Fascinating Folks of the Centennial Valley, Montana – Living and Dead

The Centennial Valley of sw Montana is one of my favorite places on the planet.  It has birds galore, lots of wildlife, beautiful scenery and blessed isolation.  It’s not an easy place to visit for the casual visitor as one must negotiate many miles of dirt/gravel roads just to get there and then usually contend with wild weather and the utter lack of services – including restaurants, gas stations and motels.  In my many trips to the area I’ve had innumerable flat tires, been stuck in bad weather for days on end and taken home hundreds of pounds of mud, rocks and cow poop that attached to the underside of my pickup and camping trailer and had to be hosed off on my driveway.  But I love the place!

 

One of the many holds the Centennial Valley has on me is the fascinating history of the region.  I’m a huge fan of western history in general – especially that of Utah and Montana and the valley is dotted with abandoned homesteads dating back to the 1890’s.  This area had to be one of the most difficult areas in the lower 48 states for settlers to simply survive, much less eke out a living – as evidenced by the fact that there were many more people trying to live in the valley back then than are found there now.

The history of the valley is filled with tales of hardship, danger and incredibly interesting characters including indians, trappers, hunters, miners, homesteaders, squatters, cowboys, sheepmen, rustlers and moonshiners.  It’s not my purpose to recount the detailed history of the valley in this post but if you’re interested, see this very well researched and detailed account by the “Lady of the Lake” at nearby Elk Lake.

Every time I drive by one of the many abandoned old homesteads in the valley I’m brimming with curiosity about the tales those old buildings could tell.

 

 

Mia is utterly fascinated by this particular old barn – so much so that she refers to it as “my barn”.  Every trip we make up there she has to stop and take a few more photos of it – in different light and with varying cloud and vegetation colors in the background.

 

 

Here’s one more example of an old “homestead” – this time at the far west end where Red Rock Creek flows out of the valley.  This one has extra interest for me because the Cottonwood tree behind the house is a favorite perch for this Bald Eagle.

 

 

But not all the fascinating folks associated with the Centennial Valley are dead and buried.  It seems that every trip we make up there we run across at least one person of unusual interest.

Just about exactly one year ago we met one of them within a few yards of this refuge sign.  Several times that morning we had driven by this guy who just seemed to be hanging around beside an older pickup truck along one of the dirt side roads as we went back and forth to our camping trailer.  Finally, on about the third time we were going to go by him, I decided I should stop and ask if he needed any help as he looked like he might be stranded.

It turned out to be Rod Wellington, one of  the most amazing people I have ever met.  And he wasn’t stranded.  Over the next 40 minutes of very pleasant conversation we learned of his almost unbelievable plan – a solo navigation of the Missouri/ Mississippi river system from source to sea in a kayak – a total of 3800 miles, all of it self-powered!   It turns out that the ultimate source of the Missouri is at Brower’s Spring, just a few miles east of the Centennial Valley and when we found him he was visually planning how he would negotiate the marshy wetland maze of Red Rock Creek the following summer as it flowed between Upper and Lower Red Rock Lakes (what he was seeing at the time from his pickup is what you see in the image above).

And Rod’s amazing journey has begun.  As I type this Rod is in the 52nd day of his trip and is now below Fort Benton, Montana.  If I remember correctly, Rod expects it to take him roughly five months to reach the mouth of the Mississippi – truly an incredible endeavor.  If you’re interested in sharing this adventure vicariously (as I do) as Rod follows in the footsteps (paddlestrokes?) of Lewis and Clark, I’ve included links to his Facebook Page, spot tracker and blog.  His Facebook page seems to be updated most regularly but with the spot tracker you can follow his progress 24/7.

And we came across more “fascinating folks” on our last trip to the Centennial Valley a few weeks ago.  Some years ago I worked with Terry Tempest Williams at the Utah Museum of Natural History when she was the curator of education (later naturalist-in-residence) and I was the biologist for the Junior Science Academy and I became good friends with Terry and her husband Brooke.   We spent time in the field together at places like the Teton Valley of Wyoming and Bear River Migratory Bird Refuge, among others.  Terry, as many of you know, went on to become an accomplished and gifted author who speaks eloquently and passionately about issues related to conservation, wilderness, activism and an “ethical stance toward life”.  Brooke is field coordinator for the Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance (SUWA).

What a wonderful surprise it was to find Terry and Brooke so unexpectedly in the Centennial Valley.  They were there because Terry was leading a graduate course for Environmental Humanities students in the valley.  It seemed to me that Terry and Brooke haven’t changed through all these years – they’re still delightful folks to be around and I wouldn’t have missed seeing them again for the world.  Terry is, as always, deeply passionate in her beliefs (most of which I share) and she wears her huge heart on her sleeve.

But the fun for me wasn’t over yet!  When we first walked up to Terry and Brooke as they sat on the porch of their rustic cabin, who was sitting to Terry’s left but Doug Peacock!  Peacock has been a hero of mine for decades.  For most of my career as a biology, Utah Wildlife and zoology teacher I taught a major unit on grizzly bear management.  Doug Peacock is one of the world’s foremost grizzly bear experts and has dedicated much of his life to the plight of those magnificent bears and his work was a significant part of my bear unit (along with the work of Frank and John Craighead).

Peacock has always appealed to me, both professionally and personally (though I had never met him before).   He’s a self-described “cranky buzzard” who has worked tirelessly for bears and for wilderness in general for a very long time.  I’d probably seen the documentary Peacock’s War about 50 times over the years (I showed it to my classes) so I felt like I already knew him when I met him.  And he certainly didn’t disappoint.

Peacock was good friends with Ed Abbey for years – he was with Ed when he died and buried him (illegally) in the desert.   Peacock was the model for George Hayduke in Abbey’s famous novel The Monkey Wrench Gang.  So when Terry invited Mia and I to attend Doug’s presentation to the graduate students that evening I couldn’t resist wearing one of my Monkey Wrench Gang T-shirts (I have three of them and usually bring one along on camping trips).  When Doug saw me in the shirt he broke out into a huge grin and said “I’ve got the one that says “Hayduke Lives”.  Made my day!

Ok, if you’ve made it this far in this wordy post you know that for me this trip to the Centennial Valley was extra special.  We had lots of birds to photograph, great weather and wonderful vistas to provide extraordinary eye candy but the icing on the cake was to see Terry and Brooke again and to meet Doug for the first time.  Mia and I often say to each other “You just never know what interesting characters you’ll meet in the Centennial Valley”.

I wonder what’s in store for the next trip…

Ron

PS – I’ll get back to birds for my next post, I promise.