Pictures -- the Rockies: eastern Montana & northern Idaho
The Sun River (here, its North Fork) is the major drainage for the Bob Marshall Wilderness. My plan was to follow the Continental Divide Trail north through the Bob but significant snowpack at higher elevations had me looking for alternate routes.
The Bob is known for several things, its healthy herds of elk among them. If you look very closely you can see elk grazing in this meadow.
Many groups (e.g. US Forest Service rangers, client-toting outfitters, and hunters) use pack animals to access the roadless Bob. I ran into several guys from the Montana Fish & Wildlife who had just planted Artic grayling eggs into some of the Sun River's tributaries, using pack animals like Jack to ferry their supplies in.
The group departs from Gates Park, a Forest Service outpost, for the 10-hour ride back to the trailhead.
The Bob is also known for two amazing stretches of Continental Divide, known as the Chinese and North Walls. Here, the western plate has overthrusted onto the eastern plate, creating a 1000-foot high wall that separates the two watersheds.
Another picture of the wall, taken at about 6,500 feet in late-May. There was still a significant amount of snow up there, and my snowshoes were absolutely necessary.
The Gates Park area of the Bob suffered from major fires in the summer of 1988. It will be a century before these high slopes look normal again.
At Badger Pass, a timbered 6,200-foot high pass where I encountered about 3 feet of snow. I thought I was done with my snowshoes when I sent them home from Ely, MN, but I was not.
The Bob is part of the "Grizzly Corridor," a ~300 mile long stretch of land that runs south through the Rockies from the Canadian border. It is one of the few places in the country where humans are not on top of the food chain, and visitors must take the necessary bear precautions (i.e. carrying bear deterrent spray, hanging food, cooking away from camp, making noise while hiking, etc.). Evidence of the grizzly presence was widespread, like this massive pile of grizzly scat that reflects its seasonal diet of grasses and plants.
I was the first person of the season to access many areas of the Bob, but sometimes I found that I was the second mammal to have used the trail -- and the first one was a heck of a lot bigger than I was.