THE BEAR

 

            By late August, seared by the ever-burning sun, the valleys become parched and unbearable. The hot winds stir up dust-devils and cover your skin with crusty white alkali and the lure of the distant mountains becomes irresistible. I want to see cold running water again, to run my fingers over the coarse bark of a pine tree, chew some pine gum, cut my initials in the bark of a quaking aspen, hike in the firs, swat a mosquito, watch a mountain bluebird teeter-ass on a tree limb, get chattered at by a pike in his den in the rocks for invading his privacy, pluck some honeysuckle in an alpine meadow and taste its nectar, climb the sliderock above timberline, slide down a glacier, suck on some ice, throw a rock in an icy lake and stand in the wind with outstretched arms at the top of the world on the peak of Mollie’s Nipple.

            On a Sunday afternoon, the day before I am supposed to show up at Uncle Rodney’s ranch to haul hay bales from a parched lucerne field, I load bedroll, rucksack, fishing gear and grub box into my beat-up old Ford Fairlane 500 (I hate pickup trucks) and drive away, turning back on the responsibilities of “syphilisation.”

            Driving down the lane from our ranch I cross the pole cattle-guard and turn south on the gravel road figuratively known as the Vernal-Manila highway in the northeast corner of Utah. As I crest the ridge immediately behind the ranch I can se snow-capped Mollie’s Nipple thrusting her nub skyward in the distance. Standing majestically on the southern horizon, with miles of forest billowing off below her, she looks like an old bawd with her skirts up, beckoning me to come calling.

            Cresting the ridge, I drive down and across South Valley, pass by my uncle Roy’s ranch, and climb the grade through stands of cedar to the top of the next ridge. Off to my left, only a few feet from the road, I pass the grave of a Pinkerton man ambushed and killed by the notorious outlaw Kid Curry back in 1895.  His grave lies under a scrub cedar, marked only by an upright stone. I’m one of the few people now living who knows exactly where it is located. Probably a good thing and better than the sneaky bastard deserves.

            Just past the grave the road makes a horseshoe curve, east, then south, then west, and suddenly drops down into Sheep Creek Gap, the only place where Sheep Creek Canyon can be accessed by road. Winding down a steep grade with towering canyon walls on the north and shinarump sandstone ledges on the south, I pass one of my favorite places and can’t resist the urge to stop. I find a wide turn-out on the right side of the narrow road and pull over - - not that there is much traffic to worry about. Still, if someone gets a run at the gab from below, the last thing they want to see halfway up the steep grade in some stupid tourist parked in the middle of the road. After all, in this part of the country, these people still pack guns!

            On the north side of the road, two formations come together to form a layer effect, the red caramel formation on top of the nearly blond-colored shinarump sandstone. Where the two formations meet, exposed by the erosion of the gap, a layer or vein of isinglass (thin sheets of mica) runs along the seam, perhaps a foot thick. This highly interesting mineral is as clear as glass and can be peeled out in thin sheets.

            But the most interesting mineral lies just below this vein in a layer some two feet thick. It is an orangish-colored soapstone that can be pried loose in long flat slabs. This amazing mineral is so-called because it is as soft and pliable as a bar of soap. As a boy I collected bags full of this stuff and carried it back to the ranch where I would whittle little sculptures from the rock. I stuck a piece of it in my pocket for old time’s sake.

            I climb back in the car and continue on down the serpentine road through Sheep Creek Gap, the canyon walls towering ever higher above me on both sides. Just before emerging into Sheep Creek Canyon, which bisects the Gap at this point, I pass several small caves on the right. Not so much caves, perhaps, as grottos formed by flood waters lapping against the sandstone canyon wall. Beneath the caves are talus slopes of whitish-red sand, like dunes, making ascent to the caves difficult. Here, in 1906-07, two outlaws, Clifford Norton and Carl Shirts, “holed up” from the law. My father, then a mere boy of thirteen or fourteen, carried supplies to them at the rate of fifty cents a trip.

            Just south of the caves the Gap intersects Sheep Creek Canyon at right angles, forming a “T.” Sheep Creek, named for the herds of mountain sheep that inhabit its pinnacles (John Wesley Powell named it Kingfisher Creek in 1869), runs primarily west to east, having its headwaters in Sheep Creek Lake high on the mountain. During millennia of run-off, the creek has carved massive deep gorges in the sandstone and limestone formations on its way east to its confluence with the Green River and even deeper canyons. There is arguable no more beautiful place on Earth.

            At the month of Sheep Creek Gap the road crosses Sheep Creek via a bridge and, on the south side of the creek, the road forks east and west. The west fork leads up the canyon to the old Dowd Ranch and the fenced-in grave of Cleophas J. Dowd, murdered in 1898.  Beyond, the road winds upward in a “loop” to the top of the mountain, meeting the east fork of the road.

            The east fork of the road parallels the creek through stands of stately cottonwoods for about a mile and a half until it turns due south where it has the audacity to challenge massive Dowd’s Mountain squatting obstinately in its path.

            The switchbacks which wind their way up the north slope of Dowd’s Mountain are an engineering feat of considerable note. They were literally carved out the mountainside by teams of horses and hand-held scrapers during the Twenties. My father was one of its builders. My mother had the distinction of driving the first car up the precarious, precipitous road - - backwards! The Model T Fork worked fine on level ground, but it was notorious for quitting line at the front of the gas tank.  It simply ran out of gas when going uphill forward, so it was common practice to turn the Model T around and back it up the hills.

            The top of Dowd’s Mountain, at an altitude of some 8,500 feet, is shaped like a basin, with the homely appellation of “Dowd’s Hole.” At the bottom of the basin, near Dowd’s Spring, is the site of an ancient Indian burial ground. In 1898 the infamous Red Sash Gang was wiped out by converging posses in Dowd’s Hole after robbing a train in Wyoming.

            One the rim of the basin the road forks again, the east fork towards Vernal, fifty miles away in the Uintah Basin, and the west fork turning westward along the mountain to rejoin the Sheep Creek “loop” road at a junction known as the “Y,” and proceeds onwards through stands of pines for miles along the skirts of Mollie’s Nipple. I took the west fork.

            As I drive along I wind down the car window and inhale the cool mountain air. The smell of Douglas fir and pinyon pine pervades my nostrils. Now this is heaven, I think.  I drive for miles through the trees, like a narrow canyon with wooden walls on either side of the road. Here and there mule deer leap across the road and disappear into the stands of trees, a six-point buck and one, two, three does. The buck stops and watches me (“The buck stops here,” as Harry would say) and I watch him back in my side-view mirror. Watch out, cousin. The California hunters are already oiling their rifles and checking their sights for the annual slaughter. Run, Bambi, run!

            On the left side of the road, just before the “Y,” I pass a meadow with a zig-zag pole fence beneath a hill covered with thousands of aspen trees, their quaking leaves sending shimmers of sunlight like a million fairy messages. In the late autumn the leaves turn uniformly yellow, then red, setting the hill ablaze with color. I don’t stop, because at the end of the meadow, against the base of the hill, like a wart on the nose of Nature, are the whitewashed clapboards of a ranger station. Just like the bureaucrats to build their nests in the most scenic places so their underpaid, over-educated rangers can have a view, denying it to others.

            When I reach a point parallel to Mollie’s Nipple, a sign on the left side of the road announces “Browne Lake Campground,” courtesy of the U.S. Forest Service. Nice of them to guide the tourists to it.  Browne Lake is one of several manmade lakes, damming the once free-flowing waters of Beaver creek, driving the beavers away and generally destroying the ecological balance of the entire drainage system. Just one more bureaucratic blunder of the “Useless” Forest Service.

            I turn onto the rutted road, gouged by ten thousand RVs and camping trailers through the summer, and bounce my way across a meadow, turn east at the creek and travel along the north side until a bridge transfers me to the other side, then farther east through thick timber until I emerge once more into a meadow.

            In front of me and to the left lies Browne Lake, identifiable by droves of vehicles parked along its shores, like pigs at a trough. Slobivius Americanus, Ed Abbey rightly calls them. They will  spend their vacation cranking up their portable boom-boxes, strewing candy wrappers and bear can everywhere they go, hooking one another in the butt of the ear with a number six hook baited with salmon eggs, complain about the facilities and why doesn’t their tax money pay for flush toilets, then return home in long lines of RVs, campers, and 4x4's, filling the highway with road rage.

            Wanting none of it, I turn south off the main road onto an old timber road (better known to locals as a “prop” road) and drive to the end of the meadow where the tree line begins, not far from the campground but far enough, and park my car out of sight in the trees. This is the end of the road; it’s all by foot from here.

            There is only about an hour before sunset, too late to start up the trail, so I set up a camp next to a small spring of the coldest water anywhere on the mountain. It’s glacier water, going underground some 13,000 feet in elevation and popping up here at some 9,500 feet, too cold to hold your hand in for more than a minute without numbing pain. I toss two six-packs of canned Pepsi into the natural refrigerator (I have no use for alcoholic beverages), one pack for the camp and the other, hidden from sight by rocks, for the return off the mountain. Then I go for a nature walk.

            About a quarter-mile from camp through stands of pinyon pine, known for its edible nuts (in good years) and superior quality for fuel (a favorite also of porcupines), I come to a mountain meadow, circled around its edges by quaking aspen and stands of willows, the latter in clumps rather than profusion. In the center of the meadow a beaver has dammed the little stream to create a rather large pond of water, his stick-and-mud den sitting in the middle like a tiny domed island. A young moose stands belly-deep in the pond, immersing its head to eat tender shoots off the bottom.  I skirt  around the pond and leave the moose to his meal.

            On the upper edge of the meadow, which is marshy and swarming with mosquitoes, I stop among the aspens (the “sheepherder’s billboard”) and carve my initials. My initials must appear a dozen times on the white trunks of the quaking aspens from my many visits to this meadow, but I can’t find them any longer. The trees abound with inscriptions - - sheepherders, hunters, lovers, tourists. A needle in the haystack.

            Though resembling the birch, the quaking aspen like the cottonwood is a member of the willow family and also like the cottonwood it can be found near water. In the canyons the appearance of a cottonwood can be a life saver and in the mountains the aspen is a similar beacon. In both the cottonwood and aspen, the leaves are suspended on tiny stalks and the foliage responds to the slightest breeze, shimmering and vibrating resolutely. The bark is soft and resilient and covered with a white powder that carries off on skin and clothes.

            The sun sets quickly in the mountains and darkness has a way of sneaking up on cat’s paws,  so I retrace my steps down the trails towards camp, stopping only long enough to pick a double-handful of wild strawberries next to the glacial spring. Smaller than domestic strawberries, they are even more succulent. I will have them for dessert after supper.

            I cook a hearty supper over an open campfire, savoring the aroma of sizzling pork chops and potatoes blended with aromatic pinyon wood smoke. Two pork chops, mashed potatoes with butter, whole kernel corn, dutch oven biscuits; I will need the calories for tomorrow’s high altitude hike. I wash it all down with two cans of Pepsi chilled to perfection in the icy spring water.

            I wash the wild strawberries in cold water to remove loose grains of sand and any microscopic insects, pull the green leaves off the stems and dump the berries into a bowl. Sprinkling a little sugar over them, I drown the whole in evaporated milk, lean back against a pine, watch the fire burn down to coals, and enjoy my dessert and solitude. Wonderful thin, the invention of evaporated milk in a can.

 

                                                            No teats to pull

                                                                        No hay to pitch

                                                            Just poke a hole

                                                                        In the sonofabitch!

 

            The stars begin to appear as the firelight recedes, magnificent in the black sky at high altitude as nowhere else on earth. Nights are cold at this altitude. I pull off my boots and crawl into the snug warmth of the down-filled mummy bag and high on the lap of the Old Bawd, beneath Mollie’s Nipple, I close my eyes and immediately fall to sleep. Just before drifting off, I hear faintly in the distance the sound of somebody’s boom-box pounding out some heavy-metal rock music down at the campground. Tomorrow, thank God or facsimile, I will be far from “syphilisation.”

            I awake to the cold smell of morning. The sun has not yet risen but there is a pale blue hint of its approach on the horizon. The trees are in shadow but high above the forest, deep in the sky, the bald nub of Mollie’s Nipple rises up into the sunlight. As dawn becomes the harbinger of light, cold yellow blossoms into gold and shafts of light cross the dark blue of the waking sky. Morning birds are replacing night birds on call. Time to get up. Time to get up there.

            I am always wide awake as soon as my eyes open n the morning, but all doubt is dispelled when I wash my face in the icy spring. I make a fire, put water on to boil for cocoa (don’t drink tea or coffee) and lay thick slices of bacon on the grill. I crack four eggs in a skillet and scramble them. Squatting close to the fire to stay warm, I voraciously devour my breakfast, watched closely by a gray squirrel on the branch of a nearby tree. A bluejay swoops across the clearing and lands on the branch just above Mr. Squirrel and he scolds the intruder with a rachet-like screech and bounces out of sight among the pine boughs.

            After breakfast I pack some staples into my rucksack - - a little flour, some sugar, salt, a few dehydrated packets of eggs, noodles, vegetables, fruits, nuts, cheese, raisins, jerky, bacon - - strap on my bedroll with the fishing gear rolled up inside, find myself a suitable indispensable walking stick, and set out south up the trail. The bluejays chatter a farewell. Thank God the boom-box can no longer be heard but I am still close enough to hear a car engine somewhere down toward the campground.

            As I walk up the prop road that will eventually dwindle down to a blazed trail, I expect the sound of the motor to fade away, but instead it grows louder. A green Forest Service Motor Pool Dodge pickup (your tax dollars at work) comes bouncing around a bend directly towards me. Damn! Just what I need - - Smokey the Bear.

            The ranger stops a few yards short, gets out, and walks over to greet me, his thumbs tucked authoritatively in his belt, and his face plastered with his best government issue, tourist-oriented smile.

            “That your car parked back there in the trees?” he asks.

            And a good day to you too, Mr. Ranger.

            “Yes it is. Something wrong, Ranger?”

            “There’s a three day limit to camping in this area. Normally it’s five, but with Labor Day coming up, we’ve had to restrict it to three.”

            “I’m not camping,” I tell him. “My car is just parked there ‘til I return.” I can see that this confuses him. He’s a long way from his manual.

            “Where you going?” he asks. I don’t consider it any of his business.

            “Up the mountain.”

            “Any place in particular?”

            “Nope.”

            “When will you be returning?”

            “When I get tired or run out of food.”

            “It’s dangerous to hike these woods alone. Did you tell anyone where you are going or when to expect your return?”

            “Nope.”

            “Why not?”

            “I was born here. Most of the time I go looking for other people who get lost.”

            “Oh. Well, I guess your car will be all right parked there. I shouldn’t let you do it, but what the hell.”

            Let me do it, did he say? Who the hell did he think he was? Give a man a badge and...

            “You have a good day, Ranger,” I say, turning back up the trail. He is still standing there, writing something in his little shirt-pocket notebook, when I disappear around the first bend in the trail. For some reason an image of Barney Fife flashes through my mind and then I forget all about it.

            The trail winds leisurely along through the trees, more or less level, for a quarter-mile, then breaks out into a small park where a small stream bisects the trail. At this altitude flowers are plentiful, especially along the brook - - brighter scarlet Indian paintbrush, bright larkspur, blue flax and white Sego lilies.

                        The blue flax is beautiful with pale sky-blue petals webbed with violet. The Sego lily or Mariposa lily (Calochortus nuttalli ...”beautiful herb”) is the state flower of Utah. It’s not the lily’s fault. It grows from an onion like bulb that saved many on Indian and white settler from starving. Pounded into a pulp and dried, it makes a palatable flour. The larkspur, though beautiful with deep blue petals, is of the species called Subalpine or Barbey (Delphinium barbeyi) and contains a deadly amount of toxic delphinine. Many a cow and sheep has turned belly-up from eating too much larkspur.

            Crossing the brook on stones, I reach the other side where the trail immediately takes off up an incline, angling up and over a ridge.  The trail is wide and kept reasonably clean of dead fall. Blazes are chopped into trees every few hundred feet, or closer if needed, on the right hand side of the trail. The blazes, which are courtesy of the Forest Service, resemble fat exclamation points. My father was the first to blaze this trail, long before there was a Forest Service. Here and there some of his original blazes can still be seen.

            I am in what is called the Canadian zone, with its aspen and Douglas fir, but as I climb rapidly higher, passing through acres of lodgepole pines (so-called by the Indians, the trees being tall and small in diameter, perfect for erecting lodges), I soon enter the Hudsonian zone, containing thick growths of silver fir and dark spruce. It grows darker here, with more shade and more silence.  The air is filled with the pungent odor of oozing resin.

            I stop to catch my breath next to a pine with scabbed bark, from which raw resin has oozed. I peel off several clumps of hard red resin to make a chew of gum.  Only the hardened sap makes good chewing gum. Fresh resin is useless. When first popped into the mouth, it crumbles into a white powder which has no particular flavor and is rather unpleasant - - like a mouthful of sand. But once mixed with saliva it forms a delightful chicle which lasts for hours and keeps the mouth moist.

            The trail takes a sort of pattern: a steep climb up rocky slopes through timber, then a plateau, still in heavy forest, that opens suddenly into a glade or meadow with willows and beaver dams, then back into the timber for the next steep climb. Then the whole thing repeats itself. It can seem endless.

            I remember as a boy, when I trailed along behind my father over this very trail, I would become very impatient, as we are prone to be in youth. I would ask him, “When will we get there?” “It won’t be long now,” he would reply, “it’s just over the next ridge.” Later I would repeat the questions, again to be told that it was “just over the next ridge.” By the end of the day, so tired my butt would be dragging my tracks out, I came to think there was no end to the redundant ridges.

            The problem is one of perspective. In the heavy timber one can see only a short distance in any direction and straight ahead one can only see the crest of the ridge one is climbing, with blue sky beyond. This creates the illusion that the top of the ridge is the summit of the mountain. But once on top, the next plateau looms ahead, and so on, and so on, a series of graduated steps which lead only to the base of the real mountain.

            At last the ridges seem to end as I emerge onto a high mountain plateau with nothing but miles for lodgepole pines as far as the eye can see. I can walk leisurely now for a considerable distance and it comes as a welcome relief to weary legs.

            Suddenly I feel pangs of hunger, realizing that I have eaten nothing since breakfast except a handful of raisins. A glance at my watch, which I had all but forgotten, indicates it is close to three o’clock. I have been walking steadily for more than eight hours! But I can’t stop now, not here in the thick lodgepole, when I know that not too far ahead lies one of my most favorite campsites int eh world - - Beaver Dam Park, also know simply as the Beaver Dams.

            And very soon I was there. One hears it long before one arrives, the glorious, refreshing sound of free-running water, coursing over sliderock. Now and then I see a glimpse of the grassy park off to my left and then suddenly I walk right out into it.

            If there is a paradise on Earth, this certainly has to be the place. Standing beneath large pines on a flat area where I will make my camp (where I have camped so many times before) there unfolds before me an amazing scenic panorama. Before me is the rushing water of the headwaters of Beaver Creek, bluish-grey with glacial cold and melted snow, white-cresting over rocks and tumbling through the trees to enter the open grassy park a little farther along to my left. A large pine log, with a few stubby branches still attached, bridges the stream directly in front of the campsite where the trail continues. In the morning I will cross it.

            To my right the stream flows down from another park above, over and through the sliderock in little waterfalls and rivulets; and above this verdant landscape, looming now so close that I have to bend my head backward to see the peak, is the massive snow-capped mountain known as Mollie’s Nipple.  Its magnificence is breathtaking. The Beaver Dams are at about 10,500 feet; Mollie’s Nipple rises, virtually perpendicular, nearly another 3,000 feet about my head, nearly two thirds of a mile. Here is one of the grandest scenes in Nature and I am viewing it as I enjoy it best alone.

            But I don’t have long to admire the view, because my stomach is growling. High altitude piques the appetite and I haven’t eaten for hours. There is only one thing I want to eat, even though it will take some time to catch and prepare - - fresh native trout. I unroll my bedroll and remove my fishing equipment and head downstream where the water slows and deepens before it reaches the beaver dams.

            The trout in this stream are small, ranging form fingerlings to about six inches, but they are not planted or seeded; they are natives, distinguished by their brilliant red underbelly and gills, and by their propensity to fight. This is fly-fishing water and Royal Coachman generally works best at this elevation, while the Black Gnat or the Bumble Bee works better on higher waters, on or near the lakes. In less than an hour I catch enough fish for supper and return to camp.

            After gutting and cleaning the slippery little morsels in the stream, no easy task because they icy water numbs and tingles the hands, I start a fire and heat up a skillet. I roll the wet trout in flour, salt and pepper to taste, and lay them side by side in the hot greased skillet. They instantly curl up and twist into odd shapes, but are done in minutes and the aroma is glorious to hungry senses. I can’t wait for etiquette. I dig in with fingers (fingers were invented before forks, my father would say), pull the tiny little bones, skeleton and all, from the flesh and eat voraciously. I don’t care to cook anything else.

            By the time I finish eating, it has grown dark in the timber. The trees are distant shadows, but Mollie’s Nipple looms above, painted pink in the last rays of the setting sun. I unroll my bed beneath a pine, kick off my boots, tip them upside down to keep out unwanted guests and mountain dew and crawl into the warm mummy bag. The velvet darkness quickly envelops me and I am lulled into a sound and exhausted sleep by the music of the running water. It’s been a good day.

            I am awakened by a chattering and the flutter of wings. I raise up on my elbows to see my camp being looted by camp robbers - - not the traditional kind, but fat little grey birds, members of the jay family and unique inasmuch as they exist no where else in the world. So rare are these bold and mischievous little creatures that the Audubon Society has offered a substantial reward to anyone who can locate their nesting place. In all my years in these mountains, I have never seen their nest. I know only that they appear every morning at dawn and scold from the branches, then swoop in boldly to pick up any loose tidbit of food left laying around. They can be enticed to eat out of your hand. But this lack of fear of humans (erectus horribilis ) has decimated their number. I have seen their poor little carcasses scattered on the ground around campsites, picked off by idiots with .22's. I have seen mindless fools bait hooks with food and when the birds swallowed it they were reeled in like fish to die horribly from the effects of the hook being pulled from their innards. There are not so many “camp robbers” left anymore, but there is no shortage of fools.

            I climb out of the warm bag into the cold morning air and hastily light a fire. There is nothing quite like toasting one’s backside at a campfire on a cold mountain morning. I stack a few pinyon knots on the fire and soon have a healthy blaze going. Native Americans watch whitemen make fires  and say: “Indian make small fire and sit close, stay warm; white man make big fire, stand far back, get cold.” I have a white man’s fire.

            The mosquitoes find me, their tiny radar turned into the carbon dioxide expelled with every breath, so I toss a few green pine boughs on the fire.  The turpentine smoke keeps them away from camp temporarily, but I know they are out there in the west marsh grass, regrouping the troops for a counter attack.

            Mountain mosquitoes are gargantuan. They are a full three times larger than the valley variety. And there are millions of the pesky devils.  They swarm around one’s face, attracted by exhaled breath, fill the mouth and bite right through heavy clothes. Swat as many as you will, there is a never-ending supply. They breed in the marshy meadows and stagnant snow-melt pools and swarm in vast grey moving clouds at the first sign of approaching blood. They will pester a horse until it bolts and runs and they will find their way into your bedroll while you sleep, leaving big welts on the skin.

            My father used to tell me a story about how big mosquitoes get in the high Uintahs and he swore it was the Irish truth. He claimed that he was laying awake in his bedroll one night near Cowhole Lake when two mosquitoes flew above him and stopped in mid-air.

            “Shall we eat him here,” asked one mosquito of the other, “or should we carry him off into the woods first?”

            “Oh, no,” replied the second mosquito, “if we carry him off into the woods, those big guys will take him away from us!”

            By the time I finish breakfast the sun is already painting the top of Mollie’s Nipple; it will take a little longer to reach where I am. Anxious to get started, I hurriedly roll up my bedroll, pack everything away in my rucksack and clean up around my camp. There - - nobody could tell I had ever been there the night before. I walk to the creek and bring back water to dowse the last embers of the campfire. I don’t want to cause a forest fire. I am reminded of Smokey the Bear and that reminded me of my old Irish philosopher friend, Mick Mahoney.

            “You know why Smokey the Bear ain’t got no children?” he once asked.

            “No, Mick, why doesn’t Smokey the Bear have any children?”

            “‘Cause ever time Mrs. Smokey gets hot, he dowses her with a bucket of water!”

            I’m off before the sunlight reaches the little park I’m in and I know I won’t be in the sunlight again until I’m out of the trees above timberline, which at this latitude is about 11,500 feet. I tiptoe gingerly across the slippery log-bridge, hop off the other side and start up the trail, working my way up the mountainside toward the light of timberline.

            The climb becomes difficult immediately. Yesterday’s labor was only an introduction. This last leg of the trail ascends at a steep angle and doesn’t relent until the summit is achieve some five miles away and another three thousand vertical feet upward.

            This steep timbered ridge runs from the Beaver Dams all the way up to Mollie’s Nipple and is called by the locals, with tongue-in-cheek, “The Finger.” The Finger points up and touches the nub of Mollie’s Nipple. Erotic.

            It isn’t only the steep climb that makes progress difficult. At this altitude the lungs labor for breath, taking two or three breaths to accomplish one, and the legs grow weak for want of oxygen in the blood. High altitude sickness (light-headedness, dizziness, headaches,  vomiting) is common,  at least until one becomes acclimated. It becomes a labor to take ten steps without a rest, but it doesn’t do to pause for long, for the longer one rests the more difficult it is to get up and continue. A steady plod is best, no matter how much hurts.

            As I ascend the trees become smaller until, at the edge of the forest, on the margin of the scree that leads to the summit, the trees are no more than shrubs, twisted and storm-mangled Engelmann spruce growing fanlike over the rock, and tamarack, a variety of American larch. The tamarack spreads wide and holds firm, making an excellent cushion to fall back onto, which I do while I survey the view around me, now opened up for the first time in hours to the direct sunlight.

            I find myself in the middle of a field of sliderock, broken slabs and blocks of granite veined with feldspar and quartz, colored with clinging patches of green and auburn lichens. Some are as large as automobiles, others as small as cinderblock, all tumbled and scrambled like a giant game of jacks. In the middle of the rocks are a few islands of tundra covered with mountain buttercups, the Sticky Polemonium, the moss campion, and Rocky Mountain Pussytoes (I like the name).

            The buttercups, alpine or subalpine, have shiny yellow petals and hairy sepals. The Sticky Polemonium (Polemonium viscosum, a.k.a. Sky Pilot) lives at 13,000 feet or more. It has tiny tubular purplish flowers, with clusters of orange anthers on fuzzy stalks about ten inches high. The moss campion is a spongy moss cushion clustered with tiny pink flowers. Though all are tiny at this altitude, they are strikingly beautiful and I am surprised to see small white butterflies fluttering from flower to flower.

            The only other form of life noticeable are the pikas, whose whistles to one another can be herd, warning of an intruder, though they are rarely seen. Locals call them Rock Rabbits (not to be confused with Rock Chucks, which also thrive here). They are, in reality, a hare-like mammal, a lagomorph, with two pairs of upper incisors, one set behind the other, ideal for chewing the tough roots of scrubby tundra plants.

            The summit of Mollie’s Nipple is just above me, maybe another thousand vertical feet. I am excited at the prospect of reaching it, because it is one of my favorite places on Earth. I’ve been there before. I can picture in my mind’s eye the large table rock where I can stand and rule the world below with my eyes. I scramble on.

            Scramble is the word. The rocks provide awkward footing, shaky, teetering and sliding out from under foot. There is a real danger of breaking a leg, or worse, and a man alone here is as good as dead if it happens. Animal bones of various kinds litter the sliderock to attest to the fact.

            Passing by a large snowfield, I sample a taste and move on. Five hundred feet more, now four, three, two, one...and I’m there. I stand on my table rock, on the top of the peak, King of the World!

            North, south, east, west, the world is open to my view. To the east and west more than a half-dozen other peaks, all exceeding 13,000 feet, stretch to the horizon. To the south I can see all the way to the peaks of the LaSal and Henry Mountains and closer the panorama of the Uintah Basin. To the north I can see the silvery tops of the Wind River Range in Wyoming. Below me the Green River winds through the badlands from its headwaters in the Wind River Mountains to Flaming Gorge, where it cuts a deep canyon course through the mountain to emerge in the Uintah Basin on its way to a union with the mighty Colorado.

            Directly below me, to the north, the little town of Manila looks like a crusty scab on the skin of the land. I have noted a phenomena, an optical illusion, each time I stand on the peak. When looking at Mollie’s Nipple from Manila, it appears far away on the southern horizon and one looks away at a distance to see it; but when standing on the crest of the peak, one seems to be looking almost straight down upon the town of Manila. Height alters perspective.

            Near the table rock is a brass benchmark which the Geodetic Survey has imbedded and cemented in the rock, denoting its highest point. I break out some nuts, raisins, and an orange. While I snack I pick out recognizable landmarks on the map of the land below.

            Sheep Creek Canyon, Hideout Canyon, Horseshoe Canyon, Dry Fork Canyon, Mosby Canyon, Red Canyon, Carter Creek Canyon, Hell’s Canyon, Sol’s Canyon, Crouse Canyon, Jesse Ewing Canyon, Nine Mile Canyon, Skull Creek Canyon, Dry Canyon, Davenport Canyon, Deep Canyon.

            Green River, Bear River, Duchesne River, Uintah River, Whiterocks River, Dry Fork, Strawberry River, Henry’s Fork, Black’s Fork, Burnt Fork, Blacksmith Fork, Deep Fork, Rock Creek, Mosby Creek, Farm Creek, Sheep Creek, Deep Creek, Crouse Creek, Carter Creek, Allen Creek, Whiskey Creek, Piss Creek, Deer Creek, Elk Creek, Owl Creek, Swift Creek, Beaver Creek, Cow Creek, Eagle Creek, Crow Creek, Aspen Creek, Pine Creek, Oak Creek, Yellowstone Creek, Trout Creek, Vermilion Creek.

            Hickerson Park, Young Springs Park, Half Moon Park, Brown’s Park, Long Park, Elk Park, Jackass Park, Dead Man’s Park, Sheep Creek Park, Lake Park, Government Park, Taylor Park, Rainbow Park, Allen Park, Ranger Park, Deer Park.

            Dowd’s Hole, Brown’s Hole, Little Hole, Devil’s Hole, Cow Hole, Dead Man’s Hole, Hermit’s Hole, Aspen Hole (locally referred to as Ass Hole).

            Dowd’s Mountain, Mosby Mountain, Hogsback Mountain (east and west), Taylor Mountain, Lodgepole Mountain, Diamond Mountain, Bear Mountain, Book Cliffs, Zenobia Basin, Powder Springs, Squaw Spring.

            Sheep Creek Lake, Moon Lake, Granddaddy Lake, Half Moon Lake, Brown Duck Lake, Chepeta Lake, Whiterocks Lake, Cow Hole Lake, Anson Lake, Spirit Lake, Pearl Lake, Workman Lake, Deep Lake, Potter Lake, Red Lake, Dead Man’s Lake, Squaw Lake, Scout Lake, Lost Lake, Browne Lake, Joyce Lake, Boyo Lake, Tepee Lake, Wigman Lake, Tamarack Lake, Lodgepole Lake, Fish Lake, Alpine Lake, Hoope’s Lake, Horseshoe Lake, Black’s Fork Lake, Feather Lake.

            Matt Warner Reservoir, Stienaker Reservoir, Crouse Reservoir, Starvation Reservoir, Flaming George Reservoir. Too many to list.

            Mollie’s Nipple is 13,398 feet. You won’t find “Mollie’s Nipple” on a map. Officially it is known as Mount Emmons, but if you mention that name to locals they were swear there is no such place.

            My ultimate destination lies directly below me to the west. Cow Hole Lake. Not a very attractive name. On maps it is designated Lamb’s Lakes (there are half a dozen in the basin) because old Jim Lamb (my uncle’s father) summered his cattle there in the 1880's. It came to be more identified with his cattle than with him and thus the local appellation “Cow Hole.” Though having a homely name, it is one of the wildest and most beautiful places one can imagine.

            On the east side of The Finger lies Potter Lake named for my grandmother’s people, and below it, to the northeast, lies Lost Lake. While Cow Hole Lake is situated in a beautiful park, Potter Lake is located at the head of a glacial basin in an extremely rugged location. The south and west sides of the lake about the precipitous “baldies” and leave little space for pedestrians. The north and east shores are covered with timber on steep slopes right down to the water.

            There is absolutely no place to camp at Potter Lake except on the steep timbered slopes or among a jumble of sliderock. As a boy I camped with my family on the north slope. We made a community bed on the steep slope and to prevent sliding we placed a log across the foot of the bed, held in place by rocks. During the night the pole gave way and by morning all of our feet were in the frigid water of the lake.

            All of this I pondered while sitting on the crest of Mollie’s Nipple, eating my orange. I suddenly became aware that the wind has increased in velocity, the sure sign of an impending storm. Sure enough, off to the west, topping the peaks on the horizon, dark storm clouds are brewing. Storms happen quickly at this elevation. Unlike the valley down below, where the sun appears as a large yellow ball in a navy blue sky, at 13,000 feet it is a white dwarf in a bluish-black sky, with only a hint of blue on the circumferential horizon. Storms rise in moments and find little resistance. They generally dissipate as quickly, but leave a lasting impression of wind, rain, thunder, and lightning in their wake.

            Here I am at 13,398 feet with a storm bearing down like a freight train and no place to find refuge. The dark clouds roll across the summit of the mountain towards me, pushed by the tornado-like winds. At first it is exhilarating. I stand on my table rock, spread my arms outward, and face into the gusts. I feel like an eagle soaring above the roof of the world.

            My reign is cut short by a clap of thunder which nearly bursts my eardrums and scares the bejesus out of me. I am quickly reminded that there is One Who reigns above me and He is looking to make a lightening rod out of me. Time to find some shelter. Only trouble is, there is none, except back down at the timberline several thousand feet below where I stand. Still, anywhere is better than being on the peak at that moment, so I begin to scramble down the slope just as the storm hits.

            To someone who has not experienced it, there is no sufficient way to describe a summer mountain storm at 13,000 feet. The wind rages, the rain is driven so hard it stings against the skin and it is bone-chilling cold, even in August. But most terrifying of all is the lightning and the deafening claps of thunder which trembles the ground under your feet and often starts rockslides on the steep talus slopes. The lightening originates in the very clouds that surrounds and you find yourself in a phenomenon of sorts. The air around you becomes instantly brilliant, like being in the center of a vision of God and your eyes are momentarily blinded. Then, like slow mention, you see the lightening bolt itself, streaking apparently horizontal is giant blue-white branches, seeking its way to the ground. Only then do you hear the thunder as it explodes like a cannon in your ears. It is Dante unleashed. The smell of burnt ozone permeates your nostrils and the air is so charged with electricity that the hair on your head literally stands on end.

            As the sliderock becomes wet with rain, a most amazing phenomenon caps the ceremony. Blue flame, like St. Elmo’s Fire, literally leaps from rock to rock, arcing and playing like fairy fire, bouncing away in the direction of the storm. It is simultaneously beautiful and terrifying.

            I am, at such times, reminded of the passage from King Lear (III, ii) by Shakespeare:

 

                                                                                    The wrathful skies

                                                Gallow the very wanderers of the dark,

                                                And make them keep their caves: since I was man

                                                Such sheets of fire, such bursts of horrid thunder,

                                                Suck groans of roaring wind and rain, I never

                                                Remember to have heard: man’s nature cannot carry

                                                The affliction nor the fear.

 

Ah, Shakespeare, master of description, were you there?

            Though surrounded by the raging storm, one must resist the urge to run. The wet and slippery rocks will not support momentum and footing is soon lost in the downhill plunge and a fall is inevitable.  I choose a fast but safe pace and before long find myself below the timberline. Still, the tamarack are no refuge and it is not until I am much farther down The Finger, beyond the skree, that I find trees large enough to offer protection from the storm.

            Normally, it is foolish to seek protection beneath a tree in a lightning storm, but at this elevation, it is a wiser alternative than standing alone on wet rock. But Nature is unrelenting with fools. A hundred yards distant from the tree beneath which I have sough refuge, lightning strikes another, splitting it virtually in halves and sending splinters of scorched wood sailing through the air, propelled by the high wind. Only the pounding rain prevents the onslaught of a forest fire. I’m still too high. Time to descend beneath the banks of mist that blow across the skree with the rain. Time to go down into the basin known as Cow Hole.

            By the time I reach the western edge of the mountain, where it slopes down drastically into the basin, the storm has abated as quickly as it had risen and the sun is breaking through in shafts. There is nothing like the fresh aroma of steamy vegetation and ionized air after a mountain storm. The nose becomes attuned to the wet lichen and freshly washed pine. The senses come alive, rejuvenated with the rest of the natural world by the violent baptism.

            I am still in the skree and there are no trees here to be blazed and to mark the trail. There is but one trail off the mountainside into the basin and if you miss it, there is no regress, especially if you have horses. Fortunately, I don’t. The trail down the mountainside has been made over many years by pedestrian visitors tossing small stones between the big sliderock, making a switchback descending some 2,000 feet over a distance of less than a mile. The trail is marked every few hundred feet by rock cairns. Sometimes they are hard to find and retrace my route until I find the next one. The descent is rapid, however, and I am soon on the floor of the basin.

            It is one of the marvels of this wilderness that every wonder of Nature supercedes the last in spectacle and grandeur.  At the bottom of the precipitous trail lies one of the most beautiful and enchanting rivulents anywhere in the mountains. It emanates from a small glacial lake on a plateau high above and courses downwards via a multitude of mine-waterfalls and sliderock stairs, through a stately stand of pines. The rapidly falling water sends up a grey-white mist in multi-layers which, when the sun strikes at an oblique angle, creates a thousand tiny rainbows.

            Crossing the rivulet on mossey stones, I startle a doe and her twin fawns on the opposite side, from their hiding place in a fern-filled glen. They bound over a nearby ridge and out of sight with such grace and dignity that they remain images in my mind long after they have gone.

            Before leaving the glade where the water falls in rainbows, I look around for signs of bones. Many years ago, my father found a human skeleton at this place, propped up against a large rock. There is no longer any sign of it. It is unlikely that it will ever be known who the man was or how he died. Maybe it was an Indian; maybe a wounded outlaw; maybe a suicide. There’s a story there that will never be told. Nevertheless, it was a good place to die.

            Before leaving I fill my canteen with icy cold water from the rivulet for the last leg of the journey. The skin-bag canteen is preferable to the more cumbersome metal container. It stays colder longer and leaves no metal after-taste.

            It is a four-mile trek through timber to the lake. The route is fraught with dead fall, but the secret is to keep to the ridges. There is an old trail, blazed by my father more than half a century before, but the blazes have overgrown in places and the trail has not been kept free of dead fall. All the better. Keeps out all of the most adventuresome and keeps this secret basin pristine.

            The trail bursts out of the trees suddenly on the northern shore of Cow Hole Lake.  After hours of plodding through dark woods, climbing over fallen trees, and negotiating sliderock, the scene opens upon one of the most beautiful wild lakes anywhere in the Uintah Mountains.

            Cow Hole Lake (Lamb’s Lake) lies at the foot of a towering “baldie,” a 13,000 foot behemoth which casts its snow-capped reflection in the crystalline waters of the lake below. The southern shore of the lake abuts against the base of the mountain and a huge shelf of gigantic sliderock, sloughed off the cliff-face, protrudes into the deepest part of the lake.

            The eastern and northern shores, somewhat more shallow, are walled in by forest, but on the west the lake opens up into lush meadows that stretch out for miles to the north. The outlet of the lake here forms a narrow but very deep channel which courses through the mountain meadows for many miles before disappearing beneath the sliderock to re-emerge below as the headwaters of Beaver Creek.

            As I arrive on the shore of the lake, I am overwhelmed by the exhilaration engendered by the scene. The sun is beginning to set behind the western rim of the basin, bathing the tops of the peaks in an amber glow, but plunging the basin into a twilight haze.

            The hour before dark and the hour after dawn are the stillest parts of the day. The wind sets with the sun and the surface of the lake calms to a mirror-like surface. Waterbugs, no longer hampered by lapping waves, leave the shore and dance across the surface like tiny speedboats. Native trout, enticed by the surface ballet, rise from the bottom to feed. In minutes the whole lake is “boiling” with their leaps, magnificent red bellies flashing in the twilight.

            With less than an hour before dark, I hurry along the wooded north shore in an effort to reach my scheduled campsite before the light gives way. The campsite lies on the opposite side of a marshy meadow. As I plod through ankle-deep grass, growing out of an inch of stagnant water, mosquitoes rise up in swarms, filling my mouth and nostrils and biting like hell. I run the last few yards to the campsite, followed closely by the voracious blood-sucking horde.

            The campsite lies at the edge of an outcropping of timber, affording plentiful wood for fuel. Nearby a small cold spring provides camp-water and natural refrigerator for freshly-caught trout.

            There is only enough time left in the waning day to get a fire started, toss on a few green pine boughs to create turpentine smoke to drive away the mosquitoes, and provide light to make up my bed. The ground is rocky so I lay down a few pine boughs as a cushion, crawl into my mummy bag, and watch as the fire burns down to red embers. No time for a meal. I bit off a piece of beef jerky and gaze upward at the brilliant star-filled sky, framed between the tops of the towering pines. In the rarified air the stars seem almost within reach. A satellite drifts slowly drifts slowly across the sky from north to south. Damn technology! They even pollute the heavens.

            I don’t remember falling asleep. When I awoke the sun has already risen, kissing the mountain dew from the meadow grass. A mist rises from the surface of the lake to crown the tops of the trees. A scolding from the tree branches tells me the reason for being aroused. Camp robber jays are impatient for a handout. There are even more of them here than in the lower elevations and they are brazen little creatures, virtually fearless, having had little contact with “Homo horribilis.”

            Okay, I’m hungry. I mean I’m really hungry. But the only thing I want for breakfast is boiling out there on the surface of the lake and they won’t be feeding much longer. Later in the day they will take bait on the bottom, but that is slow fishing. I am anxious to unlimber my fly rod and catch my breakfast in a hurry. The best fly fishing is on the north shore, where the water is more shallow, about waist-deep.

            I won’t weary you with my fish stories. Suffice it that Native trout are no lunkers. They are the fightingest fish in the world. And why not? They are fighting for their freedom, to live in paradise.

            With breakfast secured I make my way back to camp by was of the south shore. This is the most rugged route, over sliderock as big as automobiles, but there is a place I need to see.

            At the place on the south shore, where the sliderock protrudes farthest into the deep water on the lake, there is a huge sliderock, rather flat on top, though sloping gently towards the lake water which slaps lazily at its base. At the bottom of the sloping rock there is a natural groove. When you brace your feet against the groove and lean back against the rock, it serves as a comfortable recliner in an ideal position for fishing.

            From the time I was a small boy into my manhood, this was the “fishing rock” for me and my father. I spent some of the most serene and contented hours of my life on “fishing rock” next to my father, listening to his homespun country philosophy and homely humor. The rock is a time machine for my memories. As I sit there now, with my fishing line dangling in the blue-black glacial water, I can almost hear my father’s voice, echoing across the water.

            “We’ll have to finish our fishing by three o’clock,” he would say.

            “Why?” I would naively bite.

            “‘Cause that’s when the banks close.”

And:

            “You can’t catch fish when it’s raining.”

            “Why not?”

            “‘Cause they swim under the banks to keep from getting wet!”

            My reverie is ended by hunger pangs. I hurry back to camp with my catch, get a fire started for cooking coals, and clean the fish in the little spring. The camp robbers steal the entrails and carry them away to their secret places in the trees somewhere beyond the open meadow.

            After gutting the red bellies and removing the entrails (cut them up the middle from the anus to the gills, cut a slit through the jaws, insert fingers, pull down; voila! everything comes out in one motion), it is necessary to run the thumbnail up the large vein in the fish’s back to remove the blood. Wash. Roll in flour. Fry in a skillet with butter or lard. Salt and pepper to taste.

            Gutting and cleaning fish leaves the hands covered with slippery slime. The way to remove it is to grab up a handful of mud and sand from the bottom of the spring and scrub the hands with it thoroughly. It is abrasive, but effective. Locals refer to it as “sheepherder soap.”

            After a hearty meal, I set out on an adventure or another sort. I had brought with me a coil of copper wire. I tuck it into my pocket and with nothing else in hand but a twisted pine walking stick, I head for the middle of the meadow and to the little stream which serves as the outlet for the lake.

            The stream is very unique. It is barely two or three fee wide for a distance of several miles, with wider pools at the bends, but incredibly deep - - over six feet average and as much as fifteen feet in places. It is teeming with Native trout, some of them as large as twelve pounds, as they breed and feed in the deep cold water of the meadow. They feed on mosquitoes, water bugs, nymphs, flies, and worms that abound in the meadow grass and soil.

            Problem is, these fish are skittish. If they see as much as the shadow of a fishing pole above the water, they disappear in schools of flashing tails. It is next to impossible to catch these fish in the conventional way. Fly hooks and bait are useless. But there is a way.

            My father was raised on the Uintah-Ouray Indian Reservation in the Uintah Basin. The Indians (Utes) taught him to hunt and fish and they taught him how to snare the fish at Cow Hole.

            The trick is to make a loop at the end of a long piece of copper wire. Copper wire is nearly invisible in the greenish glacial water of the stream. It takes some patience and dexterity. Laying in the tall grass on the bank of the stream, the loop is carefully dangled in the water. The fish can be clearly seen in the crystalline water, their heads always turned upstream to catch the approaching insects and nymphs carried by the current. The trick is to slip the loop around the fish, just behind the gills, being careful not to touch the fish, and when it is in place, JERK upward, bring the fish out onto the bank. It’s as illegal as hell, but then, what isn’t?

            I don’t need the fish to eat; I can catch all I need pan-sized with rod and reel. These fish are much larger and more of a challenge, and I release each one I catch. Or nearly so.

            As I lay on my stomach in the grass, danging the loop, I make a mistake that in the old days and sometimes still can be fatal. In frontier times, the mountain men and pioneers knew better than to lay on their stomach to drink from a stream. Instead, they would squat on their haunches and scoop up the water in cupped hands, so they could always be alert to danger. I couldn’t do that without frightening the fish and, besides, there was no apparent danger.

            I succeeded in snaring several large trout, jerking them out at my feet. I examined each one and released it back into the water. The sun was warm and I was enjoying my sport and the afternoon whiled away. Then I snared a particularly agile trout with fought the loop and drooped into the grass on the opposite side of the narrow stream.

            Suddenly a dark shadow passed over me and I hear a very loud WOOF! The hair on my nape rises and I sit up abruptly. I am staring a huge brown bear in the face, no more than three feet away, so close I can feel its breath. My red bellied trout is struggling in its big toothy mouth and the bear’s upper lip is curled into a warning snarl. Don’t worry, friend bear, I have no intention of fighting you for the fish. You’re welcome to my catch and thank you very much!

            My first thought is rapid flight in the opposite direction, but on second thought I know better. I have been taught to sit still and pose no threat. The bear has what it came after. Maybe she will soon leave. She does, ambling across the meadow towards an outcropping of timber, occasionally stopping to look back, to make sure I am not following. No need to be concerned about that, though, as I am only too relieved to see her leave.

            I say “here” because it becomes soon apparent why she wanted the fish. As she approaches a copse in the edge of the timber, two young cubs come barreling out of the thicket and begin to vie for the fish. The bear is a mother, concerned about feeding her hungry cubs. Apparently the stream is too deep and narrow to accommodate her fishing technique, but it does explain why the fish are afraid of the slightest movement.

            Unnerved by the unexpected experience, I begin to back away, deciding that discretion is the better part of valor. However, a strange thing occurs. When the bear sees my motion, she runs towards me! I stop in my tracks and so does she. She sits on her haunches and watches me. I try to walk backwards once more and once again she runs towards me. Now I’m getting worried. Does she think I am a threat to her cubs?

            When I stop moving, so does she, once more sitting up on her haunches to watch me. I have no idea what to do next. Mustering courage, I assessed my situation and realized that I was in the middle of the meadow with no place to run. What would she do, I wondered, if I moved towards her? There is a fine line, I am told, between bravery and foolhardiness. I inched forward. The bear dropped down on all fours, but didn’t charge. I moved further, back to the bank of the stream, and the bear ambled towards me. I was uneasy, but strangely unafraid, because of something in her behavior. She seemed casual, not threatening. Still, my feet argued with my head as she continued towards me. She ambled closer and closer, stopping briefly to check me out, then ambling forward again. She came to within six-feet to me, on the opposite side of the brook, then suddenly stopped, sat down on her haunches and sat upright, like a begging dog. That’s it! She wants another fish!

            I slowly gather up my copper loop and edge towards the brook. The bear watches me curiously, with a gentle “Woof!” now and then, but almost hushed, as though she was conscious of scaring the fish - - or me. As I carefully lowered the loop into the water, she cocked her head sideways to watch. She knew what I was doing, the clever old gal.

            I watched the fish with one eye and the bear with the other. What would she do if I couldn’t catch anything, I suddenly wondered? I shook the thought and concentrate on the task at hand.

            I see the red gills and green speckled head of a big Native trout cruising near the center of the brook. I carefully loop it and jerk it onto the bank. It flops near my feet and as I attempt to subdue it, I watch the bear out of the corner of one eye. I see her drop down and I suppose she is going to steal the fish as before, but instead she only watches intently as I pick up the struggling fish and turn to face her. She sits back upon her haunches and “woofs.” I toss her the fish and she catches in her great jaws, shakes it a couple of times, then jaunts off to feed her cubs. In a short time she returns to her place by the brook, sits down, sits up, and waited for another.

            I am no longer frightened by her presence or her actions. We had an understanding, this bear and I, and I was beginning to enjoy the game. I am delighted at the bear’s acceptance of me, though I am still concerned about how long this must go on before she would be appeased. Thank goodness there is no shortage of fish in the brook.

            After the third or fourth fish, I am able to cautiously place the fish in her mouth. Amazing! There is an unexplainable and absolute joy at making this king of intimate connection with one of Nature’s grandest creatures.

            At one point, the bear’s anxious cubs leave the copse and head toward the brook, but Mama soon puts the run to them, cuffing one of them soundly on the rump. She returns to her place by the brook and sits up on her haunches, waiting patiently for another fish.

            By this time, nearly the entire day has been taken up in the sport and it is growing late. I know that it has to come to an end, but I’m still uncertain of the bear’s reaction if I try to leave. She seems to understand my dilemma, for after giving her the fish, she retreats a short distance and lays down in the grass to eat her fish. I take the opportunity to retreat slowly across the meadow back towards the camp. She stops eating briefly and watches me go, but she makes no effort to stop me and soon returns to her meal.

            By the time I prepare supper, the bear and her cubs have disappeared back into the woods. I am left to marvel at the day’s events as I drift off to sleep with the night.

            The next morning, as I prepare a hasty breakfast and pack up my gear for the return journey, I glance across the meadow to see if my new friend is there, but there is no sign of her of her cubs. A sense of loneliness overwhelms me.

            As I retrace the trail across of alpine basin, I think I see flashes of movement in the trees paralleling the trail, but I pass it off to an overactive imagination. Several times it happens, but I catch more glimpses and I can’t be sure that I have actually seen anything.

            I reach the misty rainbow rivulet, fill my canteen, and start up the trail to the top of the finger. Halfway up the mountainside, something induces me to turn around and look back. There, across the rivulet, is the bear and her cubs. She sits up on her haunches and even at a distance I can hear her wail, like she is crying. Her paw is flailing and in my imagination and I am convinced she is waving goodbye. She has made this trip into the mountain unforgettable and I will never forget my new friend.

            The trip down the mountain is accomplished much faster and with far less effort than the ascent. As the elevation decreases blood rushes back into tired muscles and the lungs inhale the heavier air and a sense of euphoria overwhelms. There is also a strong sense of achievement. The conquering hero returns triumphant. I have not really conquered the mountain, I have merely challenged it and survived. It is a growing experience, a cleansing of body and soul, and a spiritual rejuvenation.

            Back at the car, I toss my gear inside, pull the cans of Pepsi from the icy spring and slake my thirst, and head back down the prop road towards Browne Lake Campground. Labor Day crowds line the lake shores; RVs and camping trailers are parked side by side in rows in the campground; and somewhere a boom-box is pounding out the same heavy-metal music as before. Slovivius americanus. I have returned to “syphilisation.”

KERRY ROSS BOREN

SALT LAKE CITY - 2001

EPILOGUE

            The foregoing trip into the high Uintah Mountains occurred nearly forty years ago. Since that time, most of the camp-robbers have disappeared, the bear is dead (probably the victim of some “sportsman’s” gun), and the trails are littered with cans and wrappers. A careless camper started a forest fire which devoured thousands of acres of lodgepole timberland. Forest Rangers have proliferated, enforcing more restrictions than ever before, and are still the same redundant bureaucrats whom we have come to know and love.

            The wilderness is still there, up there in the high country, but it is succumbing fast to encroaching “syphilisation.” Unless proper steps are taken to preserve and protect this natural resource, future generations will be deprived of the opportunity to experience the natural world. Moreover, unless mankind wakes up to the reality of conservation and preservation, the very existence of the species is in question.

            There are very few bears left in the high Uintahs. Perhaps they would still be alive to enhance the wilderness if more hunters’ heads were mounted on walls as trophies. Next time you go into the wilderness, what do you want to see - - a bear or a hunter?

            There is no longer any legitimate or logical reason to kill wildlife. “Sport” is no longer a valid excuse and “sportsman” is an oxymoron. Or simply a moron. There is also no longer any valid reason to destroy timberland for the sake of lumber and mining. There is no longer any valid reason to dam the wild rivers or to pollute the natural water sources.

            The bear does not live in the wilderness; the bear lives with the wilderness. Men are destroying both. They will never experience what I experienced with my friend the bear, in her wilderness, forty years ago.