Monkeyflowers on the Clearwater National Forest. Photo © Chuck Pezeshki.

By Chuck Pezeshki
Forest Magazine, November/December 2000

You can still see the great forest of the Clearwater Country, a rolling green landscape drained by swift rivers, clean and cold. But from Moscow, Idaho, my home, you have to travel quite a distance east to get there. The lowlands have been cut—the original white pine forest was the first to vanish, hauled away mostly by the railroad companies ninety years ago. The Douglas-firs, and then the larch, followed. The last time through, in the sixties and seventies, the timber guys took the rest. All that remains on the west side of the country are clear-cuts, wrecked watersheds and twenty-year-old forest.

But on the east side of the Clearwater, up where I hike today with my wife, Kelley, who is carrying our infant son, Braden, the land is more peaceful. The lodgepole forest that grew up after great fires swept through the region a century ago spreads eastward to the highlands, the Bitterroot Divide and the Idaho-Montana border.

Today we traverse Blacklead Mountain, starting at 6,500 feet, the roof of the world up here. Surrounding us, the subalpine forest is shaped by snow and ice, blissfully unaware of the traumatic past of the lowlands. Braden is only four months old—this is his first backpacking trip—and he hangs quietly from his carrier, strapped to Kelley’s chest. We carry full packs of gear, with food for a three-day stay—I carry the weight, Kelley carries the baby, and our dogs carry the diapers.

Our destination, Goat Lake, is flanked by gray cliffs on the west side. A web of beaten footpaths circles the lake; we are neither the first humans, nor mammals, to visit this place. Mary, my border collie, drives a mother moose into the lake that evening during dinner.

The next day, after watching a gyrfalcon wheel around the lake in the morning, I fish. The three thin cutthroat I hook are only enough for a snack. After I gut my catch, Kelley approaches with the baby. We had discussed a hike up to the ridge 1,000 feet above us. Quickly dismissing the various safety concerns, we set off. A boy’s got to see the country, we decided, and you can never start too young.

The sun is hot, but the breeze cool as we climb up through the short trees around the lake, then through the beargrass and scattered broken rocks on our way to the ridge. Soon we are on top. Braden laughs, the breeze in his face. I take him from Kelley’s carrier and snug him up under my arm like a watermelon, head raised, tiny feet swinging in the wind. To the northwest, looking out over Kelly Creek, the country seems wild, lovely, endless.

Turning to the southeast, though, I know the Lolo Pass clear-cuts lie not far away, mercifully blocked from our view by high ridges. I turn back to the green valley in front of us and find myself wishing for a flat world, or at least a smaller version of this finite one, with just this disk of beautiful green for our son and us.

In his book Arctic Dreams, Barry Lopez describes sitting on a rise with an old Inuit man. The man describes distances in terms of time, as if by looking across the landscape, one can see tomorrow afternoon or, if a mountain is tall or the air clear, maybe even next week. Peering out at the steep valley below us, as well as pondering the clear-cuts that I know are behind us, I cannot decide whether I am looking into the future or back to the past. But none of this matters to Braden, who looks forcefully at the present. Wiggling, he grabs for Mama’s breast. Past, present or future, the world, the rocks, the clear-cuts, trees and beargrass can all wait. Dinner is important, and there will be time enough to see the country.

Chuck Pezeshki is a mechanical engineering professor at Washington State University, as well as an author and an environmental activist. He is currently at work on a book of photography of Idaho’s threatened roadless forests.

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