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<\/p>\nThe Centennial Valley of sw Montana is one of my favorite places on the planet.\u00a0 It has birds galore, lots of wildlife, beautiful scenery and blessed isolation.\u00a0 It’s not an easy place to visit for the casual\u00a0visitor as one must negotiate many\u00a0miles 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\u00a0and motels.\u00a0 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\u00a0attached to the underside of my pickup and camping\u00a0trailer and had to be hosed off on my driveway.\u00a0 But I love the place!<\/p>\n
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One of the many holds the Centennial Valley has on me is the fascinating history of the region.\u00a0 I’m a huge fan of western history in general – especially that of Utah and Montana and\u00a0the valley\u00a0is dotted with abandoned homesteads dating back to the 1890’s.\u00a0 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\u00a0trying to live\u00a0in the valley back then than are found there now.<\/p>\n
The history of the valley is filled with tales of hardship, danger and incredibly interesting characters including indians, trappers, hunters, miners, homesteaders, squatters,\u00a0cowboys, sheepmen, rustlers and moonshiners.\u00a0 It’s not my purpose to recount the detailed history of the\u00a0valley in this post\u00a0but if you’re interested, see this<\/a><\/strong><\/span> very\u00a0well researched\u00a0and detailed account\u00a0by the\u00a0“Lady of the Lake” at nearby Elk Lake.<\/p>\n 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.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n Mia is utterly fascinated by this particular old barn – so much so that she refers to it as “my barn”.\u00a0 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.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n 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.\u00a0 This one has extra interest for me because the Cottonwood tree behind the house is a favorite perch for this Bald Eagle.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n But not all the fascinating folks associated with the Centennial Valley are dead and buried.\u00a0 It seems that every trip we make up there we run across at least one person of unusual interest.<\/p>\n Just about exactly one year ago we met one of them within a few yards of this refuge sign.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 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.<\/p>\n It turned out to be Rod Wellington, one of\u00a0 the most amazing people I have ever met.\u00a0 And he wasn’t stranded.\u00a0 Over the next 40 minutes of very pleasant conversation we learned of his almost unbelievable plan – a\u00a0solo navigation of the Missouri\/ Mississippi river system from source to sea in a kayak – a total of 3800 miles, all of it\u00a0self-powered!\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0It turns out that the ultimate source of the Missouri is at Brower’s Spring, just a few miles\u00a0east of the Centennial\u00a0Valley and when we found him he was visually planning how he would negotiate the marshy wetland maze of Red Rock Creek the following summer\u00a0as it flowed between Upper and Lower Red Rock\u00a0Lakes (what he was seeing at the time from his pickup is what you see in the image above).<\/p>\n And\u00a0Rod’s amazing journey has begun.\u00a0 As I type this Rod is in the 52nd day\u00a0of his\u00a0trip and is now below Fort Benton, Montana.\u00a0 If I remember correctly, Rod expects it to take him roughly five months to reach the mouth of the Mississippi – truly an incredible endeavor.\u00a0 If you’re interested in sharing\u00a0this adventure vicariously (as I do) as Rod follows in the footsteps (paddlestrokes?) of Lewis\u00a0and Clark, I’ve included links to his Facebook Page<\/a>, spot tracker <\/a>and blog<\/a>.\u00a0 His Facebook page seems to be updated most regularly but with the spot tracker you can follow his progress 24\/7.<\/p>\n And we came across more “fascinating folks” on our last trip to the Centennial Valley a few weeks ago.\u00a0\u00a0Some years\u00a0ago I worked with Terry Tempest Williams at the Utah Museum of Natural History when she was\u00a0the curator\u00a0of education (later\u00a0naturalist-in-residence) and I was the biologist for the Junior Science Academy and\u00a0I\u00a0became good friends with\u00a0Terry and her husband Brooke.\u00a0\u00a0 We spent time in the\u00a0field together at places like the Teton Valley of Wyoming and Bear River Migratory Bird Refuge, among others.\u00a0 Terry, as many of you know, went on to become an accomplished and gifted\u00a0author who speaks\u00a0eloquently and passionately about issues related to conservation, wilderness, activism and an “ethical stance toward life”.\u00a0 Brooke is field coordinator for the Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance (SUWA).<\/p>\n What a wonderful surprise it was to find Terry and Brooke\u00a0so unexpectedly in the Centennial Valley.\u00a0 They were there because Terry was leading a graduate\u00a0course for Environmental Humanities students in the valley.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 Terry is, as always, deeply passionate in her beliefs (most of which I share) and she wears her huge\u00a0heart on her sleeve.<\/p>\n But the fun for me wasn’t over yet!\u00a0 When\u00a0we 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!\u00a0 Peacock has been a hero of mine for decades.\u00a0 For most of my career as a biology, Utah Wildlife and zoology teacher I\u00a0taught a major unit on grizzly bear\u00a0management.\u00a0 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\u00a0significant part of my bear unit (along with the work of Frank and John Craighead).<\/p>\n Peacock has always appealed to me, both professionally and personally (though I had never met him before).\u00a0\u00a0 He’s a self-described “cranky buzzard” who has worked tirelessly for bears and for wilderness in general for a very long time.\u00a0 I’d probably seen the documentary\u00a0Peacock’s War\u00a0<\/em>about 50 times over the years (I showed it to my classes) so I felt like I already knew him when I met him.\u00a0 And he certainly didn’t disappoint.<\/p>\n Peacock was good friends with Ed Abbey for years – he was with Ed when he died and\u00a0buried him (illegally) in the desert.\u00a0\u00a0 Peacock was the model for George Hayduke in Abbey’s famous novel\u00a0The Monkey\u00a0Wrench Gang.\u00a0\u00a0<\/em>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).\u00a0 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”.\u00a0 Made my day!<\/p>\n 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.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 Mia and I often say to each other “You just never know what interesting characters you’ll meet in the Centennial Valley”.<\/p>\n I wonder what’s in store for the next trip…<\/p>\n Ron<\/p>\n PS – I’ll get back to birds for my next post, I promise.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The Centennial Valley of sw Montana is one of my favorite places on the planet.\u00a0 It has birds galore, lots of wildlife, beautiful scenery and blessed isolation.\u00a0 It’s not an easy place to visit for the casual\u00a0visitor as one must negotiate many\u00a0miles 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\u00a0and motels.\u00a0 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\u00a0attached to the underside of my pickup and camping\u00a0trailer and had to be hosed off on my driveway.\u00a0 But I love the place! One of the many holds the Centennial Valley has on me is the fascinating history of the region.\u00a0 I’m a huge fan of western history in general – especially that of Utah and Montana and\u00a0the valley\u00a0is dotted with abandoned homesteads dating back to the 1890’s.\u00a0 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\u00a0trying to live\u00a0in 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,\u00a0cowboys, sheepmen, rustlers and moonshiners.\u00a0 It’s not my purpose to recount the detailed…<\/p>\n![\"homestead](\"http:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/08\/homestead-9936-ron-dudley.jpg\" "\\"homestead")
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