 I
awoke at dawn to the peck, peck, peck of a woodpecker. The altitude got to
me. It took all I had to hike a short distance from camp. We saw bear
droppings and grizzly bear tracks, as well as elk, mule deer and mountain
sheep tracks, but no animals.
"Many of the ground animals are nocturnal and have found new hiding
places since the fire," said Despain. "The numbers of deer mice
and ground squirrels have built up since the fire. Bird counts are now at
higher levels because of insects living in dead trees. Elk and bison are at
an all-time high due to more grasses in formerly forested areas."
The next day, we set out on a scenic day ride up through the forest to
the Mirror Plateau near the top of one of the highest peaks at nearly 11,000
feet. We blazed our own trail, led by Marvin Krzoska, one of the wranglers.
The ride up through the burned-out forest was eerie, and at times the trail
lay precariously close to the edge. During the height of the fire, a
firestorm blew across the plateau, scorching everything in its path. As we
climbed above the tree line, the wind got stronger until it was difficult to
concentrate on my riding.
 We
rode over grassy mountain meadows and looked out over snow-dappled peaks.
Once we got to the top, after riding over a wide band of loose shale, we
were treated to a 360-degree view of the surrounding mountain ranges. While
our horses nibbled the lush alpine grasses, we marveled at the Absaroka,
Sawtooth and Wind River Ranges. We could even see a few of the Grand Tetons
in the far distance. Beyond us lay thousands of acres of fire-ravaged gray
forest. It was then that I realized the awesome power of the fires.
Fighting the wind on the trip back was something else. That night it
seemed to roar up the valley until it gusted up to nearly 40 miles per hour.
During the height of the Clover Mist Fire, these same winds drove the fire
in a fierce firestorm north across the plateau, burning everything in its
path.
The fires burned until the snow swirled among the twisted charred trunks
of Frost Lake, covering the blackened earth and the wings of lodgepole pine
seeds that, released by heat, had already begun the process of regrowth that
would take from 200 to 300 years.
Next: Day
7 |
