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Tip o' the Day

The man stooped to pick up a volleyball-sized limestone rock, rolled it in his hands, studying it. Then he dropped it, strode a few feet and picked up another. He scratched at the second stone with a rock hammer, then tossed it aside to heft yet another. "Bits of crinoid stems," he said, "and part of a cabbage head. But it's mostly hash."

I eyed the light-colored stone the geologist held. "And there are fossils in that rock?"

"Yes, certainly. not good specimens, however. We'll find better." He tossed the rock aside and we strolled on. "This land was once under the sea . . ."

I gazed up at the mountain ramparts forming the heart of the Bob Marshall Wilderness and shook my head.

". . . It was a shallow sea. Actually, the Pacific Ocean's margins ebbed and flowed over much of Montana several times, nearly to the edge of North Dakota. Of course, that was before these mountains were thrust up and the ocean margin retreated west."

When I asked about crinoid stems and cabbage heads, John Montagne, Professor Emeritus of Geology at Montana State University said, "They were primitive forms of sea life and compose much of the physical properties of the limestone found here today. In some cases," he added, up to half of limestone's properties are made of decomposed shells."

He handed over a stone with a cabbage head in it. I saw several distinct "swirl" lines that did indeed look like a cabbage head viewed from the top. "It takes some imagination," I murmured.

Later I saw fossils imbedded in the limestone that resembled sponges. There were winged brachiopods and clam shell-like pelecypods, and a host of other things pointed out to me that I could neither see or understand. "How old are these rocks?"

"Perhaps 400 million years."

"These fossils we're looking at were alive 400 million years ago?"

"Some of them older. And so are things we're not looking at."

"Huh?"

The geologist smiled and broke an otherwise undistinguished chunk of limestone with his hammer, then held the fresh break out to me. "Smell it," he ordered.

I did. "Oil. It smells like oil!"

He nodded. "We are seeing only a fraction of the animal and plant matter that teemed in this sea. You are smelling some of the others.

I look forward to your radio program each morning. It's nice to take a moment out of the day, break away from work, and let my mind drift off on your day's topic * Tim Sauer / Helena, MT

I'd like to thank you for your very interesting radio program, Trails to Outdoor Adventure. As a lifelong outdoor enthusiast, I can easily identify with your tales. Your downhome folksy presentation is most assuredly accurate as you speak of your experiences, but is also "listener friendly." You do a wonderful job of including me in your setting wherever it may be on that given day. Keep up the great work and may God bless you and your family * Monte Jenkins / Ronan, MT

Enjoy listening to you each morning * James E. Shafer / Lewisburg, WV

I enjoy listening to you on KBBS in Buffalo * Jim Dearing / Buffalo, WY

My grandfather was a packer in the Sierras in California and then my dad did it for several years in the early 40s. I was fortunate to be able to help my dad when I was a young girl. And now I have a grandson who loves the backcountry. I'm so glad someone is keeping this part of our heritage alive * Lois Kimmet / Cut Bank, MT

I enjoy your radio program early each morning * Nancy McCormick / Sinks Grove, WV

My father-in-law and I both enjoy listening to your stories on KDTA Delta, Colorado * Patty Tharp, Austin, CO

The stories you tell are so descriptive it's almost like being there. Also you have a great sense of humor * Arlene Therriault / Elliston, MT

 

BEWARE SPRING FLOODS

The big palomino stumbled in the muddy, rushing stream, lunging for footing amid suitcase-sized stream-bottom boulders. I grabbed for the saddlehorn as the raging torrent swept over the saddle, wrenching me from my seat. Then the big horse caught his footing and lunged forward, lurching one final time before scrambling out on the stream's far bank. Brown water streamed from my clothes and from the horse.

I pulled myself back into the saddle, stood in the stirrups and grimly waved an arm back and forth to warn my two companions who were still saddling horses. No way were we going to bring a packstring across that torrent.

I stared at the raging stream, gazed across at the truck, at my friends, at the rest of our horses still munching grain. Then I clenched my teeth and urged the big palomino back toward the roaring water. One friend hurried to the streambank, a manty rope in his hand. I spurred the palomino; he leaped into the flood, eager to get back to safey, to his buddies only a few yards away. Water surged and he was swimming.

I clutched the saddlehorn with both hands; then his hooves struck boulders and he was lunging near our destined bank. I breathed a sigh of relief. The horse paused, twisted, and was swept from his feet!

It all happened so quickly! Safety was only four feet away! I leaped from the saddle, thrashing for the bank, swallowing muddy water, choking, going under, struggling up. A rope hit my shoulder and I grabbled for it, was swept downstream clinging to the rope for all my life. I slammed into a rock, bounced off, drifted into an eddy, then scrambled on all fours, only to be dragged down again as my friend, rope wrapped around his midsection, backed toward the truck. Our other friend ran to help. Tossing my end of the rope aside, I scrambled up the bank and ran after the palomino sweeping down the torrent.

A hundred yards, I fell to my knees and puked muddy water, then scrambled up to run on. More yards. More puking. More running. Then the palomino disappeared into the raging waters of the Flathead's Middle Fork.

That incident was not the only stupid thing I've done during my life, but it may have been the single stupidest. I very nearly lost my life -- perhaps would've had it not been the quick thinking and quick action of my friends. I did lose an excellent, willing horse because of poor judgment and a misplaced belief in my own infallibility.

I have no idea what happened. When later we found the horse and I pulled the saddle, I noticed the horseshoe on his left front hoof was twisted half off. It's possible that he caught the hoof in a crack in a boulder, causing him to twist and be swept from his feet. That is, of course, speculation. It's also possible that it twisted half off during his struggles as he was swept to his doom.

Perhaps, though, the story explains why I developed the following guidelines to use while crossing streams during high water:

1. Cross only where access is easy and the exit point clear and easy to reach.

2. When the stream is too muddy to see bottom, cross swift running streams only if it's no deeper than a horse's knees.

3. Even when bottom is visible, never cross a swift stream in water so deep it can sweep an animal from its feet. (Horses can stand in a torrent as long as it's not striking their bellies.)

4. Swim with stock only when absolutely necessary, and only in near-slack water.

5. If swimming is likely, loosen saddle girths to allow your ponies to take on more air for buoyancy.

6. If the rider must lose his seat, hold the horn and slide from the saddle on the downstream side -- take no chance of being swept beneath the horse.

7. Recognize that in all stream crossings that you will drift with the current to some degree. Try to judge the water flow and the strenth and willingness of your horse, then pick a good exit place on the far bank that is suitably downstream.

8. "Water hypnotism" is a danger to horse and rider alike, easily beguiling humans and horses to drift into crisis situations without realizing it. Do not watch the water during a stream crossing. Instead, pick out your exit point and keep your eyes on it. Rein your horse relentlessly to it.

9. When you find a good water horse -- and no two are equal -- treat him like the king he deserves. On one journey some years after my tragedy with the palomino, it became necessary for me to lead guests across a clear, but swollen and swift flowing stream. By then I rode my all -time greatest saddlehorse, Buck, who was a splendid water horse. I rode up and down the streambank for some distance, then selected a place for our crossing that had no boulders in it and afforded an excellent exit point on the far side. As before, I pointed my saddlehorse into the torrent. In a few strides he was swimming. A few more feet and he strode through shallow water, then up the bank on the far side.

Satisfied that we could make it, I headed back across the stream, gathered up the leadrope on Jane's smaller saddlehorse, then turned Buck back into the swift running water and led them to safety. Again and again, Buck made the journey back and forth until our entire party gathered on the far bank, then continued on our way.

There will never be another horse like him. Not for me, anyway. (Buck died in our pasture at age-32. We loved each other. There are a bunch of reasons why.

 

Roland Cheek wrote a syndicated outdoors column (Wild Trails and Tall Tales) for 21 years. The column was carried in 17 daily and weekly newspapers in two states. In addition, he scripted and broadcast a daily radio show (Trails to Outdoor Adventure) that aired on 75 stations from the Atlantic seaboard to the Pacific Ocean. He's also written upwards of 200 magazine articles and 12 fiction and nonfiction books. For more on Roland, visit:

www.rolandcheek.com

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Hunting and fishing stories are plentiful, and extreme sports are trendy, but there's no outdoor writer that reaches the hearts and minds of outdoors America as does Roland Cheek. To learn more

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What are Roland's qualifications for writing about such topics? Roland bucked blizzards and avalanches by day and below-zero nights while searching out remote places in distant mountain valleys for the Valhallas he knew were there. But to reach those promised lands also meant rafting perilous whitewater rivers, fighting wildfires, enduring rain and floods, and sleet and winds.

Roland matched wit and grit and stamina and sweat with the best of a beautiful land, and the worst of a savage land. He won some and lost some; exactly the way it should be (and always is) during a life of real adventure. That's the life Roland shares via decades of newspaper columns, a popular nationwide radio program, hundreds of magazine articles, and a "baker's dozen" books of high adventure, belly-slapping comedy, and passing of secrets.

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