Rabbitbrush and Russian olive trees in the Powder River drainage in central Wyoming
The aesthetic therapy of Big Sky country
This is one of those posts where, out of respect for the subject, the less written the better. To get to and from my uncle’s 90th birthday celebration near Denver a few days ago, I drove roughly 3,000 miles to and from. This was by choice. There is so much to see between here and there that it would take me lifetimes to take it in.
Not that a book was necessary to attract me to journeys in the northern Rockies but not long after I arrived in the northwest from Panama I read John McPhee’s Rising from the Plains. The story has since been folded into his Annals of the Former World anthology, published in 1998. Rising from the Plains is mostly about Wyoming’s landscape, as it unfolds through the eyes and experiences of a prominent geologist, David Love (1913—2002) whose family took root in central Wyoming in the early 1900s. With McPhee’s story-telling and skills for explaining complexities, Rising from the Plains translates the terrain, giving the artful transitions between the high mountain ranges, the Great Plains, and the high desert filaments of meaning. The as-yet unsolved mysteries (i.e. the cause of the powerful Laramide orogony that thrust up the Wind River, Absaroka, Medicine Bow and other Rocky Mountain ranges) only add to the mystique of the landscape. On the land surface that we and the antelope travel it seems one is never too far from the edges bounding the high desert, the epic grasslands, and the soaring mountains beyond. Transitions abound in all directions— a useful metaphor for the journey of an interesting life.
On the way east from Spokane, I had to choose a route. I had some lingering regret that I’d never been to Idaho Falls, which is not far from Jackson Hole and thus not far from the headwaters of the Snake River—a river that connects the Grand Tetons to Sacajawea Park, east of Pasco, where my mother was born and where her parents are buried. Far from the Rockies, the Snake joins the Columbia at Sacajawea Park, just west of Wallula Gap.
So off to Idaho Falls I went, driving well over 500 miles on Tuesday, August 19th, then on to Rawlins, Wyoming the following day, and then on to Denver on Thursday. My uncle wanted me to roast him at a party in Louisville, near the Flat Iron range. It was all in good fun in a packed hall, courtesy of the local Elks club. Before I spoke, I hugged him and reminded him it was his idea.
The closest I got to the headwaters of the Snake was Wednesday.
I was following one of its tributaries, the Hoback River, when, between the steep walls of the Hoback Canyon, the driver’s side window of my 2001 Honda Accord imploded. There were no other cars around, nor hunters; nor was I driving on gravel, nor struck by a falling rock. It must have been the wind sheer of the canyon. It’s been known to happen. I was momentarily stunned but drove on to Rock Springs to call my insurance company, only to learn that I would also have had to have the windshield shatter in order to exceed my $500 deductible. The windshield was just fine. And so was I, which was fortuitous given how much of the shattered glass went down my shirt and onto my lap.
I decided not to let it ruin my day. I wanted to photograph antelope that afternoon, and I kept that appointment in rich, fading light. I couldn’t resist the pull of the Bighorns on the way home. But I’ll cover that in a future dispatch, with photos.
—tjc
Today’s post is free to Rhubarb Salon readers, but please consider a paid annual subscription to The Daily Rhubarb at the link above. Reader support is vital to this endeavor. tx
Barnum, Wyoming, in the fading light of an August afternoon
Pronghorn antelope, in August grass, rabbitbrush and foxtail barley east of Rawlins, WY, along the continental divide.
The Snake River, gathering itself in the Swan Valley, west of Jackson, WY
Mullien and rabbitbrush sprouting from red sandstone in an alcove south of Laramie, WY
Sandhill crane pair near the headwaters of the Snake River
Bald eagle at a perch above the Clark Fork River in the Bear’s Mouth area east of Missoula, MT
White-tail fawn sprinting a fence line near Barnum, WY
Red Fork of the Powder River, near Kaycee, WY
Cottontail rabbit taking a peak from its foraging at a high bench above the Snake River in the Swan Valley.
Beautiful planet we live on.
So much beauty I wanna cry!