof federal legislation that pays farmers toplant erosion-preventing and wildlife-friendly cover on portions of theirland—and I’m pretty sure Slick and Iquivered on the same white-hot wave-length as we exited the vehicles.

Stacy and I grinned as we each slid aBrowning Auto 5 shotgun—his a beauti-ful Belgian-made 16-gauge, mine a later-model, Japanese-made 12-gauge—out of

their respective cases. The Auto 5 isunmistakable, nicknamed “Humpback”due to an abnormally squared-off receiver.Its aficionados are an intimate groupbecause most shotgun shooters find itsunique sightline and sturdy nature (read:heavy) a bit anachronistic. Though it wasdesigned and functions best as a water-fowl gun, I shoot mine for upland birds aswell. Once you get used to heav-ing the Auto 5 to your shoulderand squaring your eye behindthat magnificent hump, it can betough to adjust to the low profileof a sweet-shooting double-bar-rel, the classic upland gun. Atleast, that’s what I’ll keep telling myself until my wife andour bank account agree to testthe theory.

•••I don’t really know what I

expect in these situations—astrategy session? the primal tonesof an English-style huntinghorn?—but upland hunts always seem tobegin quite abruptly, and this one was noexception. A mere minute or two afterarrival the three of us entered the field,moving quickly behind a joyously focusedSlick. Slick is Jay’s third consecutiveGerman shorthair, and as with the firsttwo he trained her himself. After 100 yardsor so she stopped ranging and began mov-ing in ever smaller concentric circles, zero-ing in on the bull’s-eye her nose promisedwas there.

Jay motioned frantically for us to moveup behind Slick, and as we crashedthrough the thick mix of alfalfa, flax andwild grasses behind her she stopped, rigid,her nose and tail stretched in oppositedirections. I’ve shot upland behind plentyof retrievers—mostly Labs, and somedamn good ones—and the electricmoment when the dog gets birdy (tail cir-

cling furiously, nose hyperventilatingscent) is followed by an often frantic effortto remain within gun range of the crazedbeast. Retrievers, by genetic rule, cannotstop until the bird is in the air, and some-times not even then. It’s often joked that“Goddammitgetyerassbackherenow!” (orsome close variant) is the most commonname for an upland retriever.

Walking up behind a locked-up point-er is, by contrast, a lesson in derangedphysics. As you approach the dog your

steps become slow and deliberate, all noiseand peripheral vision disappear, and timeexpands like it does in a good suspensemovie when all hell is about to breakloose. Your eyes follow a line from thedog’s nose into the thick tangle, searchingfor any hint of the explosion to come. Andwhen it does come, when a careful steppushes the edge of the bird’s personal

space and it rockets out of thegrass as loudly as a flat tire athigh speed, time compresses inblack-hole fashion.

In the seconds that follow, outof pure reflex you bring the gunto shoulder while simultaneouslyswinging its barrel along thebird’s flight path. Your brainscrambles to identify the bird’sgender (ears straining for the tell-tale rooster cluck, eyes for longtail feathers, that impossible colorpalette), and if it is indeed thevainer of the sexes you pull theend of the barrel through thebird’s body and squeeze the trig-

ger at a point, determined by flight trajec-tory, speed, distance and wind, in front ofthe bird’s head. Perspective returns onlyafter the bird falls or flies away, and theflavor of that perspective is tied quitetightly to the result.

Slick’s first point followed the scriptuntil the gender-identification part, andwith heart firmly lodged in throat Iwatched the hen fly away unmolested.The next several clean points were hens aswell, and in the interims a few roosters


busted ahead of us, well out of gunrange. The fact that these unpressuredbirds still possessed such a hypersensi-tive danger threshold pretty muchdefines why pheasants are so highlyregarded among wingshooters.

Stacy was flanked to Jay’s left and Ito his right, and when Slick ranged offto my right and went from 0 to 60 on thescent-o-meter in notime flat, Jay shoutedthrough the wind forme to get ready. Therooster erupted out ofthe grass just beforeSlick came to point,but I was closeenough to swing onthe big bird as it hitthe jetstream and Iknocked it downwith one shot. Iturned around just asJay came sprinting byon a beeline for thespot where the birdwent down. I feltconfident in the shotand the way the birdhad folded but Jay would later tell methat he’s lost too many apparently deadbirds in the thick stuff to chance it. As hehanded me the gorgeous bird Jay com-plimented the shot, confessing he hadharbored little hope of a Missoula writerbeing any kind of a wingshooter.

What happened next constitutes oneof the most indelible scenes of my sport-ing life. We had worked one side of thefield, and as we approached its end Jay

informed us that he had earlier seenquite a few birds in the vicinity of a fieldseparated from us by a short patch ofplowed-up dirt. As we turned along thefield’s edge, birds began spilling into theplowed section, hens and roosters scut-tling quickly along the troughs withtheir heads down. Out in front of us,more birds began to get up outside of

shooting range, firsta single or two, thenin groups of two tosix. Slick was jump-ing out of her skin,darting crazily backand forth as she triedto isolate a singlebird in the middle ofwhat must havesmelled like a pheas-ant factory.

Slick finally cameto point in front ofme and Stacy, and aswe moved up behindher a whitetail doewith three fawnsmaterialized out ofthe thicket a mere 20

yards downfield. A moment later, thebird—a rooster—flushed, and I took oneflustered shot that missed cleanly. Mysecond shot echoed with Stacy’s first,and the bird went down like it waswearing lead shoes. At the sound of theshots the deer fled through the field infront of us and birds began bustingeverywhere—singles, doubles, groups ofthree, five, eight—and we stood dumb-struck. Over the next 90 seconds, there


must have been upwards of 150 pheasantsin the air. Most of them were well out ofrange, and the weight and chaos of themoment prevented us from shooting atthose close by.

We gathered our wits and headed backdownfield—Slick working like a champ,Stacy and I both shooting well—and 90minutes after we were back at the vehicleswith two limits in hand.

•••Stacy and I swapped seats for the ride

back to the farmhouse so I could ask Jaysome questions about the place. As wedrove past neighboring fields displayingsignificant pheasant activity, Jay estimatedthat one section of CRP, like the one wehad just hunted, provided enough pheas-ant food and habitat for a 5-mile radius. Iasked him about other upland species andhe replied that he often saw coveys ofHungarian partridges in the grass alongthe road, and that when he had a shotgunin the truck he would stop and honk, flush-ing the birds out into a bordering field. Hewould then walk into the field (as long itwas his, or a friendly neighbor’s) and tryhis luck on the smaller, quicker Huns.

On cue, a covey of a dozen Huns scur-ried across the road in front of us. Jaylooked at me with raised eyebrows, and Ireplied emphatically. He stopped andhonked, and the birds flushed about 50

yards into a nearby field of 8-inch barleystubble. Stacy and I grabbed our shotgunsand the three of us (Slick stayed in thetruck, since we knew exactly where thebirds were) approached the landing area.

Though smaller than pheasants, Hunsaren’t exactly sparrow-sized, but thesebirds disappeared into the sparse stubblelike ghosts. A few steps later they explod-ed from under our feet in a whirring rushand rocketed through the air in everydirection. I shot two clean holes in the skybefore taking a breath and dispatching alate-rising bird with my third shot. Stacy

went one for two, and we headed back tothe rigs two Huns richer.

We got back to Jay’s farmhouse withplenty of time to clean the birds beforelunch. One of the six roosters carried amixed load of 12- and 16-gauge shot, andStacy graciously donated the bird to myfreezer. I mentioned earlier the Ratliffmoral fiber; it turned out to be matched bytheir warmth and grace. Inside the farm-house we found an idyllic scene, a combi-nation of Jay and Stacy’s angelic familiesripped straight out of a Norman Rockwellpainting. We all sat down for a meal ofTaco Joes—yep, Sloppy Joes imbued withthe spices and toppings of the Americantaco—capped by a dessert of warm appleturnovers and ice cream.

After a digestive respite aided by talesof family, farming and hunting in centralMontana, I left the Ratliff cocoon in mid-afternoon and headed back home, know-ing full well that I was unlikely to experi-ence such a hunt ever again. For a single-minded sportsman, the realization of suchan early peak to the season could reason-ably be followed by a major letdown, thehollowness that accompanies dissolvingmagic. But me? No such problem. Hell, Ihad another Packer game to look forwardto, that very weekend. And who knows? Ifthe Packers and Steelers meet in a futureSuper Bowl, perhaps the sportsman/fanwill rise again.

A few steps later

they exploded from under our feet

in a whirring rush and rocketed

through the air in

every direction.

SEPTEMBERSeptember 1Show the neighbors why youown all that camouflage on the

opening day for archery hunting ofantelope, deer and elk. The season laststhough Oct. 14, giving the critters a one-week vacay to relax before the generalrifle season pops off on Oct. 20.

For those who are less CarlosHathcock and lean more towardthe style of hunting favored by

the Inca king Atahualpa, the AnnualMontana Atlatl Mammoth Hunt mightbe your ticket to a paradise lost. Theevent allows experts and beginners aliketo toss the old spear around FirstPeoples Buffalo Jump near Ulm, andenjoy a freshly killed wooly mammothburger. Fine, the last bit isn’t true, butthe spear part is. Call 866-2217.

September 8End the summer biking seasonwith a whimper, a moan or pos-

sibly cardiac arrest at the HuckleberryHillclimb, an uphill race featuring 3,800 feet of vertical climbing atWhitefish Mountain Resort. Certainlythe views make it all worthwhile. Visitskiwhitefish.com.

Here you go, you psychoticpedal pushers: a 141-mile roadrace that begins in Red Lodge,

Mont., cruises into Wyoming and makesits way over not one, but two passes: theChief Joseph and Beartooth. Throw in amere 5,000 feet of elevation gain andspeeds topping 50 mph on the downhill,and you’ve got yourself a time. This isthe Montana Cycling & Ski Race SeriesYellowstone Alpine Klimb. Learn moreat montanacyclingraceseries.com.

This go-round we’re going to letthe organizers describe the 2012MTCC Garden City Triathlon:

“All the fast-paced Olympic distanceracing you want, tied up with the glam-our and allure of Frenchtown withoutthe pretension and attitude of a big citytriathlon.” ‘Nuff said. Get in on thethree-way action at mtcompact.org.

You don’t know nothin’ ‘boutno Ekalaka, Mont., but youshould know about the

Medicine Rocks Buffalo Shoot. Thisannual two-day contest features partici-pants shooting lever-action, .22 rifles and revolvers at steel animal silhouettesup to 800 yards away. Sunday adds long-range buffalo rifles to the mix.Period costume is encouraged but not required. For more information call 775-6705.

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Get down and dirty—for a cause—at the second annual Dirty Dash andMad Mudder at the Missoula Equestrian Park on September 15. Threemiles of tunnels, mud pits, slip and slides and balance beams provide thechallenge; CASA of Missoula, an organization that advocates for childrenin the judicial system, provides the inspiration. Call 542-1208.


September 15The 37th Annual Mt.

Helena Classic is as classic as aMontana race course can get: The 5.6-mile route begins in the historic LastChance Gulch in downtown Helenabefore switching to mountain trailrunning through Mount Helena CityPark. The payoff is big views of theElkhorn and Little Belt mountains. Toparticipate in this most capital event,

head to vigilanterunning.org.

September 16The Hammer Nutrition

Two-Bear Marathon & HalfMarathon in Whitefish sounds like ahoot, and by hoot I mean a meatgrinder that takes you from pavedroads to mountainous single-track,and from well-hydrated sanity to knee-shaking desiccation. Did I mention the downhill stretches? Because there are plenty. Unleash your inner bear at twobearmarathon.org.

September 21Be all kinds of powerful at the

Fall Mack Days on Flathead Lake,where anglers help quell the overpopulation of lake trout by catchingas many of them monsters as they can each Fri.-Sun. through Nov. 11. Up to $125,000 in cash and prizes areoffered. Learn the full story at mackdays.com.

September 28Proof that cyclists love beer asmuch as they love chatting

about the exceptional Panaracer XCtires made circa 1994 is right here atAles for Trails, a fundraiser to buildmore trails for the residents of Billings,with tunes, a farmer’s grip of micro-brews and, of course, pedaling. Head tobikenet.org

September 29Hey cheapskates, pull out thebackpack you borrowed from

Uncle Steve last year, scrounge somecoins out of the couch cushions, gas upthe hoopty, and head out on the high-way this National Public Lands Dayto take advantage of free entry toTreasure State fee areas administered by the Bureau of Land Management,U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service orNational Park Service. Learn more at publiclandsday.org.

OCTOBEROctober 6Oh gurl, time to get your swag-ger on and show all the haters

your backside as you pull away fromthe pack at the Run Wild Missoula DivaDay 5K run. This is for the gals only, so posse up, chicas, and show the dudes where the boys aren’t. Register at runwildmissoula.org.

General antelope hunting sea-son begins.

October 7Crew up with your homies and take in the grandness of

Big Sky Country during the 28-mileWolf Creek Canyon Relay, which takes place in a canyon (duh) betweenHelena and Great Falls. Up to four team members per entry. Head towolfcreekcanyonrelay.net.

October 13The Butte Bouldering Bash onthe Boulder Batholith is allitera-

tively the best climbing competitionHomestake Pass has to offer today, with“a wide variety of excellent problemsfrom V0-V10,” according to the organiz-ers. Strap on the mat, chalk up and dowork! Visit montanabouldering.com.

Not to be confused with whathappens at the Gathering ofthe Juggalos, the Yellowstone

River Rats Jig N Crank Fest is a team-based walleye- and sauger-fishing con-test. To learn more, fisherpeople shouldvisit Fish, Wildlife & Parks online atfwp.mt.gov.

Well, Frenchy, here is yourchance to step out in a bigway: Sign up for Le Grizz

Ultramarathon and you may end upbeing as hungry as a horse after youcover the 50-mile course that runs par-allel to, hey, the Hungry HorseReservoir southeast of Columbia Falls.By the way, the course record is a mere5:34:38. You got 9 mph in you, right?Visit cheetahherders.com.

October 14While chasing sheep mightbe more my style, you hale

and hardy trail runners ought tocheck out the South Hills AnnualTrail Series (S.H.A.T.S.) Goat Pursuitrun in Helena. The race is run in atime-trial format, with runners tak-ing off at 30-second intervals, slow-

est runners going first. To register visitbquickrunning.com/trailseries.

October 19Clean out that freezer full ofgame (lucky you) and chef up

an elk and dried cherry terrine for theHunters Feed and Wild Game Cook-Off in Ennis. Be warned, though: Yourdish may get a “meh” from a crowdthat has come to expect culinary crafti-ness at this 27-year-old event. Visitennischamber.com.

October 20Opening day for the generaldeer and elk hunting season as

well as the fall mountain lion season.

Forget the energy goo andwell-shorn legs, and just stompon your cranks and tip-toe

through the mud holes better than thenext rider. Do this, and you may windup with your name adorning the coveted ax trophy awarded to the top finisher at the Rolling ThunderCyclocross in Missoula. Check out montanacyclocross.com.

October 27Attention runners with a senseof local pride: It’s time to make

your region proud. It is time for theMontana Cup cross-country footrace.This year it takes place in Kalispell.Teams of men and women representingMontana’s seven biggest cities—Kalispell, Great Falls, Billings, Bozeman,Helena, Butte and Missoula— competefor the trophy and, more importantly,bragging rights. Visit montanacup.com.

Chad Harder

Courtesy of Montana Canvas

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In the days before cell phone pics and online photo-sharing sites,nearly every household in America had its version of the picturealbum. Snapshots of weddings and family vacations filled the

pages of these books, kept ostensibly to retain memories of bygoneevents and deceased relatives. But though visual and verbal recol-lections are assumed to be the most potent triggers of memory, psy-chologists recognize another, sometimes superior sense that sparkshuman memory. Smell, in certain contexts, can actually spawn moresalient memories and associations from bygone decades than pho-tos can.

A storefront in the manufacturing and warehouse district east ofdowntown Billings has nothing to commend itself as natural. Theparking lot is paved, a drab concrete sidewalk lists imperceptibly inthe direction of a dusty street. But once inside I am immediatelytransported to a lofty ridge in Montana's Snowcrest Mountains. Agrassy meadow slides away to a smattering of aspen groves and atumbling creek. There are evergreen trees here, pines and spruce. Ican hear the low hush of an autumn breeze in their branches.

It is an experience repeated each time I catch a whiff of treatedcanvas. For over 50 years my family has maintained an elk camp in

the Snowcrests. My father finally deemed his youngest son worthyof initiation as a 15-year-old. Nearly 40 years later, there is no placeI’d rather be than in elk camp.

But “camp” is a term plagued with its own errant associations.For my crew, hunting camp has nothing to do with shivering allnight in a sleeping bag rated for 10 below that scarcely fends thechill at 15 degrees, or worrying if a “four-season” shelter is really upfor a foot of snow. We sleep comfortably on cots with logs smolder-ing in a wood stove gently heating the tent’s interior. We cook insideand eat at a real table draped with a red and white cloth (OK, it’splastic). When my sweetheart first tentatively stuck her head in mydeer-hunting camp east of Ashland, her green eyes widened likeripples on water after the rise of a trout.

“Wow, this is just like a canvas cabin.”She perfectly described the wall tent in a single sentence.

Buffalo hunters, prospectors and other early exploiters of RockyMountain resources often spent months housed in canvas tents.For hunters who take to the mountains in autumn—hell, foranyonewho takes to the mountains in autumn—there isno finer shelter than a wall tent.

Reliable Tent & Tipi (reliabletent.com) began manufacturingawnings, irrigation fabrics, tarps and wall tents in Billings in 1945 asReliable Tent & Awning. Initially, awnings and tarps used for agri-cultural purposes were the mainstays of the business. The companymade a concerted push into the wall tent market in 2003, aggressive-ly seeking to establish brand identity and capture significant marketshare. “We’ve grown about 30 percent since then and tents are a bigpart of it,” says Dave Nemer, company president.

Along with wall tents, Reliable also manufactures yurts. A part-ner wood company crafts the frames; Reliable creates all the fabriccomponents and insulation. They’re currently in the process ofbuilding two Goliath-size yurts measuring 40 feet in diameter. Some40 to 50 yurts exit the doors of this Billings business each year.

Online marketing, computer design and automated fabric cut-ting seem far removed from elk camp deep in the Bob MarshallWilderness. Yet it’s these contemporary business practices thatallow Reliable Tent & Tipi to remain competitive in the nationalmarketplace. “About 70 percent of our tents go to out-of-state buy-ers,” Nemer says. Many of those are marketed through an extensivedealer network in the western United States and Alaska.

The Internet component of the business tends to be information-al. “This isn’t a $100 fishing vest they’re buying,” Nemer says. “Theaverage customer wants to call and talk about their purchase. Atthat point we have the chance to guide them to the best product fortheir needs.”

Traditional, rectangular wall tents make up the backbone ofReliable’s product line. Standard models in their basic “BigHorn” line include an 8-by-10 tent that’s perfect as a solo camp Jack Ballard


Montana Canvas (montanacanvas.com) isanother longtime wall tent manufacturer and amajor player in the national market. Over 20years ago, Montana Canvas began supplyingwall tents for an upstart sporting goods retailercalled Cabela’s. They now produce tents for ahost of nationally recognized sporting retailersincluding Sportsman’s Warehouse, Bass ProShops and Gander Mountain. “We’re primarilya wholesaler,” explains company manager CurtHeinert, company manager. “About 80 percentor maybe a little more of our business is inwholesaling.”

Located south of I-90 in Belgrade, Canvasemploys 22 Montanans in a business with tradi-tional roots and an eye for innovation. The heartof their business is producing standard, rectangu-lar wall tents with a reputation for durability thatrange in price from around $900 to $1,900.

For most hunting applications, a 12-by-14wall tent is ideal. It will sleep four hunters withjust enough additional room to house a modestcamp kitchen. Montana Canvas tents of this sizesell like snow cones at a midsummer state fair.I’ve seen these tents hold up for two decades ofcasual hunting. At a shade over $1,000, thatworks out to about 50 bucks per year for a canvascabin that’s about as comfortable as a stay in alocal motel.

The company's wall tents are made of canvassimilar to what was used in the 19th century—with key modern improvements. Before cuttingfor fabrication, the canvas is treated for water-proofing and mildew resistance. It also receives afire retardant, making Montana Canvas tents

legal for use in California. (State statutes prohibituse of a stove in a tent that’s not been so treated.)A high-tech polyester fabric called Relite finds itsway into a few specialty models. Relite is a bitlighter than heavy-duty 12-ounce canvas, and ismore durable and easier to clean, but it lacks thenatural breathability of woven cotton.Nonetheless, this space-age fabric creates yetanother selling point for a company that artfullybalances nostalgia and innovation.

Futher advances come in the design features.The company’s ISQ wall tent (starting at $1,426) isa typical wall tent appended with individualsleeping quarters (hence ISQ) that jut from themain cabin like dormers. Heinert is currentlyredesigning the ISQ pods to reduce the tent’soverall footprint. Then there’s the company’s lat-est invention, a portable greenhouse (starting at$1,081). Constructed of reinforced vinyl, thegreenhouse looks exactly like a wall tent, repletewith zippered windows. It drapes over an inter-nal frame, creating a functional greenhouse thatcan be set up and taken down with ease.

I can’t say I’m ever in one place long enoughto care for plants in a greenhouse, but fromautumn through early winter you’ll often find mebunking in a wall tent. Every hunter should haveone. I have three: a 12-by-14 stalwart fromMontana Canvas, a cute 8-by-10 from ReliableTent & Tipi and one very old, very tired tent witha torn roof and three rodent holes in one sidewall.It’s shot, but I have no intention of turning it totrash. It still smells like elk camp. For that reasonalone, I will always own a wall tent.

or a cozy cabin for two, and a 16-by-20 monsterthat will easily house half-a-dozen hunters andtheir gear with plenty of room left over forcooking and poker. Prices start at $427 andreach $1,265 for the largest tents, with addition-al costs for bonus features like flooring and tie-in screen doors.

Wooden poles, commonly cut from standingdead lodgepole pines at the campsite, are histor-ically used for pitching wall tents. Internalframes formed from metal tubing and jointsmake the job much simpler, and give hunters theflexibility to set camp in areas where naturalmaterials are unavailable. Although an internalframe costs more than half as much as the tentitself, I wouldn’t be without one.

Specialty tents, such as the hexagonal“Glacier” model, boast simpler setup with fewerpoles than a traditional wall tent. All Reliablemodels can be customized to the buyer’s specifi-cations, including such niceties as extra zipperedwindows, doors on either end, and custom stove-jack placement. Some customers opt to have theirinitials emblazoned on their tent.

New designs and automated fabric cuttinghave changed wall tent manufacturing since the

days when bolts of fabric were unrolled on thefloor and panels were cut by hand. Nemer recallshis company's purchase of an automatic cuttingmachine in 2002. “It really increased our cuttingaccuracy. It also minimizes waste and reduces ourproduction time,” he says. The machine is essen-tially a very long, wide table that flattens andholds canvas securely on the top by suction. Amoveable, programmable head then runs overthe tabletop, cutting the fabric to specificationsfed from a computer.

Reliable’s workforce of around 20 employ-ees—some having more than two decades ofexperience with the company—varies in num-ber depending on the season. During the busyseason, which begins around the first of Marchand lasts until the end of October, there’s littledown time. Employees stay busy stitching pan-els together to create tent walls, sewing win-dows into yurts, attaching grommets, baggingstakes and finally boxing tents for distributionand delivery. The product of their labor? Atough, portable shelter that helps keep hunterswarm and dry when there’s 8 inches of snowon the roof and the mercury resides in the base-ment of the ice box.

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All of it—the countless dams, theirMount Rainier lodges, the snaking,grassy-banked channels—suggests anancient beaver civilization. For untoldcenturies they’ve been building theirbeaver world here, unmolested in the far-thest reaches of Kishenehn.

Whether we’re contemplating beaverkingdoms, tracking lions or dodging griz-zlies, Kishenehn is always an adventure—but never more so than that night of theNovember blizzard when I lost the trail. As Ifelt my way through the snowy darknessbeyond Kishenehn Creek, I eventuallyreached the bank of the North Fork wherefresh pieces of ice flowed past my headlampbeam. Cold crept under my jacket and I con-templated the possibility of bedding downfor a frigid night in my emergency bivy.

There was a faint ambient light fromthe moon above the storm clouds, abovethe troubles and life-and-death strugglesof our world. You couldn’t really seethings, but more sense their impressions.Then, somehow, I recognized the silhou-ette of a cluster of cottonwoods along theriver. At that moment I knew I’d almostreached the cabin. Something about rec-ognizing those trees in the night alsoshowed me that in some small way I’dbecome a part of this place, that my storywas now woven into the wild fabric ofthe landscape here.

For millennia we humans lived inuntamed, natural places like this. Untilrecent times, we were a part of thewilderness. We may not realize it, but itsrhythms are still our rhythms, its wild-ness is still our wildness. We feel it whenwe return to places like this. Somethingrelaxes, something is attuned, somethingcomes alive. We’re home.

Ben wasn’t at the cabin when I finallyreached it. He was out looking for me,afraid I’d fallen in a creek or the belly of agrizzly. He’d found my tracks though, rightafter the tracks of a wolf that had suddenlyturned around, likely when it heard me—the creature I was waiting for in my lightbeam. We told stories of searching andbeing lost far into the night over mugs ofhot tea by the woodstove. Dark, snowyhikes aside, or maybe because of them, itwas good to be back at Kishenehn.

KishenehnCONTINUED FROM PAGE 21


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nature is increasingly threat-ened by our species’ burgeon-ing containment strategies.Bears and the Pope may stillshit in the woods, but for therest of us it’s increasinglygood policy not to. For us,there are Wag Bags.

The Wag Bag, of course,consists of a wide-mouth plas-tic bag, a smatter of chemicalpellets, a packet of tissue, awet wipe, and a thick, seal-able, plastic sack for socking itall away when you’re done. Tothis kit I’ve added the innova-tion of a square Tupperwarebucket, which gives shape anda certain amount of breeze-resistance to the receptaclesack, and an added layer ofsecurity. On river trips, I tuckthe sealed Tupperware awayin an old vinyl roll-top baguntil I’m back home, wherethe Wag Bag can be deposited

in regular municipal trash.How self-contained is that?

I’ll be moving back toMissoula in a few days—themidwest can’t contain me—soI’m cleaning out closets andemptying the bed of thetruck, conducting a freshinventory of things in which

to put other things. There’sthe cooler in which I’ll ferryrefrigerator condiments backacross country, the vacuum-able Space Bags in which I’llstash my airless clothes, theteardrop-shaped bag for myping pong, racketball and ten-nis tools, the redundant new

rolling camera bag I pickedup for a song at Goodwill, the padded guitar case, thegarment bag, the toiletry bag, the ugly purple back-pack full of fishing gear, thenew expandable bike-racktrunk bag I bought to absorbthe contents of two brittleold rubber saddle bags. That one’s got a little zip-pered compartment contain-ing a draw-stringed water-proof bag for protecting itselffrom rain. That bag has got its ass covered.

I’ll fill it all up and strap itall down and set off down theroad. And though it’s notexactly en route, I may justswing through Duluth,Minnesota along the way andpick up that canoe pack. Idon’t know what I’ll put in ityet, but I’m pretty sure I’llfind something.

The CruxCONTINUED FROM PAGE 62

Chad Harder


Quality Gear.Great Prices. No Excuses.Get Outside!

111 S. 3rd W. • Hip Strip • 721-6056Bikes - Tents - Camping - Paddling

BUY / SELL / TRADE / CONSIGNMENT

T he other day I found myself sit-ting on the floor of a well-stocked outdoor-gear store, sur-

rounded by bags: three different stylesand sizes of sleeping bag, each with itsown tiny nylon stuff sack, for hauling,and big cotton sack, for storage. I’d alsopulled off the shelf an array ofsleeping bag liners: bags toput inside the bags. I was hav-ing a hard time decidingwhich bag I wanted, mostlybecause I hadn’t brought thewaterproof dry bags in whichI planned to take my newsleeping bag canoeing, or thebicycle panniers in which Ihoped to take it touring, or thebackpack in which I might take it hik-ing. I wasn’t sure which bag wouldbest fit the bags I already had.

That’s when I realized I had a prob-lem. Outside the store, the sky wascrisp and blue and uncontainably big.And I was inside under fluorescentlights shopping for the perfect bag. So Icould go outside.

My name is Brad, and I’m a con-tainer addict.

I bike, I paddle, I hike if I can’t helpit, and the containing accoutrementsassociated with these activities arestarting to take over my life. It also

happens that I move around the coun-try quite a bit—just in the last fiveyears I’ve lived in Missoula, Austin,Ann Arbor, Anaconda, Bonner, and, asof now, Oberlin. Every time I move, Ipack up all my gear and move it downthe road with me. At this point I’m

hardly moving things at all. I’m movingthings to put things in.

There are three bike bags, four con-figurations of Camelbak, six hardshellPelican boxes, at least five waterproofboating bags, and four sizes of back-pack (one of which includes a zip-offdaypack). That’s not to mention thecanvas book bag, the three camerabags, the laptop satchel, a nylonportage pack, and three duffels. Addthree tents, each with its own pole bagand stake bag and compression sack,and two sleeping pads (just bags forair). Bags within bags within bags,

housed in a dozen lidded tubs, them-selves entombed in a fiberglass trucktopper, a rolling profusion of formawaiting content.

And still I want more. Three yearsin a row now I’ve asked family mem-bers for a ridiculously expensive,

canoe-classic, waxed-canvasDuluth Pack for Christmas. Sofar: no luck. Perhaps they thinkI have enough bags already.

But how could anyone everhave enough bags? And whatare we, really, if not bags ofmeat lumbering under an enve-lope of sky, thin sacks of skincontaining cells otherwiseindistinguishable from those

we breathe and excrete? When we’realone in the woods, or on the road, oron the water, the things we carry care-fully stowed, we call ourselves “self-contained,” proud of our self-imposedisolation even out of doors.

Alas, we meatbags—unlike Pelicanboxes and SealLine bags—spring regu-lar leaks. In fact, we’re most nakedlyand fully engaged with the outdoors—most uncontained—precisely whenwe’re squatting awkwardly in the wild,fertilizing the earth from which wesprang. But even this communion with

THE C

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Containment theoryYour gear is only as good as the bag–or bags–you put it in

At this point I’m hardly

moving things at all. I’m

moving things to put things in.

Continued on page 60

Chad Harder

What beer do we drink when

we’re done making beer?

The one you’re about to enjoy

in Shift. Canning this Nelson

Sauvin hopped pale lager means

everyone gets to reward their

work. Or play. Or, if you’re

like us, combine the two

and surround yourself with

drinking buddies. Clock out

and crack open a Shift beer.

You’ve earned it.

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