With a grizzly nearby hungry enough to pursue a full-grown moose, we keep the bear spray close at hand that night, just in case he stops by, looking for dessert. Out here, nature still calls the shots. Ravenous predators make their own rules, and we are definitely visitors—and rather small visitors at that.
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midges? But something is missing—the dead giveaway of concentric circles made by a rising fish. To our amazement, a closer look reveals the wakes actually track the thumbsized tadpoles of boreal toads. The range and habits of boreal toads in Montana remain somewhat unknown. They are found in alpine environments up to 11,500 feet of elevation. Like their relative, the Great Plains toad, these nocturnal amphibians breed in small water bodies. If the mature toads feed just a dozen times a year on insects, they have a chance to survive. Hunkered in our down parkas and fending off a howling blizzard, we wish the infant croakers luck. With no fish biting, we leave them to their fate and return to our camp for another trout-less dinner of freezedried mush, wondering aloud if we should be frying tadpoles instead.
There’s wonder aplenty in wilderness, and sometimes magic, too. Packing up camp the next morning, we begin climbing toward higher and rockier ground when a beautiful doe begins leading us up the trail. Never more than 40 yards in front of us, the doe stops regularly, looking back as if to make sure we are keeping up. For a mile or more we follow willingly as she continues through the pines, uncannily leading us toward our “The Spires” above Upper Aero Lake. objective. Entering a lush, wildflower-filled meadow well beyond the trail system, and we follow at the confluence of two rushing streams, she narrow, snow-covered game paths worn by stops and grazes contentedly. deer, elk, and bighorn sheep We leave her behind to find through rocky headwalls our way—hopefully to a laced with glistening waterWith , we leave the trout-filled lake with a fantasfalls. Eventually, even those tic campsite. thin paths vanish as we push tadpoles to their and return to our They say “behind every up onto the expansive, goldfly angler there’s a blackened en granite plateau. We finally skillet,” and since we’ve camp for another trout-less dinner of arrive at the shores of the lugged one along, pulling a slate-gray lake, 10,128 feet dinner trout or two from the , wondering aloud if above sea level. tiny, rock-bound glacial lake Here, the forest gives would really hit the spot. way to the true high alpine we should be . Scrambling down to its shore, country for which the I haven’t even chosen a fly Beartooth Plateau is famous. when the first flakes of a fierce snowstorm Gone are the tall pines, the lush greenery descending from the Beartooth Plateau rip Roughin’ it and abundant wildlife of the lower elevainto us. We’d soon learn that this was only the According to venerable Montana backtions. Instead, we find a world of stony first of many on the trip. packer Bill Schneider’s book Best Backpacking fangs and icy snow beneath the imposing Snow or not, we’re hungry for fish. I pull Vacations in the Northern Rockies, Rough Lake shoulders of Granite Peak, and we’re on my hood, and get to casting. I notice a got its name “because it’s rough getting there awestruck by its fearsome beauty. trailing wake on the lake’s surface. Perhaps a by any route.” Indeed, we found out for ourAfter scouting for a reasonably flat and prostunted alpine cutthroat, cruising for tiny selves: Schneider speaks truth. The lake lies tected campsite on the barren rocks, I again try my luck with the flyrod. Nothing in those bonechilling, crystalline waters will bite. Suddenly, clouds start swallowing the surrounding peaks. A howling squall rushes down from the flanks of Granite Peak, and I’m forced to give up. We scramble to pitch the tent in the teeth of the storm, barely sheltered by the solitary copse of tiny scrub pines, the only protection available from the driving, windblown snow. As the light begins to fade, we crawl inside the little tent, fire up the stove and eat
no fish biting fate
freeze-dried mush frying tadpoles instead
Charging through the meadow just 600 feet away from camp, a griz chases a cow moose.