Greg Beaumont

“ When you enter this forest the road noise does not follow far—as, when you walk into a cave and turn a corner, sound and light are left behind. There is a surprising spaciousness, a feeling of openness in a mature western redcedar forest. With scant understory and the canopy so far above and everywhere complete, it seems like some vast, high-ceilinged catacomb, pillared by the huge, shaggy-barked cedars and the deeply scored trunks of the black cottonwoods. The floor is strewn with fallen giants in magnificent disarray, uplifted roots still grasping fractured rock. ”

“ A certain pause intrudes at the first mention of Glacier National Park, and a look of distance comes, as Red Eagle becomes real again, or the wind at Firebrand is remembered, or the flowers of Fifty-Mountain converge once more upon the senses.
Never are we quenched. If a goshawk rushes past, straining upward with its squirming load of ground squirrel, forever afterward our blood demands more. The sight of a wolverine running is not enough. Nor the magnificent assemblage of bald eagles feasting on November salmon. ”

“ Sweeps of beargrass reach their climax now in the highest meadows. In dizzy succession wildflowers set seed. Fat and sluggish, marmots and ground squirrels disappear beneath the rocks. The golden eagle must search longer each day to find prey within its vast domain.
Autumn lingers in the valleys and on the flanks of low ridges. The morning sun glints on hoarfrost, firing the yellow leaves of larch, aspen, birch, maple, and cottonwood, and shines on the blood-red berries of mountain-ash. Soon a night of killing frost will bring down the corpses of insects and spiders by the millions. ”

“ Glacier remains largely unexploited, bearing still the aspect of the Earth the Indians knew for 500 generations—a land where it is yet possible to feel a sense of discovery, sense that a single man matters. On too many mountains, man has tarnished whatever he has touched; but here the land has shed, as a fir sloughs snow, a long succession of traders, trappers, explorers, hunters, surveyors, prospectors, loggers, settlers, and tourists. ”

“ Here the wind, snow, and sun quickly burn skin, and the intense light, reflected from snowbanks, stabs at the eyes. Almost instantly, a sandwich is sucked dry of its moisture. The desiccating wind probes the ears until it seems at last to pierce your brain. Except for fearful mountain walls the only shadow is your own. Animals seem somehow remote and unknowable, as if seen through glass. A day on the tundra and you feel the want of a company of trees. ”

“ A rainy day is a good time to walk a cedar trail, when the dull light seems to shine from the wet moss, making the underleaves of devil’s-club and Rocky Mountain maple glow. Wind and rain, like light, penetrate with difficulty the latticework of this canopy; thin lines of fog develop over the bogs. The air is fresh with growing plants, snow-cold still when the first spring flowers appear. ”

“ The purple trumpets of penstemon crowd the rocks, and spots of Indian paintbrush lead like a blood-trail to the higher slopes.
Intoxicated now, feeling the fresh full force of the wind from Logan Pass, we race on. We hardly notice the struggle of the forest in Reynolds Creek far below, how it thins and loses strength in its own hard climb. We sweep past it on the broad magnificence of this pass.
Level but a moment, the road dips to a shelf on the headwall above Logan Creek and swings over the great sculptured cliff of the Garden Wall. ”

“ Ancient fallen trees are disguised with blankets of moss, sprouting hemlock here and there. The rich greens that characterize Glacier’s summers seem to begin here amid the moisture-glossed leaves of twinflower, bunchberry and bead-lily.
Later, the spiders will spin thousands of kilometers of gossamer filament among the trees. The orb-weavers will hang their webs high and low, suspended in every opening. Walking through the forest then, you will see shafts of sunlight whirling in the higher webs until they seem like tops set spinning among the treetrunks. ”

“ But with the growing stature of the sun, the grip of winter softens. The firs and spruce send their loads of snow sliding to the ground. Streams begin to sing again and soon the lakes increase, the booming of splitting ice breaking the silence of the valleys. Avalanches thunder down the steeper slopes, carrying trees to the swollen streams. Rivers hiss and rage, speeding the debris along. A spring that comes too suddenly will bring flood to lower elevations. ”

“ We have crossed the boundaries of several different plant-and-animal communities, spanning a range of climate that would be encountered on a 5,000-kilometer north-south journey at sea level.
At first glance the various trees, wildflowers, and animals seem randomly distributed, scattered about like the distant mountains. But mountainous terrain represents an organized high-rise approach to life. From the lowest, most protected valley to the highest wind-and-ice-cut summit, the life-forms align themselves, each according to its own climatic tolerance. ”

“ White-crowned sparrows sing in July from the low tops of the battered trees, though their nests are on the ground below. Grey-crowned rosy finches patrol the drier ground for seeds while water pipits hunt insects in the wet areas. High above, a golden eagle scans the basin again, circling slowly before following a ridge south to sight another likely slope in its 10,000-hectare territory.
The moon shines through the tent top. The wind, blowing more violently now, shivers the nylon and interrupts the voice of the waterfall. ”

“ Deformed and pruned by wind, their leaders winter-killed when they outreach the protection of the winter snowpack, trees become shrubs, forced to hug the ground. Size belies age in these elfin forests, or krummholz, where the growing season is painfully brief and progress is always uncertain. A twisted, gnarled little bush, more snag than live branch, bearing a single cone or two, may be senior by a century to the giants of its race in the valley below, which yearly shower the ground with an abundant crop of cones. ”

“ With the appearance of the moon the wind increases and they test the air more often now. Do they have visions of cougar or grizzly with every snap the wind delivers?
In summer these high meadows see a surprising variety of animal life. Briefly out of hibernation are marmots and the handsome golden-mantled ground squirrels. Mice, voles, shrews, and woodrats run among the shadows, feeding on the season’s feast of seeds and insects. A nightmare for these are the fierce little weasels that haunt the rocks. ”

“ Compared to the lower realms, where both competition and predation are fierce, life here looks secure.
There is a penalty to simplicity. In the lowland, the long food chains and diversity of species, the long growing season, and the abundant food supply give the forest an adjustment mechanism and healing power not found on the critically balanced tundra. The greater the variety in a plant and animal community, the greater the stability. So in the alpine world there exists a paradox: the most durable life forms constitute the most fragile community. ”

“ Whatever the conclusion of this planet, however many the acts to follow in this consuming drama—mountains coming up, mountains going down, forests, lakes, and seas skimming past like wind-driven scud clouds before a storm—at least in the scant shadow of this present age there is an achievement of sorts. ”

“ Yet once exposed, you acquire a craving for the look of tundra. Nowhere else is there such an impatience for spring—the flowers rush into bloom; the male water pipit soars, its skylark song crystal sharp in the thin air. The nesting birds are restless, for sun-days and warm days are few, precious, and quickly spent. Insects and spiders abound—flying about the peaks or crawling 112 among the rocks. ”

“ But the god of the growing grasslands is the sun, and it now proclaims itself, stretching out to make the mountains shine. With its assault the frost collapses, becoming bright beads on grass tip and leaf joint by which a beetle might refresh itself. ”

“ Thus the energy produced by the plant travels through the food chain. When the prairie falcon dies, scavengers—including insects and other invertebrates, birds, and mammals—redistribute its wealth among themselves; the rest is decomposed by bacteria. Thus, eventually, the nutrients on which the plants depend return to the soil.
When we look at any living organism, whether it is plant, herbivore, carnivore, parasite, scavenger, or decomposer, we are soon made aware of its associations with other living things, each puzzle piece leading us to another and another. ”

“ As the well-being of the deer herd depends on the predators that thin its numbers, so the long-term well-being of the forest depends on fire to rejuvenate it periodically. We must realize that wilderness is identified with fire, landslide, avalanche, windfall, and flood. Nature not only has learned to cope with these agents of change—she depends upon them for maintaining the delicate balances between landscape and life. ”

“ It is easy to see only pieces in the natural puzzle—a badger throwing dirt, horned larks dipping into wind, black ants dragging the rosette of a dead spider—and be satisfied with the scattered scenes. ”

“ If so, each year the snowfields would grow thicker and broader, connecting the shelves into one ice mass again, lilies and willows entombed, the summer heat failing to rescue them, until the ice at last began to slide, stripping the soil and once more plucking at living rock. ”

“ Meadows and rock slides break the forest as the trail gains elevation and distance through the valley. The spruce and fir thin out rapidly at the valley head, the trail climbing the grassy slope to low, broad Brown Pass. Below the pass is Thunderbird Pond, which receives the meltwater from a glacier high on a shelf of Thunderbird Mountain and is bordered by a low jungle of willow. In the water stands a bull moose, its heavy, fully formed antlers ready for the season’s impending business. ”

“ Only green plants can manufacture food from the earth’s raw minerals. This is the vital first step upon which the great pyramid of animal and plant life is built. Using energy from the sun, green plants combine water and carbon dioxide to synthesize sugar, and give off oxygen as a by-product. The caterpillar takes its energy from the plant tissue, converting to protein the sugar and minerals in its body. The caterpillar is then food for a spider or other predator. A yellow warbler may take the spider and in turn be ambushed by the prairie falcon. ”

“ Grassland, meadow, tundra, or any other area in Glacier suitable for plant growth and supplied with abundant sunlight produces an extravagance of wildflowers. This display of various shapes and colors is neither an accident nor a mere decoration of nature. Nor would Earth’s recent explosion of mammal and bird species have been possible without the evolution of flowering plants. ”

“ The merciless law of predation might at first thought seem cruel; but the predator plays a vital part in maintaining the balance of the biotic community. Without the controlling factor of predation, prey species quickly enlarge their populations. If plant eaters are not checked, the resulting excess population exceeds the carrying capacity of the range. Food supply rapidly diminishes. In a damaged range, competition and stress result, usually culminating in a massive die-off through starvation and disease.
Ironically, predators thus provide a service to their prey. ”

“ Most plants are perennial: there just aren’t enough days or nutrients available for the growing of entire plants each year from seed. And they have the ability to grow and carry on photosynthesis at temperatures just above freezing, thus extending their season. In this zone, temperatures are rarely above 15° C; the mean summer temperature is about 10° C. But a flower such as the alpine buttercup, which is found at treeline or above, can grow through several centimeters of snow; heat given off during the plant’s respiration will create an opening through which it can emerge. ”

“ For nature assigns no “roles” to its creatures; there is no “reason” for a forest fire, which burns mightily but with no intent. Life’s only “purpose” is the feeding of life, and the beauty we see therein is but its lack of guarantee: for the chipmunk and the weasel, and the man who measures his life to theirs, no assurance of long days 123 and tempered seasons, abundant seeds, ample meat. In wilderness there is mystery yet, unsimplified, not reduced, resplendent and immense. ”

“ A forest, like the mountains themselves, supports various levels of life. The floor and substratum are a great processing plant where bacteria, fungi, and insects work, decomposing the plant and animal litter, recycling dead and discarded tissue back to simpler organic compounds, gases, and minerals, thereby providing sustenance for growing plants. As spiders, shrews, wrens, and thrushes seem to know, there is good hunting on the forest floor. ”

“ Burrowing is an important means of survival on the open prairie, and life underground is extensive. Some of the animals are rarely seen—the northern pocket gopher, for example, with a diet of underground insects, grubs, worms, and roots, spends most of its life tunneling just below the surface. Others, like the badger, leave their burrows during the day to dig for rodents. Most conspicuous of the burrowing animals in the park’s grasslands is the Columbian ground squirrel. ”

“ The isolated patches of prairie that dot the North Fork Valley near Polebridge hold the great forest of the park’s northwest region at bay.
This broad valley, floored with coarse glacial outwash and terraced downward to the deep channel of the North Fork River, presents a graphic battleground between grass and tree. Lining the upper terraces, from which they glower down on the dry, well drained grass flats like a line of warriors, are the Douglas-fir, western larch, and ponderosa pine. Seedling trees continually invade the prairie. ”

“ Travel beneath the snow is made more difficult for mice and shrews and they are deprived of food and cover. Under such conditions their numbers rapidly decline.
But while many starve in a winter of deep snow, others benefit. The exposed traffic of small mammals is to the owl’s advantage. Foxes and coyotes more easily run down rabbits and hares on crusted snow. Deer and, to a lesser extent, wapiti and moose—their hoofs punching through the snowpack—swiftly tire in deep snow and become helpless before cougar or wolf, whose lighter weight is supported by the crust. ”