Waiting in the Wilderness

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Preface

I was standing against a tall stump in the edge of a woods opening when a black bear walked by. He stopped, took a good look at me, bristled up, edged away, stopped for another look. "No," he seemed to say to himself, "that is just a stump." He walked out into the grassy opening, dug for mice, then ambled off into the woods.

This grass plot was a wilderness meetingplace for wild folks. Half a dozen wild-life trails crossed it or terminated in it. There were numberless air routes to and through it traversed by bats, butterflies, and birds. Often the wild life ceased to search for food, played their primitive games with enthusiasm, and sometimes they had battles or courtships.

Often I came back to this place to note the changes in the flowers or the growth of the birds in the neighbourhood nests.

Another day I sat just a big bump on a log, in the other side of the woods opening. A family of skunks, a coyote, and a number of grouse passed near and each of these appeared to vu viii PREFACE

think that I was just a bump on a log. More than a score of species of birds this day alighted near by without giving me a second look. Toward evening a mink came out of the brook at the end of the log, looked at me three or four times, and then proceeded to take a dust bath. But a beaver who came out of the water had scarcely looked at me when he apparently caught my scent. With a splashing dive he disappeared down stream. Once as I lay on a pile of boulders a number of Bighorn sheep passed near by, utterly unconcerned at my form which they apparently mistook for a boulder.

Long before I thought of becoming a Nature Guide I moved slowly, so as not to alarm the thousand kinds of wild people of the woods who are eternally vigilant with eyes or ears for the sight or the scent of a swiftly moving object. And I went frequently to the same place and often waited long in the wilderness.

I tracked bears, hunted fossils — geologic animals — camped in beaver colonies, watched storms on the heights, going into the places where they roared the loudest, and went in search of coasting snowslides and landslides.

In every state in the Union there are numerous wild places in which if one wait in the wilderness he will see the wild folks come. Many of the unsuspected plays and ways of

PREFACE ix

wilderness folks have been seen by those who move through the woods slowly and who go frequently to the same place — these are the joys of waiting in the wilderness.

A number of the chapters in this book have been used by The American Boy, Country Life in America, and The Youth 9 s Companion, and I appreciate the courtesy of the editors of these magazines in allowing me to reprint this material.

Contents

CHAPTER

I. Coasting off the Roof of the World II. Hunting Animals of Past Ages

III. Celebrating Ground-Hog Day

Chapter I Coasting Off The Roof Of The World

AT FOUR o'clock one clear, cold Febru- J\ ary morning I left my cabin with a pair of bear-paw snowshoes under my arm, a hatchet on my belt, kodak, field glass, thermometer, a few pounds of raisins, and elkskin sleeping bag. My cabin was on the eastern slope of the Continental Divide at nine thousand feet, and about twelve miles from the summit. I was off to explore the winter summit of the Divide, to see the snow and ice fields, frozen lakes, and also to have a look at the winter ways of the birds and animals that lived on the top, from twelve to thirteen thousand feet above sea level. Being alone I might hurry along and make the other side by night or might go leisurely, stopping to watch animals or turning aside for a look at anything that interested me.

The first welcome delay came when a few miles from my cabin. Eighteen mountain sheep, single file, came suddenly out of the woods. They broke into a racing, romping gallop and scattered toward a frozen-over water hole. Eagerly they licked up the salty, alkaline dust around the shore. Three little lambs stuck out their tongues, smelled the ground, tasted it indifferently, and then began to play. By and by pairs of the older sheep played. They jumped, butted, and, standing on hind legs, fenced lightly and in a lively manner with their horns.

Large holes had been licked into the earth around this alkaline ooze to the depth of two or three feet. Sheep, like most other hoofed animals, appear to be fond of salt and make long journeys for it. These sheep lived on Battle Mountain above timberline, about five miles from this water hole.

After watching this flock for some time I started on for the top. There was no snow around, and the sunny day was warm as is common for many of the winter days in the Rocky Mountains. It was a warm climb up the steep slope. I looked back down the slope with my field glass. The old sheep were lying in the sunshine and the three little lambs were racing back and forth across the grassy opening which was enclosed by pines.

From the top of a bluff I looked down upon a beaver colony. Several ice-bound ponds were

Phoa by Eno.

The way of the wind — timberline

This, fossil htm, found in luccisiw inloiic Jormaiont of Ihe Are at Mammals, skocc

graphically ihe cvolulic: if ,ke tor.j. h the centre, skulls; at the lejt, h\nd„,x; at Ac .!,!,;. forefeet. The hers, whast shut! it shewn at tht lolKm was tht six, of a fax terrier. It W Jour complex tell in fort fool, thru in hind fool; middle lot a little larger Ikon side lets. The Olitocene horse n-cs ihe nee o.l a sheep; three tees complete and reaching Ike ground, but middle to. enlarged; outer to, of Ihe lor, fool reduced to a ikort tpliltt. TL M&en, iorse real tkl <\u of a Shetland pony; side toei complete but slender, and did not reach ihe pound in walking.. Tht Pliocene korse was the site of a donkey; side toes complete but did not reach llu ground. The Pleistocene horse was the site of our domtsticaud herie; side toes reduced to iphnts at «i all the tiling species. At this point the race became extinct in America. The modern horse, shown « At top, is probably bred from wild races which inhabited Alia, Europ,, and fiortkern Africa in prehistoric taut.

COASTING s

shining in the sun. Climbing down to them I walked across the main pond. A large house, recently plastered, thrust up five feet through the ice. The four or five inches of mud and small sticks on the outside of the house were frozen as solid as stone. There was no sign that any animal had tried to break in through this covering. Near by a green brush heap stuck up through the ice. This brush pile, made up perhaps of two hundred small aspen trees, was the winter food supply. It rested on the bottom of the pond — was canned in the water. A beaver under the ice easily drags one of these green sticks from the food pile to his house entrance, also on the bottom of the pond, and then up to the floor of the house which is just above waterline. Rabbits hopped about in the shadows eating willow bark, but no other animals were in sight.

A climb of about a thousand feet above the beaver colony, through a dense, tall spruce forest, brought me to timberline. This timberline was a stretch of forest less than three feet high which appeared to have stood here as long as the peaks themselves. That each of these ancient-looking trees was hundreds of years old is certain. Farther along the timberline the trees lay upon the ground as though they had been flattened out by a steam roller. A few of these were about one foot in diameter and twenty feet long. Here and there a badly windblown tree, with a thin spread of limbs on just one side, looked like a flagpole waving a tattered green banner. The windward side of the trunk was bare. In other places there were clumps of low-growing trees with their limbs entangled so thickly that the sunlight and the wind could scarcely break through.

One tree clump was deeply set in snow. It was as though a heavy white canvas had been spread over with one side left open. This was the place for me to spend the night. In similar, though better-covered places, many a bear has hibernated. In I pushed my sleeping bag. The night was cool, my thermometer showing ten degrees above zero, but so snug was this shelter that I slept on my sleeping bag and not in it. My fire was not a large one, but was arranged with backlogs which reflected a part of the heat into my almost windproof shelter.

These trees were 11,300 feet above sea level. This is 5,000 feet, almost a mile, higher up the mountain side than timberline in the Alps. In the Alps there is more snow and more cold, cloudy days. But the Rocky Mountains, having many warm, sunny days, provide a tree-growing climate and a place for plants and birds and animals to live a mile farther up into the sky than they can in the Alps.

A short distance from my timberline camp the next morning I came to the largest icicle I have ever seen. It overhung a cliff and must have been two hundred feet high. At the top it was twenty feet or more in diameter. The lower end stood on an icy foundation that overspread the rocks. While I was looking at a number of smaller icicles one broke away and fell with a crash. Chunks of this icicle as big as a huge barrel went rolling and bounding down the mountain side, one piece remaining unbroken until it crushed into the tree tops at timberline.

Snow covers small streams and protects them from freezing, preventing ice forming and filling in their channels. But during a winter of but little snow on mountain tops many a spring overflows its ice-filled channel. Climbing to the top of the cliff to which these icicles hung, I found a great fanlike span of ice over the surface. This was about three hundred feet wide at the face of the cliff. There was a spring at the point of the " V" or fan, some five hundred feet up the slope. Without snow to protect this spring water, it had frozen until the channel was filled with ice. Then the water had overflowed, spreading and freezing wider and deeper. This fanlike span of ice had taken about three months to form and in places was several feet deep. Over the face of the cliff were icicles of all sizes, many beautiful columns, and many other attractive ice formations.

Farther up the slope I came upon a flock of ptarmigan — "white quail." They allowed me to come within a few yards of them without showing alarm. They were white, wore white leggings, were nearly as large as prairie chickens, and made a showy appearance as they walked along the brown, bare earth. Three of them flew a short distance and alighted on a near-by snowdrift. They matched the snow so well that I lost sight of them the instant they alighted. A quarter of a mile below the summit of the almost level mountain top a flock of sheep watched me pass within two hundred feet without alarm or retreat.

At last I stood on the very top of the Continental Divide and faced the noonday sun. I stretched out on the bare granite with my head and shoulders on the Atlantic slope and my feet on the Pacific slope. I remembered reading years before that one of the members of the Lewis and Clark exploration party had enjoyed standing for a minute with one foot on one side the Missouri River and one on the other side. He was standing near the top of the Continental Divide where the stream began.

I stood 12,500 feet above sea level and looked back down the Atlantic slope. There were dwarfed and storm-battered trees at timberline with here and there a forest lake or a grassy opening showing down in the woods. There were only a few snowdrifts. Far out to the east about one hundred miles I could see the dry, brown plains in eastern Colorado.

But looking down the slope to the west everything was white. From a few hundred feet below where I was standing and westward for one hundred miles, snow lay deep over everything; forests, mountains, and valleys were all in white. It frequently happens that while one mountainous region is very wintry, another locality on the opposite side of the same mountains may be having mild weather. These conditions are often found along opposite sides of the Continental Divide; occasionally there is a storm on the eastern side and not on the western, and sometimes it is cold on the western side while there is warm sunshine on the eastern. But I enjoy all weather.

I stood looking westward at this steep, snowy slope down the very roof of the world. What a place to coast! I at once wished for a dozen other boys to try it with me. This would be the place for speed — steep places with long plunges — great rushes through the air. Hills and special toboggan slides would be gentle and tame compared with this steep, wild mountain side.

Wading out into the snow I sat down on my snowshoes and away we went, coasting toward Pacific sea level. Of course I exceeded the speed limit. The smooth slope dropped nearly a thousand feet in a half mile. Toward the bottom I struck the smoothest place of all. Here was a spring that had overflowed before the snow fell and coated the slope with almost smooth ice. Over this icy slope I went like a rocket. Near the bottom it flattened out abruptly and I was shot several feet into the air over a rainbow pathway — like a football kicked for a goal. At the highest point I looked down into the tops of timberline trees.

After twenty or thirty feet through the air I came back to earth and swept forward and downward at a hair-raising pace. One of the dwarfed little trees that barely stuck up through the snow caught into my snowshoe and hung on. The shoe was torn off and left hanging on the tree top, while I tumbled head over heels into four feet of snow. But this was the greatest coast I had ever had. I looked back up the slope along the mark I had made. It would be sundown in about two hours, and it would take about that long to climb up to the place where I had started to coast. But rescuing the snowshoe I climbed up the slope and slid off the roof of the world again.

COASTING ii

It was dark when this coast ended. Pushing my sleeping bag into a loose snowdrift, I brushed the snow off myself and slipped into the bag, planning after a sleep to get up, make a fire, and have supper — of raisins — but I slept through the night.

It was not yet daylight when I awoke, but I concluded to have another royal coast. I again climbed the slope and down I rushed, landing several hundred feet to the north and a quarter of a mile below my night camp.

After getting my sleeping bag I went on down the slope where I found tracks of many kinds in the deep snow in the forest. There were stitch-like tracks of mice, big tracks of snowshoe rabbits, trails of squirrels to their supplies of winter cones under the : snow, and tracks made by grouse, camp birds, and crested jays. I came upon the place where a mouse had peeped out of a hole in the snow and had been captured by an owl. At another place a coyote, after miles of zigzag wandering, had surprised and captured a grouse beneath a snow-covered bush. I crossed the tracks of a three-footed snowshoe rabbit followed by the tracks of a wildcat and wished I knew their story. But at last I came to the tracks of big animals — just what I was looking for.

In snowy regions the moose, deer, and elk have winter ways which enable them to make a living and to outwit enemies. A number collect in a small area as the snow begins to deepen and keep the snow well trampled down so that they can walk on top of it. Crisscross trails and their connected trampled spaces enable the animals to run about, to retreat, to fight off their enemies, and to find something to eat. In autumn they eat the mosses and dry grass, as the snow deepens the twigs and leaves on the low-growing shrubbery — alder, willow, and birch — and as they trample the deepening snow and still keep on top of it they feed upon the low limbs of the aspen and other trees and spruce and hemlock needles.

I came upon the winter yard of thirty or forty deer — a trampled space of a half mile along the fish-hook course of a mountain stream. A stretch of trampled trail passed beneath arching willows. At one point there was a small, wet and spongy area on both sides of the stream where much of the snow had melted as it fell. Over this the deer had repeatedly trampled, eating the leaves and stalks of the blue Mertensia and other plants. These were still green, having been crushed down and preserved beneath the first snowfall.

One steep stretch of the stream was very swift and, together with the trampling in, it had not frozen over. Here in the open water the deer had eaten all of the moss and water plants within reach. Near the point of the "yard" a snowslide had come down from the long slope above, carrying off nearly all of the snow in its path and clearing a space about two hundred feet wide and several hundred feet long. Over this cleared space the deer had trampled, eating the exposed dead vegetation. In it they had often sunned themselves and lain down.

A deer yard full of animals is not to be seen every day. So I decided not to go farther but to have a look into every corner of this yard, and also to watch these big-eared, white-tailed fellows. If I wanted other excitement there was a deep, dark canon near by that might be looked into. Near the yard I made a permanent camp. I built a fire in front of a cliff which soon melted the snow and made a little dry open place for my sleeping bag. I usually kept a fire going all night, rising two or three times to put on wood. Before getting into the sleeping bag I took off my shoes and put on a pair of moccasins, leaving all of my other clothes on. The canvas lining of my sleeping bag was removed each day and aired.

I ranged around this deer yard for two days. In walking through and around it I occasionally came close to the deer. They retreated without great alarm, usually over several of the crisscrossing trails, to another part of the yard. Lion tracks leading into the yard from the woods showed that a lion had sneaked upon the deer. But evidently he had been outwitted.

Climbing down into a deep, snowy canon, a tree limb that I was clinging to broke and I tumbled forward. In falling I had a glimpse of a fresh bear track in the snow where I was to alight. I had been hoping to see a bear track but when I landed upon this one I did not know what to do with it. Quickly scrambling to my feet I looked all around but could see only a few yards off because of thick timber. Suddenly I, heard a furry rustle behind. I turned quickly, stepped on a snowshoe, and took another header. A camp bird behind me gave a low call. Then I braced up.

A bear track at any time is exciting enough, but it is a hair-raising surprise to fall upon one in a canon. From where I stood I could see that this fellow had reared up with forepaws against a tree limb and I suppose looked and listened. Closer to me the mixed-up tracks and a bunch of hair on a limb showed that he had been scratching his back. Moving slowly and softly from tree to tree I slipped forward. The tracks entered a regular trail deep in the snow where this bear had gone back and forth. I followed this, cautiously, to the side of a dark wooded canon where there was a bear den.

From the den the trail led up the side of a canon, across a little opening in the forest, and then on top of a large crag. Here in the sunshine the bear could see in all directions. Apparently this bear had come forth from his den a number of times and made his way to this crag to enjoy a sun bath.

Nearly all bears hibernate. Grizzly bears in the Rockies near my home hibernate from three to five months. I have found their dens in the side of a canon beneath the roots of a tree, beneath a number of fallen logs, or in a little tunnel in a gravelly mountain side; and a few times I have found dens beneath a regular haystack of limbs, trash, grass, and bark which the bear piled up and then crawled into. With his stomach empty, about the first of December, the bear crawls into his den and goes to sleep. He appears not to eat or drink anything until the next spring. But grizzly bears, and perhaps other bears, occasionally come forth toward spring for an airing or for exercise.

I started to return to my camp by the cliff, but on the way I encountered another fresh grizzly bear track. I back-tracked this, planning to examine his abandoned den. But it was close to night when I arrived, and as I was several miles from camp I thought to spend the night in the den. The gravelly floor was perfectly clean except for a few bits of dried skin off his feet and some hair, but the den was too smelly. So out I went to spend the night in the open without my sleeping bag. A short distance from the den I found a cave-like place between large rocks. Cutting a number of small tree limbs I stuffed these into the larger openings between rocks and shut off the wind in that direction. Then using a snowshoe I scooped out the snow and started a small fire burning all over the floor of the cave to warm and dry it.

I was in the edge of a forest of fire-killed trees and there was plenty of wood. Although it was rather snowy handling I gathered a quantity. I laid down three short logs in front of the opening, across these laid smaller ones, and on top of these piled still smaller ones, with kindling at the top.

Pushing the small fire to the front I set fire to this big pile at the top so that it would burn slowly. On the fire-warmed ground I slept three hours without wakening. Then the fire had pretty well burned down; my thermometer said it was ten below zero. But there was no air stirring and the night was surprisingly calm. Throwing on more wood I had another sleep. On awakening I started to trail the bear.

I did not have a gun, but the wilds are one of the safest places in the world without one. Bears attempt to kill only those who attempt to kill them, and I hadn't any notion of trying this. What I was doing in the way of camping any boy could do, and it wouldn't cost much, either. My equipment was not at all expensive. About all there was to it was the sleeping bag and the snowshoes. Of course I always carried a camera.

Trailing this bear took me within a quarter of a mile of my camp. So I got my sleeping bag, thinking to be better prepared for the next night in case I trailed the bear far away. After wandering about in the woods for some miles the bear struck straight for the top of the Continental Divide. At two o'clock in the afternoon I followed his tracks over the top and started down the eastern slope. We then were at least fifteen miles from his former den. On reaching timberline on the eastern side he started along the mountain side as though going to a definite place, so I walked slowly, keeping a sharp lookout for him. At last, looking with my field glass, I saw him sitting in the sunshine by a hole which evidently was the entrance to an old den.

After watching him for some time he rolled over in the snow, rubbed his back, then went into the hole. Apparently he had become tired of his former den or for some other cause had made a change. Probably he had used this second den before.

Although I had planned to call on settlers on the western slope, I found that a bear had led me half way home. I had not seen a single person or passed even a deserted house.

My days for this vacation were numbered and as I was now on the eastern side of the Divide, I started homeward over the twenty-mile stretch to my cabin. The coyotes yelped merrily under the stars. I could readily see to travel at night. At about one o'clock in the morning I threw my sleeping bag on the floor of my cabin.

Chapter II Hunting For The Animals Of Past Ages

YEARS ago I arrived in a camp on the John Day River, Oregon, where a party of scientists were digging out fossils — the mineralized bones of prehistoric animals. Two geologists were examining a fragment of a sabretoothed tiger that had just been brought in. When I told the scientist in charge of my desire to see prehistoric animals, he replied that he would be only too glad to have me stay in camp and explore the surrounding country for fossils. This was exactly what I wanted to do.

The following morning, feeling like a mighty hunter, I set off, armed with only a pick, to hunt for the giants of old. Two miles or so from camp I began climbing the steep north wall of the canon, having been told to look for " sign " in the walls of every canon. I knew something of trailing horses and had tracked and trailed wild animals with a kodak, but hunting for extinct otters, beavers, elephants, and wild dogs proved just as exciting. The prehistoric life in this region had lived in what geologists call the Oligocene Epoch, three or four million years ago.

High up on the side of the caiion wall I looked down into the tops of the tall spruces growing near the river. The water was foaming and roaring through bouldery rapids. Numbers of ravens flew about or sat black and solemn on rock points at the top of the caiion.

In places the ashen rock was crumbly, the caiion ledges narrow, and parts of the wall nearly perpendicular. My previous Rocky Mountain climbing experiences were now useful. Little by little I explored half a mile along the face of the wall. This brought me close to the skyline. The wall above me was perpendicular and if I could climb upon that yellowish out-jutting rock I could then reach the rim and pull myself to the top. As the out-jutting rock was large enough to support an elephant, and as it showed no crack, I climbed carefully upon it. But as I straightened up and was balancing on it the thing broke off.

My pick was fastened on my back but it loosened, dropped, and glanced from a rock far out into space. I saw it as I fell away. But I struck several feet below in a collection of volcanic ashes and gravel, then rolled and slid thirty feet farther before I could stop. Quarts of sand and ashes had gone down my open shirt

The spring break-up

V- S. Oialotual Sunry

An old sea bottom. Rocks carry fossils uncovered by ages of erosion. Smokestack Rock, Nebraska collar. I stripped and did dry cleaning before going down to the river for my pick. My left thumb was swollen to twice its usual size, and there was a noticeable bump on my forehead. But I was a fossil hunter.

While shaking out the gravel I was attracted by a piece of the rock that had broken from the canon wall and given me the tumble. I picked up the small, brittle fragment. It was a fossil. Most fossils are brittle, and during the weeks of cliff climbing that followed I saw many fossils projecting from the walls but did not use them for steep rock climbing.