I like to begin with St. Mary, a lake the whitecaps love to run. From
the far passes the several winds gather and collect, arranging long
lines of white waves for the race downlake. Past the purple scree of
Mahtotopa and Little Chief they go, white as the headdress of
Going-to-the-Sun Mountain, colliding, collapsing along the promontory
snares about the Narrows. Onward they press, spreading out and setting
sail for the straight rush to the final shore where a line of
cottonwoods sings with a sound like applause.
Across the lake the timbered ridge starkly contrasts the finger of
prairie that claims the north shore. This is a flower-glad place, a
meeting-ground for mountain and prairie plants. Along the road the
grassland holds the conifers back, allowing only scattered clumps of
aspens.
Finally, at Rising Sun, beneath the shadow of Goat Mountain, the prairie
ends and wind-seasoned Douglas-firs announce the coming forest.
There’s excitement now, with the prairie heat gone, the wind scent raw
with fir and high meadows, honed by waterfall and tall, dank rock. Our
mountain thirst is never extinguished, and a road that tightens down to
cliff face and sudden turn brings back to our blood the ancient need to
go to the highest place.
There is sword-edged Citadel, and the snow-flanked spike of Fusillade
holding court like a queen in this valley of peaks; then the dome of
Jackson and the Gunsight notch. Our eyes are kept high, transfixed at
last by looming Heavy Runner and the distant promise of Reynolds.
Looking for mountain goats, we scan the walls around the sweep of Siyeh
Bend, catching a glimpse of the trail that crosses the scree to hidden
Piegan Pass.
Beargrass heads lean out above the road like old men conferring on the
view. 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. For
several kilometers this masterpiece of a road glides down a constant
grade, squeezed between rock face and space, twisting into tight
drainages—a road for storm lovers, wet with spray and snow-seep, its
quick turns concealing sudden winds.
Mighty, snow-robed Heaven’s Peak appears, taking our attention from the
Pass-group mountains and the hanging valley that spills Birdwoman Falls.
Northward is the great array of peaks encircling distant Flattop,
jumbles of mountains and glaciers. How are we to notice the forest far
below?
Not until we have passed the Loop and are moving past the blackened
snags of a recent burn do we realize the stature of this forest. The
long road down will take us into a valley much deeper than any on the
eastern side. Near Avalanche Creek are trees we have seen nowhere else
in the park—giant western redcedars, western hemlocks with their nodding
tops, monstrous black cottonwoods with bark so deeply furrowed that it
looks hewn by hatchet.
We take a long ride down the valley, past the low pyramid of Mt.
Stanton, final peak in the Livingston Range. Near the outlet end of Lake
McDonald, birch and aspen again appear in numbers, and the road enters a
crowded stand of lodgepole pine.
Our memories cluttered with mountains, waterfalls, and snowfields, we do
not quite realize the significance of this 80-kilometer journey. 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.
Here too can be seen the great cycles of nature: fire and regrowth, the
building of soil and its erosion, the incessant duel of the eaters and
the eaten.
In the following sections we will spend some time in these various
communities, from prairie to tundra.