Trail Log 1995-1997 - Lamar at Colorado State University

an active forester.
Pat and Bernadette Bannister, 1120 Morningwood Lane, Great Falls, VA 22066. They also have
property in Montana, and we picked them up halfway out on the road up the Blackfoot. She does
some fundraising for the Craigheads and their foundation.
Jon and Karen Robbins, 2836 Melillo Drive, Walnut Creek, CA 94596. He is lawyer for oil company
in environmental compliance. She is schoolteacher.
Smoke has been packing 40 years in the Bob, cumulatively 22 years of nights spent in the out-ofdoors.
My horse is Coco, a mare. Bill's is Liberty.
The Bob Marshall Wilderness complex includes the contiguous Bob Marshall Wilderness, the Great
Bear Wilderness, and the Scapegoat Wilderness, which are 1.5 million acres. There is another
million acres of surrounding wildlands. On the complex is almost every big game species in North
America.
The Scapegoat Wilderness was created in 1972. The centerpiece of the region is the Scapegoat
Massif, an enormous lofty plateau of rock surrounded on east and west sides by sheer cliffs, the
lower extension of the Chinese wall on the eastern side. The peak of Scapegoat Mountain is 9,202
ft on the eastern edge of the massif. Flint Mountain (9,079ft) is at the north western end. The
massif is really a long limestone plateau, about 4 miles long, and the actual peak is only a bump
on the massif.
A U.S. surveyor, Chapman, working in the area in the 1897-1900 period gave the peak the name
Scapegoat after he had difficulty surveying the area (Graetz, p. 131).
On the trail about 11.00 a.m. We are riding in the Canyon Creek Fire, burned 247,000 acres in
September and October 1988, the year of the Yellowstone fires, and the largest fire in the history
of Montana. The fire started in Canyon Creek valley, near the eastern edge of the Scapegoat
wilderness. Smoke heard the lightning bolt that started it and he and his wranglers went over and
put it out, or at least suppressed it. But a forest crew came in next day and said it was a prescribed
natural burn, so let it go. It flared up the next day and took off. The decision to endorse the let burn
policy was made by Orville Daniels, who was on our trip.
We watched recovery after fire throughout the trip, which was rather uneven. Some lodgepole was
waist-high, but much was no more than knee-high, and on lots of slopes there was hardly any
evident recovery at all. Generally, the recovery was slower than I might have hoped.
Generally wildlife on the trip was more sparse than might have been expected. There were no
recent sign of elk, though lots of older sign. No sheep seen. No goats. No bear or wolf tracks,
though there were coyote tracks. Smoke says he thinks the fire dispersed the wildlife to other parts.
Although there is food, the burned forest is hot and there is no cover, either for shade or for hiding.
Lots of Ceonothus. The stems that stick out above the snow are killed back, and this was often
evident. Lots of fireweed.
Rode up Hobnail Tom Trail. Rode by a pack bridge, lunched, and rode by North Fork Cabin.
Stopped at North Fork Falls, which could only partly be seen from our side.