In the Desert, a Garden

The heat in the house has kicked on and local coffee shops are pumpkin-spicing everything; the trees are changing colors and the days are rapidly getting shorter; football and hockey have begun their seasons; and dustings of snow occasion the higher mountain peaks. Yes, autumn is here in Montana. 

[In full disclosure, that picture above is from British Columbia, Canada...]

It also means that Curling is starting up… At least of the inflated variety:

It feels like yesterday and forever ago, but it’s been three months since I departed Missouri for Missoula. And the initial question of wonder – “where am I” – is being answered by the equally bewildered “I live here.” In many ways, I can actually forget that I live among the mountains, as strange as that may seem. (I’m not hiking them or skiing them every day or even every weekend). Most days, I ride my bike to and from the rectory and campus and the Newman Center – all of which are nestled in a delightful valley and its extended “grove” of trees. “The University District,” as it is officially called, is very much a little bubble – think Old Town Florissant or downtown St. Charles (but with more trees) back home. For days on end, I am focused in this area and my thoughts are not on the mountains.

[a picture of "The Inversion" -- fog that fills the Missoula Valley on occasion]

But then there is an event somewheres beyond here that calls me out of my little garden. This past week, that event was the annual priest gathering in Butte. The drive is just under two hours – a short drive – southeast of here, up and over two passes. Small rivers at their water lows before winter snows, during the first part of the drive, meander the floors of valleys and canyons (canyons which are far smoother than the rugged ones you may envision from, say, Utah or Arizona). During the second part of the drive, there are rolling hills that remind me of an ancient desert or the landscape of South Dakota near Rapid City – but the mountains in the short horizon loom larger here than there.

[This picture is from a drive in South Dakota. ... Or is it? Would you know? ... Ok, it is. But the drive from Missoula to Butte has moments that look just like this.]

After a week at the event – another drive back to Missoula. But, since I had the time, why not the scenic way home? (Every way home is scenic here – so, perhaps it should be asked: “why not the long way home?”). So, instead of driving the direct way via the northwest Interstate, I drove southwest to Wisdom, Montana. More small valleys and meandering rivers and, of course, mountains. But, at least for a time, they reminded me of the mountains of southern Appalachia: impressive but old, covered in trees and, in their forest, hiding some secrets of landscape or something more. The valleys between the mountains would rightly be called “hollers” back in West Virginia and, like in those parts, there is here some appearance of poverty – the run down house, the broken down RV, the rusting excavation or farm equipment. But I know that, unlike a lot of West Virginia, there is phenomenal wealth, whether in the land owner nearby or in the elements of the land itself.

[One of the "hollers" between Butte and Wisdom, Montana]

Just before arriving at Wisdom, there is a much larger valley which is bordered by much larger mountains – some as far as way as Idaho. The landscape is dry, like high alpine desert, reminiscent of the mission areas outside of Monterrey and Saltillo, Mexico, I had visited many, many years ago. Or some of the areas near Buena Vista, Colorado. Sagebrush and rock dot the valley floor, interrupted occasionally by a ranch’s bright green grass and its dots of black cattle. I wonder if there is a rattlesnake or two in the brush; but then I wonder if there could ever be as I consider winter and how brutally cold this place is come January.

[The valley just before Wisdom]

Past Wisdom, the road climbs into the mountains that border Idaho and then comes to a T at a local ski resort – Lost Trails – and the pass after which (I presume) it is named. The tree-lined ski runs are somewhat hidden, somewhat lost and forgotten among the numerous little hills in the range, enjoyed in winter by the locals and unknown by any big enterprise. It is a kind of physical analogy to what many Montanans would like for their state – there are many hats and t-shirts announcing that “Montana is full” or “Montana is boring.” Some of it is in jest, some of it is quite serious.

[The current view at Logan Pass at Glacier N.P. -- several hours from the Bitterroot Valley, but it is the view that most people who visit Montana see]

I descended the pass and into one of the most beautiful valleys of the state, the Bitterroot, where Father DeSmet’s mission and the miniseries Yellowstone have become strange bedfellows. Besides Butte, it is the most populated place I have seen on this trip, but not big enough for a Wal-Mart (the nearest one is still well over an hour north in Missoula, where there are two). The Bitterroot mountains on the west side of the valley seem to go on forever and look like what most people envision Montana to be.

[The actual Bitterroot Valley]

And after the three hour detour, I return to my garden tree grove – like a kind of monk into his monastery cell. The land around Missoula is still wild – in biblical terms it would be “the wilderness” or “the desert.” And it really is. Unlike other road trips in the United States, driving in the remote areas of the Remote kindle excitement not only at the landscape but also in the possibility of danger: “What would I do if my car breaks down here?” Yet, strangely, all past road trips find their echo here – Arizona, Appalachia, Colorado, Mexico even – without being those places.

[The view from my street in Missoula]

Even past Autumns find their echo here while here not being the same as there. It is largely the ground cover that first turns yellow and orange and red. The evergreens do not change. And those that do – the Larches – change late, after most other trees (the maples, the aspens) have revealed their true colors. It is a “rolling” kind of thing: the valleys first, then the hills, and then – on the mountain tops, the dusting of snow.

[This is not anywhere in the United States ... but I did go to Lake Louise in Alberta, Canada...]

[From the Plain of the Six Glaciers in Banff, NP, Canada]

And so it is up here in Montana. Here, the autumn is most different than back in Missouri: the next season is right above you, slowly descending from the heights.

And line-dancing happens during intermissions at the University of Montana hockey games... ◡̈