Change On the Peace Trail

“Clyde. ELK! Now.” The back of the SUV erupts. I can hear his nose hit the window. “You see them?” Tail wags. Eyes, nose pointing tensed to a quivering focus on the object: 

A herd of elk in the distant meadow, about a half mile away. Their light-copper coats mantled with their chocolate brown neck-cape look ragged even from here; the warm weather and longer daylength speaks to their innermost being to shed the warm cloak of winter. Even the springtime short green grass rolls a nutritious and sweet wave over their tongue and rumen. Their whole being responds.

And I think border collie Clyde scents the excitement of another winter past. He’s fixated, and won’t even make but the briefest flash of occasional eye contact with me in the rear view mirror. We’re heading north down the broad Bitterroot Valley on US Highway 93, a former glacial outwash flat trapped between two impressive basin and range mountain uplifts; the Bitterroot to the west, and the Sapphire to the east.

Caryl remarked on the size of the herd. “There has to be over 300 head in that one bunch.” There may be even more than that; we both see that the herd scatter extends into the river bottoms of the Bitterroot, now a rush of grayish white as it begins to swell with the spring melt of low elevation snows.

It’s not the first herd we’ve seen on the 3 hour drive since we left home. There’s been many elk, but also bunches of whitetail and mule deer all along the bottoms. Scattered bunches of Rocky Mountain bighorn sheep slip down off the granite precipices where ancient glacial flood-torrents ripped a ragged cleft in Idaho’s Salmon River Canyon and Montana’s upper Bitterroot.

We’ve been driving this road for over 40 years. The changes we’ve seen in that short time are substantive. I could even say they are land transforming. The elk are a case in point. More on those elegant ungulates later.

The most extreme difference that comes to mind is the road hazard. There were times when it was downright white-knuckle scary. 

It was the log trucks. There were so many. Along the corkscrew portion of Highway 93 in Idaho, which runs through the Salmon River canyon, there were no guardrails, white lines or shoulders. Along the riverbank, there were only random pullouts carved into the brush for salmon and steelhead fishermen. On any given morning, one could easily pass up to 20 rumbling and curve tilting log trucks loaded for bear, headed for the Intermountain Sawmill on the immediate outskirts of little Salmon, Idaho, just off Main street. 

The trucks were loaded higher than was legal, and stuffed to the gills to reduce the number of trips needed to haul the logs off a given timber sale in the woods. My thinking is that the law looked the other way on the excess of those loads because in that day and age everyone had family whose life and relatives were somehow tied with those logs as they were felled from forest, loaded whole. At the mill, logs were ripped open into boards and slipped out onto the green chain, readied for the kiln. 

It was the same in Montana. I recall one particular stretch between hamlets of Sula and Conner. The road was exceptionally narrow and clung to the side of the granite cliffs in the East Fork Canyon. It was the barest of minimum improvement over the old Indian trail that Lewis and Clark followed in 1805. It was like the highway department took a yoke of oxen over the trail, scraped it a tad wider with a “Fresno” rock plow and proudly stated it was “time to lay down the oil,” as the old-timers referred to black-tar macadam pavement. The road was narrow, shoulderless, unrelentingly curvy and pot-holed to boot. 

But that macadam was a great improvement compared to the scratch of a white-knuckle cat-track that dropped them off the mountain forests to the canyon bottom. So they let it rip on the found freedom of pavement, throttle down pedal to the metal, with black smoke to the skies, cars of tourists and locals wedged between. The mill was only another 15 miles. They’d hit the hairpin blind curves hard, rubber wandering over the double yellow occasionally because of incessant rockfall off the cliffs (bighorn sheep enjoy doing their part of causing that), and it seemed that on that curve was the exact spot where I would meet their swinging 45,000 pound bundle of unstoppable momentum coming towards me. 

There were many times I hung tires off “oil” into a 6 inch margin of gravel which was the only boundary between me and the river. One had to pay attention.

In the 90s, everything changed. Timber sales went under environmental appeal and pretty much ended the logging boom. Forest Service timber programs went defunct by litigative pressure, and were soon replaced with an outdoor recreation emphasis. 

Even the road changed. The Federal Highway Administration finally realized what an embarrassment US 93 was, and funneled the money for a complete reroute of the highway between Sula and Conner.

I still miss the old road. But I do know that many older friends and family in our Idaho valleys seek the diverse health care that the larger towns of Hamilton and Missoula, Montana offer, and for them, the new road was a gift. 

I didn’t realize how many health care migrants there were until one day, about 28 years ago I was stuck behind about 20 cars and pickup trucks at a temporary pilot car/lane closure where they were blasting through the granite ahead. 

The flagger was a burly, tattooed man in a hard hat who walked his way down the line chatting with the people in each car about their long wait times. He had a smile for everyone; and if there was anyone angry about the wait he either defused them or intimidated them enough with his hulk-like presence that they stayed in the car.

And in line.

But then there was something else.  At about every third car on average, he took a little longer. He leaned down toward the car, and reached in as if to give them something. And with his other hand, he took off his hard hat for a moment. 

He finally got to our car. He smiled, and his gravely, deep voice asked how we were doing and explained the highway situation. He leaned down to our window, and said, “They got dynamite loaded in the cores up there, and they gotta touch it off before I can let you through. Where are you guys headed?”

“We’re headed up to Missoula. Got some shopping to do,” I said.

Our conversation paused as a muffled blast shook the air and a cloud of dust rose up from around the next bend. They touched off that one.

“All-righty then. You’re good to go, friend, as soon as I give the signal.” He straightened back up, nodded at us, and was about to step out to the next car when I stopped him mid-stride.

“Hey wait a second.” I said quickly. He turned and leaned back in.

“What are you doing with those people ahead of us? You take off your hard hat and reach in. You didn’t do that with us…”

He smiled a large, unshaven grin and reached in and put his callused dirt-impregnated hand on my shoulder. “Friend, you and your bride here seemed OK. You were going shopping. If you need prayer for that, I’d be happy to pray for you. But these others–they are not OK. I can see it in their eyes. A lot of them are struggling with cancer or major health problems. That’s why they’re going to Missoula.”

I nodded in agreement. Many of my aging friends and neighbors had bi-weekly pilgrimages to Missoula for treatments. Infusions. Radiation. It was often hard to have hope.

“So I pray with them,” he continued. “You see, I don’t know where they stand. But I know a guy; his name is Jesus, if you don’t know him. And he cares about each and every one of them. And I know He’s good, and will at least give them peace. And I can see it on them when I pray. Their burden is lifted, at least a little.” There was a touch of a sparkle emanating from his dusty and weatherworn face. I could see there was moisture in his eyes. Inside his battered and bruised exterior was a heart breaking for the brokenhearted.

He stood up and smiled. “So are you guys good to go? You need prayer?”

“No, we’re good to go. Thanks, man.” I reached out my hand.

“Name’s Jim. I’m here for the duration.”

“Glenn and Caryl.”

He nodded, turned away and continued working the line.

So there has been a lot of change in these valleys. The road is better, the log trucks are gone, but there are some obvious road hazards that we hadn’t had to contend with before. 

They certainly keep Clyde occupied; there are many more elk and deer on the road than I recall 40 years ago. I know in Idaho, the reason was that the expanding wolf population pushed them down for the winter. No more would they winter in the high country. They would head to the warmth and relative security of the privately owned meadows of the river bottoms, and herd in great bunches like their ancestors did on the wide prairies before the plow. 

So we actually drive slower now. It is often we have to dodge elk or deer herds that show up in headlights. I upgraded all of my headlight bulbs to LEDs. 

And now, we are coming of the age that we may be some of the people who will be heading up health care in Missoula. A few years ago, Caryl had both knees replaced up there. It went perfectly.

On the way to get those knees done while driving on the now straighter Highway 93 between Sula and Conner, keeping an eye out for elk and bighorn sheep, I recall missing the encouraging words of a certain rough and tumble hardhat angel named Jim. 

Happy Easter.