Part 6

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.

I was hoping again to see Cassin’s finches and Audubon’s warblers on the pass; but the fir grove is quiet. Sitting down to rest and listen, I become aware of a strange silence. No birds sing or flit among the trees, no alarms pass back and forth among alert ground squirrels. There is no wind—an odd condition for the Continental Divide. This place seems to be holding its breath. High overhead, a veil of cirrus cloud arranges long spears across the sky.

Moving off the pass, along the dome of Mt. Chapman, I experience anew the old excitement of this high country. Abruptly the gorge of Bowman valley opens up, revealing the twisting blue snake of Bowman Lake far down the narrow, cliff-imprisoned valley. Here again are the northern titans—Numa, Peabody, Boulder, Thunderbird, and Rainbow; and Carter, with its high glacier baring blue ice teeth to the sun.

It is not the climb that makes your heart pound now; the trail is suddenly narrow and cliff-defiant, cut by the plunging waters of snowbanks far above. These are splendid peaks, unmatched in a land of muscled, brutal earth. Even the air seems to retain the scent of glacier work.

At last the view of Hole-in-the-Wall, a staircase cirque excavated between the gigantic spread ribs of Mt. Custer. The slopes of beargrass are seed-spotted and gaunt now, the white fullness gone. Western pasqueflowers have accomplished their magic transformation; known in this season as old man’s beard, they nod their tufts of grizzled seedhead silk in the wind. Red and yellow monkeyflowers bloom yet, crowding along the many stream courses, and waterloving sedges and mosses surround pools of collected water on the broad horseshoe tiers.

A spur trail drops down into the campground on the last ledge. Through a cleft in its lip plummets the gathered water of the basin. From the valley below, the waterfall appears to be springing from a hole in the headwall, giving this basin its name. Down, down, down, roars the water where once a mighty glacier ground its teeth.

I leave until later the making of camp; by now the sharp shadows of Boulder Peak stab the valley forest and are beginning the upward assault of Thunderbird.

Around the basin headwalls, last winter’s snowbanks remain formidable. Snow caves send out meltwater torrents. Glacier lilies and patches of spring beauty line their fringes. Pasqueflowers bloom in pockets. Here, among the asters of August, bloom also the first flowers of spring, shooting up as the snowbanks shrink, making these spots of snow-free ground a patchwork of May and July, August and June. The shrubs that line the furious water are willows, still bud-swollen this tenth day of September. The coming days will bring a sharp surprise.

Winter will soon stop the melting of this snow. Could it be that I am seeing the first year of a reawakening ice age? 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.

Then these dwarfed fir, which cling precariously to the cliffs and hide behind the backs of boulders, would be in more danger than they were from their recent antagonists. Engulfed by ice, they would know the shearing wind no more. Their skeletons would rain down into the valley below, signalling another long forest retreat. But they have waited out the mountain ice before and would send their seeds again to this valley, changed however it might be, as they have always done.

Evening brings out two sleek mule deer does. As they graze, their large ears stand erect, sorting out the lesser sounds from the ceaseless roar of water. Both raise their heads and point their ears, statue straight, at the scuttle of a porcupine. A noise among the rocks draws a backward glance and focus of those ears. I would like the sensitivity of such fine equipment, to hear what deer have always heard.

Setting about the business of camp, I wonder about those animals that watched me for a while, then moved off, having seen a tent go up before. 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.

Tracks of cougar and wolverine are sometimes seen, often teasingly fresh; to glimpse either of these elusive predators is to taste the finest wine of wilderness.

Before the berry season, grizzlies grub the meadows for the tasty bulbs of glacier lilies and the tubers of spring beauty; often distracted by the scent of a ground squirrel in its burrow, they sometimes make a huge excavation for a small reward.

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. I have followed the pasqueflower run from the April prairies here to its highest bloom near treeline. I think about the triangular seed pods of the glacier lilies, colonies of steep-throated blue gentians, and the season’s last glory of goldenrod. Indian paintbrush, from white to fire red, blazes the slopes that light the fringes of sleep.

I awake to a determined rain, the moon gone and the tent shuddering with wind-blast. I try not to think of the steel-cold air, and slip into a fitful sleep that seems an endless treadmill of rocky trail.

Stiff and unrefreshed, I look out into the dawnless morning. The tip of Thunderbird is detached from its base by grey clouds swirling at its throat. A wave of sleet slants down, dancing on the rocks, chanting triumph over the buried, bent, and broken flowers of yesterday.

So I must make my escape, short of Boulder Pass. Unattainable now, invisible above the cirque, that high pass grows in my memory. This testament to what a glacier can do, to the struggle of trees and the life-pioneers that invade such harsh places, is at my feet but shrouded with snow. My hands grow stiff and numb in the blunt work of packing up.

I had wished to see Kinnerly Peak again, rising from the western Kintla valley, and walk along black ledges of the lava that floors the pass. Beyond it grows a grove of subalpine larch, stately, seldom encountered, the least common tree species in Glacier. Confined to this narrow zone between forest and alpine, it reaches up tall and proud, impervious to the gruelling climate that makes cowering shrubs of other trees.

But all must wait another year, for this season comes down hard. And the will of winter is to erase whatever summer had devised.

Tundra

Porcelain-cold, the November sun dawns in the southeast sky. The ledges, ice-encrusted, layered with sleet from a recent squall, whistle the cold morning wind aside. Rattling down, a slide of rock plunges off the final ledge, seconds passing before the hollow sounds of impact clatter back. Like an apparition of winter itself, white beard bent sideways by the wind, a mountain goat steps to the precipice edge. Looking out across the vast white void, its long belly hair and pantaloons streaming with the ceaseless wind, this strange animal, product of some unfathomable ingenuity, hesitates but a moment; dropping down from step to invisible step along the sheer rock face, fracturing the ice glaze as it goes, it turns a wall and disappears. A nimble, eight-months-old kid follows.

Blinking and twisting in the dull light, the shower of shattered ice clinks softly downward against rock, fading away like the short summers of this place.

But while the wind chants winter, life has made a passage here, and also waits, hidden in seed and root and den.

■ The nanny and her kid have bedded down now, looking across the deep, snowy basin below. Their ledge shines with the first spear of sunlight.

Far below the pass that connects Mount Siyeh to the snow-giants Matahpi and Going-to-the-sun, three male white-tailed ptarmigan emerge from their night’s huddle within a snowbank and step out to peck at an exposed mat of willow. Ptarmigan, the only birds on the winter tundra, wear white plumage in this season, helping to camouflage them in the snow, just as their mottled brown summer plumage makes them difficult to detect among bare rocks. There are few predators here to hunt them now, but they move with habitual slowness; quick movement can be fatal when summer brings numerous eyes to scan the slopes. With legs and feet heavily feathered and sharp claws to scratch for food beneath the snow, the ptarmigan live at truce with winter. When blizzards rage between the peaks, they nestle together in snow dens, beyond the reach of the winds. Ptarmigan hens winter lower in taller willow thickets, but the males prefer to take their winter as high as possible.

Now they crouch behind the wind-deflecting rocks, dozing in the meager warmth of the morning sun.

Near the snowless summit crags, a flash of brown fur zigzags among the rocks. That would be a pika. Only for a moment does it show itself, so quickly does it move.

Also called the rock rabbit, the diminutive pika belongs to the order of hares and rabbits. Resembling a small guinea pig, this sturdy creature spurns hibernation as a way to beat the challenge of winter. Instead, it spends the summer laying in a store of hay for the lean season, spreading cut grass to cure upon the rocks and tending its “haystacks,” on which its survival hangs.

Winter is a great peril to small mammals. Their small bodies, because of a large surface area in relation to volume, retain heat poorly, and their high metabolic fires consume calories quickly. Great amounts of energy are required to sustain an active animal in rough terrain, placing further demands on the animal’s capacity to survive the cold. The pika may need to stack as much as 25 kilos of hay; to keep its furnace burning during winter it will have to fuel its stomach almost hourly.

Small animals of cold climates often show distinctive body adaptations. On the pika the small, rounded ears lie flat along the head, the tail is inconspicuous, the legs are short; heat loss from exposed surfaces is thus reduced. Fur insulates the soles of the pika’s feet while at the same time providing good traction on steep rock faces.

Hidden below these rocks are the hibernating marmots and the sleeping ground squirrels. Beneath the snow the mice, shrews, and pocket gophers struggle on with their lives. But above ground, directly confronting this arctic climate, are the pika, the ptarmigan, and the mountain goat.

A triumph of adaptation, the mountain goat faces the winter day without benefit of either the pika’s den or the ptarmigan’s snow roost.

The nanny and kid descend from their ledge to search out browse at treeline with other members of a loose band—yearlings, young males, other nannies with kids. At the fringes of the band a solitary adult billy only grudgingly associates with other members of his kind; for this is the season of rut.

Not really goats at all, these relatives of the European mountaineering chamois are insulated from the wind by coats of long, hollow-haired fur overlying woolly underfur. They are stocky, stiff-legged, and deliberate, able to negotiate the walls and pinnacles with their superbly adapted hoofs. The unique design of these hoofs gives the animal great traction and stability on precarious crags. Opening towards the front, the cleft between the two hoofs spreads each outward as the animal descends a slope, helping to grip the rocky surface. In addition, the large, rough, and pliant sole of each foot conforms to the bare rock, increasing traction.

There is little need for the goat to leave its steep sanctuaries; it can subsist on lichens and mosses if browse is not available. It depends on the inaccessibility of the cliffs for its security. Accidents, avalanches, and rockfall are greater enemies than predators. Golden eagles sometimes attempt to knock newborn kids from ledges and a young goat quickly retreats under its nanny when an eagle soars by. With the protection of sharp spike horns and a terrifying terrain, adult goats seldom fall victim to cougar or grizzly.

It will be a long time before the snow releases this land and wapiti, bighorn, grizzly, and cougar wander back into these high basins. In this winter minimum of life, the spring songs of rosy finches, water pipits and white-crowned sparrows seem an impossible extravagance.

■ I am drawn to the spring tundra—to the vigor and tenacity of its sparse life—where survival itself seems ceremony enough. But it is a strange world, where a man is out of perspective. Here the plant cover is carpet-high, and distance, for the lack of trees, tricks the eye. 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.

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 among the rocks.

Summer brings bands of bighorn rams up from the valley to explore the highest meadows. Though not so sure-footed as the goats, they too have hoofs adapted to climbing steep faces, and they walk the slopes not far below the goats.

Marmots, which whistle sharply when threatened, spend their days sunbathing and grazing; they must fill out their now loose-hanging fur coats with life-sustaining fat for the coming winter.

Alpine animals are blessed with mobility and can choose their weathers, retreating to burrow, den, or rock-harbor to escape the worst fury of storms. But what about the plants, rooted forever in one spot, assaulted by an untempered sun and a drying wind, and facing the almost daily threat of freeze and storm?

Alpine plants, through their design and growing habits, have adapted themselves to the rigorous demands of this climate in many ways. 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.

Plants have various adaptations to meet the demands of the alpine environment. Yellow stonecrop, not restricted to this zone, is nevertheless able to survive here because of its fleshy succulence and a waxy covering that prevents water loss. On some plants, protective hairs covering leaves and stems help retard the burning effects of wind and sun. Often this pubescent foliage looks more grey than green, for the soft hairs mute the color.

Cushion growth is another alpine adaptation. The moss campion cushion, covered with delicate pink flowers, grows to about one-third of a meter across and only 3 to 5 centimeters high. Spreading out close to the ground, the plant avoids the major violence of the wind and hoards moisture like a sponge.

The dryad, growing abundantly on the windy sweep of Siyeh Pass, shows alpine adaptations in several ways. The energy of the mature plant is channeled primarily into reproduction: its large flower, supported by a short stem, matures quickly; and it produces many seeds, ensuring germination of a few. An evergreen, it begins to synthesize water and carbon dioxide into food as soon as the snow is gone; and its rolled leaves prevent rapid evaporation. It grows as a low and woody mat that year by year extends itself through the production of new shoots that carpet the rock. Mat growth has the advantage of retaining dead plant material and capturing wind-blown grains of soil, allowing the plant slowly to enlarge its soil base.

Compared to the forest, the heartbeat of the tundra is painfully slow. Here a plant may grow for a quarter of a century before it has acquired the reserves necessary for flowering. Contrasted with the progress on the tundra, forest succession races by with dizzying speed. Yet imperceptible as the change may be the alpine plant community also passes from pioneer to climax.

Beyond the limit of other plants, lichens thrive, encrusting rocks with their rainbow colors. A lichen is actually a primitive and highly successful association between a fungus and an alga, working together for mutual benefit. The fungus protects the delicate alga, trapping and holding moisture; the green alga, in turn, produces enough food to sustain the needs of the fungus.

Generating rock-disintegrating acids that help secure this partnership to the rock, lichens, along with physical weathering, help break down the rocks into soil particles. Collected in pockets by run-off or wind, rudimentary soil is slowly invaded by cushion plants. After centuries of colonization by these, while the meager soil is deepened and enriched and moisture retention is increased, other plants move in, climaxing at last in hardy grasses and sedges. As in the forest, pioneer species change the environment to their detriment, creating a habitat better suited to other species.

Although it will progress with geologic slowness, the rocky ground of Siyeh Pass—its plant cover presently scant and wind-rowed by frost-heave and relentless wind—will in time develop grasses and sedges, the climax vegetation of the alpine meadows.

■ Simplicity rules the alpine zone. Here life is reduced to bare essentials. Chief controlling force is climate; but the plants and animals that live here are well adapted. 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.

The Water Communities

Snowfields begin again their summer-long melt. The alpine stream, vocal again, collects its water from a thousand places. Miniature gorges drain the meadow, gurgling with the sparkle and rush of meltwater in the lengthening spring days.

Gathering volume, the stream seems to hurry faster; at the first rock staircase, it begins to sing. I follow the gully downward, drawn like the water. There is excitement in the growing dash and roar, a wind-gust sweeping spray into the air. A rainbow appears, holding steady to the swirling cloud of spray, then doubles and abruptly disappears.

At the first great plunge the water lunges outward over the lip. Like glass at shattering, long shards lance out. But the wind feathers the sharp edges as they fall.

The close thunder of a waterfall beats at your head, and your mind must shout to think. Here is water, a most amazing and most important substance. Perhaps some of this same water was once part of the ancient sea in which was laid down the mudstone of this ledge; was once drunk by dinosaurs; has coursed the globe countless times; and has flowed in this very stream before. In solid, liquid, or gaseous form, it goes through its own cycle. Together with sunlight, water makes possible and maintains all life on Earth.

Ouzel Music

A glacier might cling to a winter snow a hundred years and turn it to ice, a blue tool to rasp and pluck at rocks, before letting it go. Lingering summer snowfields might delay its passage for a time. But the water always wins at last, becoming, in one decisive instant, liquid again, and beginning its long journey to the sea. Plants and dry air will intercept some of its molecules, sending them back into the atmosphere to bloom as fog and cloud; but as rain, snow, or dew, these are soon commissioned to the land again.

Water is so familiar to us that we seldom think about it. We know that fish swim in the lower lakes, and we are vaguely aware of the bewildering assortment of life-forms abounding in a pond. But life begins in the streams.

Even cups of cold meltwaters, scooped out of a rivulet only a few meters away from its snowbank source, contain some life. Snow algae, which grow on the snowbank surface, often sufficiently dense to give the snow a distinctive red complexion, are released into the meltwater. In summer, small invertebrate life can be discovered in the standing pools of even the highest cirque.

But conditions are not good for the development of complete aquatic food chains in the streams and lakes of higher elevations. Alpine lakes, or tarns, support little visible life. Often flanked by high ridges and peaks, many tarns receive scant direct sunlight during the day. Since these lakes occupy basins that capture tremendous amounts of snowfall, the snowbanks persist in the mountain shadows, and summer makes little progress in warming the water. Iceberg Lake, for example, is seldom free of floating ice, and its temperature never rises above 4° C in summer, even at the surface.

Moving out of the cirque lakes, water is soon churning again, dashing downward many hundreds of meters to the valleys below, in rapids, cascades, and breathless waterfalls. Not surprisingly, few plants and animals are adapted to life in fast-moving water.

Algae can be found covering streambed rocks and stranded, water-polished tree trunks. Securely attached by holdfasts, these small plant forms survive the rigorous stream flow that would destroy the larger vascular plants. Several species exist, from microscopic forms to branched filamentous algae whose long hairlike strands wave in the current.