Research Woes #3
Accommodation Adventures, and The Lolo Trail!
It’s interesting, a few years later, to try to write about Dave’s and my adventures and misadventures on our research trip for A Rare and Dangerous Beast. It is all so clear in my head, but trying to match up my memories with maps, I just end up confused. Apparently I was not paying as much attention as I thought I was, or my memory is pretty much shot. I’m not at all sure that I could make the same trip again (although I would really love to).
Anyway, I’ve decided that the important thing is to tell the stories truthfully (or as truthfully as memory permits). So here goes:
After visiting the Heart of the Monster, it was time to call it a day. Accommodations were hard to find, as a lot of Covid stuff was still going on. We found a place that rented cabins, and took the only one available. It was expensive, but we were tired, and lucky to find it. We questioned our luck when we got to the cabin however. Dave and I are very close, but we are also very manly men, and when we discovered that this was the “honeymoon” cabin, complete with only one bed (fortunately a really big one), and hot tub, we became significantly less enthused.
Still, it was in a beautiful place, with towering pines, and we sat on the porch relaxing, and listening to the wind blow through the trees. Eventually, we even had a visitor, who fortunately decided to just say hi and continue on its way.
When we called it a night, we climbed into that big ol’ bed and, keeping as much space between us as we could (we’re both very secure in our masculinity, but why take chances? Didn’t want to end up in a Steve Martin/John Candy situation), and said good night. Since the cabin was extremely warm, and the windows wouldn’t open, we had left the door open. Dave made a joke about the skunk making a return visit, and we both had a good laugh. Of course, my mind took off after that, thinking of all the other critters that might decide to visit.
A skunk I could handle. But there are other things out there - bears, mountain lions, rattlesnakes, etc. I lay there for an hour or more, thinking about how to handle waking up to something like that, and decided that, although it would be a great story, the greatness of the story was predicated on our survival. I got up and closed the door.
The next morning, we decided to take a teeny-tiny gravel road across the Bitterroot Mountains that follows the route the Nez Perce took (the Lolo Trail). The Nez Perce had been using it for years (centuries?) to cross the mountains from their home in Oregon to the buffalo hunting grounds of Montana.
It was one of the coolest, and most intimidating drives I’ve ever taken. I knew it would be slow going as the road narrowed from normal gravel road size down to something roughly equal to my driveway. As we climbed high into the mountains, I tried to imagine what it must have been like to travel this route on horseback, not with a group of hale and hearty buffalo hunters, but with an entire nation of people, the elderly, the children and infants, pregnant women, the sick and infirm, totaling roughly 750 people, and all of their belongings (or at least all they could gather in their hurry to escape the army), including thousands of horses.
As we drove along the narrow, winding road, neither of us had much to say, first because we were both deep in thought, and taking it all in, and later because I really had to concentrate on my driving, and Dave, as stout-hearted a guy as I’ve ever known, couldn’t stand to look out the side window. A couple times I looked past Dave, out the passenger window, and I got vertigo - something I’ve never had before.
There was as much sky below us as there was above us, and in most places, no room for error - it was a looooong way down before we would hit anything. It was really something, and probably my favorite part of the trip. Sorry, but I don’t have any pictures of that part of the drive. To get some idea of the terrain, try this link. I can’t figure out exactly what trail we took, but if you play around with the map, you’ll get a really good idea of what it’s like.
Eventually, the flat parts widened out, and we relaxed as we drove through high mountain meadows, crossing the Continental Divide at Gibbon’s Pass, past Fort Fizzle (one of the more amusing chapters of the war). It is some of the most beautiful country I’ve ever seen.
Anyway, this is getting kinda long, so I’ll stop here. Coming up next is Research Woes #4: The Great Spare Tire Debacle!