Montana east of the mountains

CONTINUED FROM

LAST WEEK

With the exception of some stretches of the Yellowstone, most of the rivers of the high plains are mellow - no whitewater excitement, just serenity, solitude, beauty and a sense of the past. The water moves at an easy pace past islands, sandbars and groves of cottonwoods interspersed with a carpet of grasses and other riparian vegetation providing a home to river wildlife. The landscape along the rivers has changed little with time. A modern day floater can imagine sharing the same place with nineteenth-century trappers and explorers.

Not enough can be said about fishing in these parts beyond the mountains, and catching warm water game fish in all the area's lakes and rivers inspires stories. Fort Peck Lake and segments of the Missouri River are the most legendary of all. Walleye, northern pike and lake trout are just a few of the breeds found in these waters.

Walleye rate their own tournaments, attracting some of the nation's best fishing enthusiasts as entrants. Parts of Fort Peck Lake and the Milk, Missouri and Yellowstone rivers furnish the necessary habitat for the almost prehistoric paddlefish, which average 80 pounds. The largest ever taken was a 142-pound giant caught in the Missouri, upstream from Fort Peck Lake.

Rainbow and brown trout live in the upper reaches of the Marias, Judith, Milk, Teton and Musselshell Rivers. The Bighorn River, fed by the cold waters of Bighorn Lake, is considered one of the best rainbow and brown trout fisheries on earth.

These Montana lands are indeed Big Sky Country. Out here, a formidable canopy of sky provides a constantly changing panorama ... a playing field for clouds and weather. From the moment the sun bursts onto the clear eastern horizon of Montana, beginning its journey toward the closing of day, many surprises may appear depending upon the mood of the heavens.

It is the canvas for artful displays of the morning and evening sun and billowing clouds. With nightfall, an astronomer's dream of brilliant nocturnal displays takes center stage. Diamond dust-like stars cover the Judith Basin on a cold winter night, a full moon illuminates the hills between Scobey and Plentywood and meteors streak off in all directions. It is as big a dome of sky as any on the planet and often brings an early morning and evening light so beautiful that no painter or photographer could ever duplicate it.

Subdued topography allows the sky top billing. Summer thunderstorms build to a towering collection of billowy white and gray clouds that are then swept by the wind up into Canada or out onto the plains of the Dakotas or Wyoming, leaving brilliant sunshine over the prairie, often only to be replaced by another storm with intense lightning displays. In winter, northern born blizzards roll like turbulent waves across the uncluttered skyline depositing a quiet comforter of snow in their wake.

With the sky comes the wind. Out here the breeze has range and character. As it rakes the land, giving clarity and cleanliness to everything-there's no haze diluting the panorama. The wind brings ferocious blizzards, snow-eating chinooks as well as the pleasant smell of sweet clover. It can sustain a tempered clip one day and hurricane forces the next.

While the wind adds personality to the Montana's prairie, the seasons give it color. Each period of the year is distinct, but spring shows off the land at its best. A morning in early May dawns raw and gray ... intermittent snowflakes make an effort to prolong a fading plains winter. But this day the promise of the equinox is about to be fulfilled. The warmth of a rising sun endures. The prairie has turned to face spring.

First, the sagebrush and grasses convert to a vibrant green, then wheat fields come to life and the juniper and scattered pines show signs of new growth. Later in the month, a rainbow of wildflowers joins the celebration. In June, this new beginning moves out of the bottomlands and up the mountainsides and buttes. Spring moisture and the thunderstorms of early summer keep the landscape fresh.

As July heads toward August and rainfall lessens, the vegetation cures and rust, gold and brown prevail. The grasses take on a warm dust color. This is the hot, dry period. In September and early October, the summer yellows become mixed with the flame-orange of cottonwoods in the river bottoms and the reds of low-lying vegetation in the coulees and on the hillsides. The sky can be cloudless for days.

Sometime in November, winds from the north signal the start of winter. By now, fall snowstorms have put a coating of white on the upper reaches of the Big Snowies and the other mountains. Lasting snows begin spreading to some areas of the prairie and the Missouri Breaks. Soon cold, strong winds will deposit snowdrifts of every size and shape imaginable. Hillsides will be swept clean and ice will form on the rivers.

Winter's harshness also brings a softness - tall golden grass and dark evergreens contrast against a blanket of white, and delicate sunsets and sunrises replace summer's blazing displays. The landscape is at rest. This is the prairie's quiet time.

In the western reaches east of the mountains, winter brings a phenomenon known as a chinook ... the snow eater. These mild winds bring temporary respite from the frigid atmosphere that descends on Montana.

A chinook's presence is visible in the form of a "chinook" arch of clouds, at once dark and beautiful. If the sun catches it just right, a stunning sunset paints the arch, embellishing the entire sky with a multitude of colors. Often, these winds vanish as quickly as they arrive, with the push of a ferocious northern blizzard reclaiming its season.

It is said the mountains make western Montana, but east of the Northern Rockies, they are only a modest share of a diverse province, appearing as islands floating in a big sea. None are lofty, but where they rise from the prairie they make their presence known. The views from their summits are far-reaching and impressive. They are the Little Rockies, the Sweetgrass Hills, the Bear Paws, the Highwoods, the Little Belts, the Moccasins, the Judith, the Big and Little Snowies, the Bull, Pryor, Bighorn, Rosebud, Sheep and Wolf mountains. These highlands serve as watersheds, wildlife sanctuaries and respites from summer heat. They harbor forests of ponderosa pine, Douglas fir, aspen and willows. Ecologically, some are mini-versions of the mountains of the Continental Divide, others are a blend of prairie and alpine zones.

In the center of Montana, the Big Snowies provide a high stage to view a dozen mountain ranges. From the summit of 8,681-foot Great House Peak, a hiker can take in a 300-mile view, northwest to the Sweetgrass Hills and south to the Beartooth Mountains.

As Lewis and Clark made their way westward, the first major rise of land they viewed was the Little Rocky Mountains. Called Wolf Mountains by the natives, white people came to them for their gold and outlaws used them for hideouts..

One of Montana's most prominent ski areas, Showdown, is centered in the Little Belts, the largest of Montana's outlying ranges.

Ice caves, wild horses and a desert environment below their southern slopes make the Pryors an attraction. With the Bighorn Mountains, they guard the narrowed canyons holding 67-mile long Bighorn Lake and Bighorn National Recreation Area.

Other elevated features mark the Montana prairies. The Medicine Rocks and Chalk Buttes stand as silent sentinels in southeastern Montana's cowboy country. Black Butte, on the eastern rise of the Judith Mountains, can be seen from more than 50 miles away. Western artist Charlie Russell used the imposing Square Butte near Geraldine and the larger Square Butte, southwest of Great Falls, as backgrounds for his famous paintings.

Badlands – often described as miniature deserts - and river breaks add to the fascination of Montana east of the Rockies. Shaped by wind and water, places such as Makoshika, the Terry Badlands, the Piney Buttes and the Missouri and Yellowstone breaks present vivid colors, a wild landscape and a country void of people.

The short grass prairie is a dominant characteristic beyond the mountains. In some areas flat, in most gently undulating, dissected by coulees and marked in places with sandstone formations, it is part of a serene environment accentuated by space and the sound of the wind.

Before the arrival of white travelers, the land stretching east of Montana's Northern Rockies was a wildlife kingdom and a vast native hunting ground. Millions of bison, great herds of antelope, timber wolves and grizzly bears were common. The wild bison are now gone and the grizzlies have retreated to the mountains, but the prairie is still home to an enormous population of large animals, small critters and winged creatures. Turkeys, burrowing owls, white pelicans, elk, ospreys, deer, blue herons, pronghorn antelope, Canada geese, sandhill cranes, cormorants, ducks, foxes, eagles, bighorn sheep, pheasants, coyotes, Hungarian partridge, grouse, prairie dogs and more than 200 species of birds are some of the wild residents of Great Plains Montana.

Montana's eastern domain presents wildlife entertainment unlike anywhere else - the spectacle of ducks and geese landing to gather on the prairie's waters in the fall before migrating south, the excitement of spring as they convoy home again to refuges, lakes and wetlands scattered from the east slope to the Dakotas. Observing their raucous presence is a spectacular encounter. And the heralding of the summer ahead via the peculiar spring mating dance of the sharptail grouse, performed on favored stages is a special attraction to witness.

THIS STORY WILL BE CONTINUED NEXT WEEK