Battleground

Fouch photo of LBH soon after.


Sites of slaughter are not my favorite, no matter what the motivation for the killing it all seems barbaric and tragic. Custer’s Last Stand, now more tactfully known as the Battle of the Little Big Horn is THE local tourist stop, and there is a geocache there, so off we went.

When I first came here, some 45 years ago (yikes) there was a monument on the top of the hill with all the dead (whites) on it, a rather gothic black iron fence around the area where Gen. Custer fell, and then 2’ high marble tombstones placed all over the landscape where white bodies were found. This is all on a high grassy ridge to the east of the Little Big Horn River , looking down on the bottomlands. There was a museum building there then and interpreters I guess.

A quick background: Gen Custer was a brilliant but impulsive man. He led an expedition to the Black Hills in SD and found gold there. Since the Black Hills had been given to the Indians by the Fort Laramie treaty, they were rightly angry that prospectors came in droves. Atrocities on both sides followed, and Custer and the 7th Cavalry set out to either annihilate or round up the Indians and make them stay on their reservations. A large angry group from a number of different tribes was camped by the Little Big Horn. Gen. Terry, the Commander of the 7th, got lost in the breaks of the Big Horn, right here on Pocket Creek Ranch, other parts of the force got separated (hung back?) and Custer’s tiny group attacked the Indian camp. Predictably, the Indians attacked back , slaughtered Custer’s band, and went and mopped up the rest of the part of the 7th that was nearby. By the time the rest of the force arrived, the Indians were long gone. And in the end, lost the war.

There is a vast body of work about this battle, one of the few resounding white defeats. Generals were chastised, hands wrung, strategies analyzed, and people come to reenact the battle in accurately scripted and costumed detail.(although NOT on the actual battle filed) I guess playing Calvary and Indians is fun for some folks.

What struck me was what we have made of the event and the site since. Faced with utter carnage, the 7th did the best they could to bury the dead in the bony soil in the immediate aftermath. Later, the army came back and reburied, this time marking each grave with a post, and finally they dig up all they could find and put them in a mass grave on top of Last Stand Hill. There were numerous horses killed too, and they picked up their bones and put them in a sort of miniature wooden stockade. Imagine what this looked like, the whole ridge covered with white bones glistening in the hot sunshine, the bones of men, and the bones of horses. That would be a sight, a war memorial of power. But too horrible for civilized folks to see, so soon it was all cleaned up, the posts replaced with tasteful if anonymous small white headstones, and the bodies of officers dug up and taken back east to lie in civilization. Gen. Custer is buried at West Point. And a large military cemetery is part of the site, with veterans from other wars buried under orderly lines of more white tombstones. I guess it was already a gravesite, but I don’t understand burying more fallen soldiers at the site of an embarrassing and complete loss. Maybe it is considered that we lost this battle but won the war.

At the time, the battle was one more nail in the Indian’s coffin. Since the Indians stood in the way of progress, didn’t use the land “properly”, wandered “aimlessly”, didn’t understand private property, any verifiable act of violence (however justified if that is possible) was inflated by the gumment and the press. “The only good Indian is a dead Indian.” General Philip Sheridan.


Today, there is an Indian Memorial to those who fell “ defending their way of life”. It is a sunken stone walled area with the names of the dead by tribe, some drawn images and written descriptions of the battle and the reasons. Facing north the open side has a metal line sculpture of three mounted Indians. All black and open, the grassy hills and far away bluffs show through the figures and the wind blows through it. People come into it and are still, reading and looking.

In some places on the battlefield there are new red stone markers where Indians fell during the battle (not sure about these locations, since their dead were carried away right after the battle) and in the museum the Indians presence is equal to the Cavalry, artifacts, recollections, photographs. We overheard the ranger talk, he seemed to be “teaching the debate” ie presenting both sides of the Indian vs white question.

Since the battlefield is surrounded by the Crow Indian Reservation, the only for-pay tour guide available is run by the Crow, allied with a local community college. Also, nearly all the people working the gift shop were Indian. The Crow were not a part of the hostiles in the battle, serving instead as cavalry scouts apparently because the tribes in the hostile group were old enemies.

Also new is a road that connects Last Stand Hill with the Reno-Benteen Battlefield where the other part of the on site 7th tried to make a stand after they were cut off from Custer.

The scenery is very beautiful: the lush bottomlands where the Indians were camped are all irrigated croplands. The ridges and folds of the high ground are treeless since a fire in ?1980’s and this year all green and grassy from the rain. The reservation horses are out on these rolling hills, the Crow tribe were early and skillful adopters of the horse, and in the old days were known to be relentless horse thieves. The postcard prettiness of the place makes the visual reminders of the battle all the more poignant.

Soggy In Bozeman

Rain, rain and more rain. The creeks and rivers were already full from snowmelt, and then it set to rain, and the water went over the roads in a number of places in Bozeman. We went out geocaching, which usually involves driving around a lot trying to get close and find a parking place. A lot of our roads were blocked by water, and some of the walking trails had turned into streams too.

My recollections of the Montana landscape do not include everything green and wet, but it surely is lovely. When the cloud cover lifted a bit, we could see lots of snow covered peaks.

We went to Montana State University to check out the campus where we will be hiding the caches for the Airstream geocache hunt. I always wonder what people think we are doing wandering around looking for caches, and finding places to put them, marking the coordinates and taking notes meant we got some odd looks. Two elderly people out in the rain standing around looking. Not at birds, but taking notes. I pretended we were two professors doing some kind of study. I had previously gotten permission to do this and told the head of security about it, so we didn’t set off a panic.

That done, we really had nothing else to do, and it was too rainy and wet to wander around. I will be back there for the Airstream get together anyway. So we sort of moldered away in the trailer waiting for it to dry out enough to get into Pocket Creek.

Eventually, we just headed out, even though Pocket Creek got another 1” of rain that day, and it was still raining. The drive through Livingston and Big Timber is spectacular, no huge grades, as we are soon following the Yellowstone River east, with several exciting snow covered ranges on all sides. Where the Yellowstone comes out of Yellowstone Park, you look south into a steep fold in some very craggy sharp peaks. These were all snow covered, and it looked like it was still snowing up in there, the entrance road on this side is still snowed in. Sort of like looking at Shangri –la. I still think I would like to spend more time in Yellowstone, but camping maybe or doing short hikes. Probably not in the high season though.

Gradually the tawny cliffs that give the Yellowstone River its name are the only heights we see near by, the Bear Tooths off the south. The wide river bottomland is full of green pasture and hay and even the bluffs have a hint of green on them. The river is fat and sleek, and just as yellow as the bluffs with the silt and mud it carries. It is moving along at a good clip, and is full to the brim, but not over the banks that we saw. We get off the interstate and head south to the ranch, even more astonished by how green everything is.

We cross Harry’s bridge over the Big Horn River, which is just as fast and fat and muddy as the Yellowstone that it is heading north to meet. Crossing the big hayfields and pull up into the ranch yard, to be greeted by my friend Ellen, and now for the difficult part.

We are supposed to be in back of the new shop, where we have a 50 Amp hook up, water and the sewer line from the old ranch house that once stood here. We even have a nice shade tree and Ellen promises a picnic table, so it will be just about perfect. But, it is a sea of mud and puddles, and the rain has delayed the branding so we have to pull up in front of the shop, kind of in the way, and in the mud and not level. Don’s truck gets stuck, and so a tractor is produced to pull us to some sort of spot for the meantime. Embarrassing, although I think the ranch guys were actually amused.

This is the first place that we have come to workamp that didn’t advertise for such a thing, and we are a little nervous about being in the way of a working cattle ranch with lots to do and already a full crew. After our weekend visit here last summer, we hatched the scheme of being here for the summer, and wrote to Ellen and Harry asking if we could, working off our electricity. We are not expecting to be entertained, and only to be paid if we do more than 20 hours a week, but it still isn’t clear what we will be doing. So far Don has mowed the lawn, I have weeded and trimmed and planted 4 large junipers. I help out with the huge lunch the crew gets every day, and also help Ellen with her granddaughters who come one day a week. Not quite enough to keep us busy and to help us feel like we are an addition to the operation. But we’ve only been here a week, and branding is almost done.

And still it rains.

Yellowstone Addenda

We heard from an Airstream friend, one adept at winter camping, that his weekend in Yellowstone was a little hair raising. He had blithely taken his snow chains out, figuring Spring was here, and had several exciting trips over nearly snowed in passes. Many of the smaller roads and camping areas are still snowed in. We are very glad we went with plan B, as we own no chains. Another winter Airstreamer chimed in saying that this snowy spring time is his favorite at Yellowstone. Hmm, maybe we need to get some chains for Darth.

I wondered about the Norris Geyser Basin Museum, which looks to be classic late 1920’s National Park Rustic. It is, along with the similar museums at Madison and Fishing Bridge, a national Landmark for just that reason:

Wikipedia- Norris Museum
“…one of a series of "trailside museums" in Yellowstone National Park designed by architect Herbert Maier in a style that has become known as National Park Service Rustic. It is listed on the National Register of Historic Places, and is one of three parts of a National Historic Landmark, the Norris, Madison, and Fishing Bridge Museums.[2] Built in 1929 to 1930, the Norris Museum is sited on a hill between the Porcelain Basin and the Back Basin of Norris Geyser Basin. Its central breezeway frames a view of the Porcelain Basin for arriving visitors.”

The stone foundation grows out of the ground and the huge logs support low eaves, as though it just grew there. All the wood is painted regulation NPS brown, and the shingle roof has weathered to a mossy grey. Inside, it is pretty dark, like a cave, without any lights on as it isn’t open yet. Classic NPS rustic.

While looking up the Norris Museum, I stumbled on an article about 5 dead bison found on the Gibbon River, just down hill from that geyser basin. On March 4, 2004, they were found dead, legs out straight, no signs of disease or struggle by rangers who monitor such things, partly to know where the bears are likely to be hanging out. My understanding of the bears is that they would all be fast asleep at that point. Yellowstone NP is open all winter, at least some of it, only the road in from the north through Mammoth Hot Springs over Red Lodge Pass. There are various winter activities accessible only by Ski bus or skimobiles, and cross country skiing too.

The rangers suspected the 5 bison had been essentially gassed to death by either Hydrogen Sulfide or Carbon Dioxide. The temperature was 1 the night of the 1st, with no breeze and they think that the gasses pooled down hill of the vents. Like everything else the NPS does, there were many attached tables of gas level testing, dead bison vitals and etc, along with other NPS articles about deaths from gasses in the park. There is also an area called Death Gulch where it happens now and then.

I was entranced by the thought of the bison sleeping next to the warm vents on a cold night, and wondered if the warnings to us about staying were we were supposed to be were over stated. I guess not. Those 5 bison apparently just keeled right over, dead.

I was also wondering about the Native Americans and Yellowstone, did they avoid the place as bewitched, for example. Apparently not, stone tips and tools have been found here from just about every period, as well as Shoshone teepee circle (rings of stones). The NPS admits to have done very little archeological surveying of the park. As though the Native American’s presence somehow spoils the idea of virgin wilderness perhaps, or maybe the battle of the Little Big Horn (which happened only a year after the park was official) and other similar horrors were not the image of the park they had in mind. An Indian* on a nickel is one thing, Sitting Bull was another matter, and not good for tourism

Further investigation finds the Nez Perce Indians passing through Yellowstone on the run in 1877. Their route, the Bannock Trail, was an old one they regularly traveled to get from their winter home in Western Washington to the plains of MT to do their buffalo hunting. There were two parties of tourists, one from Radersburg MT and another from Helena MT, going in to see the geysers. They ran into the Nez Perce who were pretty hot at this point having been battling Gen. Howard and the Cavalry all the way. This band of Nez Perce had not signed any treaty with the US Gumment relative to staying put on a reservation. The USG considered that if one Nez Perce signed, that was good for all. Two tourists were killed, another left for dead, two ladies were captured and released unharmed (and not insulted in the words of their captors). However, with Sitting Bull still on the loose, and Custer’s Last Stand (oops, the Battle of the Little Big Horn) fresh on everyone’s mind, I’ll bet it put a damper on the tourist traffic into Yellowstone. There are, in fact, historical markers along the Nez Perce route which probably tell this story.

Clearly murder by noble savage is too wild for tourists, but even today Yellowstone has an edge of danger in its spectacular scenery.

*In 1911James Earl Fraser featured a profile of a Native American on the obverse of the coin, which was a composite portrait of three Native American chiefs: Iron Tail, Two Moons and John Big Tree. Big Tree's profile was used to create that portion of the portrait from the top of the forehead to the upper lip. The "buffalo" portrayed on the reverse was an American Bison, possibly Black Diamond, from the Central Park Zoo.

Yellowstone

The oldest national park in the world. The most over stimulated geothermal region of the world. Bison and Elk and Bears. And the birthplace of the National Park Rustic style. of architecture, Old Faithful Inn.

The wildlife part, well, we are so used to seeing buffalo in the Black Hills, and we saw elk at Dinosaur NP, running through the clouds. I must confess, I don't want to see a bear, they scare me. And we didn't.

Visiting a place that has had 125 years of promotion applied to it is sometimes a peculiar experience. The geysers, the deep blue bubbling springs, the plopping mud pots, and the colorful mineral and bacterial outflows are all pretty wonderful and strange. We walked on boardwalks around a lot of them, and dutifully sat and waited for Old Faithful. Plop plop fizz fizz, a dangerous and alien landscape. I actually heard someone say “ Is that all there is ?” after Old Faithful finished its act. I wonder what the Native Americans thought of this place, was it full of ghosts and avoided or did they come near for the heat? It didn’t take us palefaces long to figure out that it should become a tourist destination. Oddly, making hot spring pools and soaking facilities was never a big deal. There were some early tent cities around the pools and one large indoor pool in the 1920’s.

We are seriously warned against stepping off the boardwalks, as the crust may open up and dump us into scalding steam. It is hot, you can feel the heat from the holes. But there is buffalo poop everywhere and buffalo foot prints and smooth places where the buffalo have cosied up to the heat during the winter. Hot tubs for buffalo. Most of the buffalo have moved down into the valleys where the snow has melted and grass is coming up lush and green. We did find two grazing by one geyser area, we had to pass much closer than the 25 yards we are to keep between us and the big brown beasts. They look disarmingly tranquil, but are grumpy and dangerous.


The thing I came to see is Old Faithful Inn. Designed by Robert Reamer in 1903, the large central building is a rustic palace, using huge lodge pole pines and local stone.
The lobby is 7 stories high, all logs, with balconies upon balconies of peeled, knurly pine logs. It is an astonishing space. People, including me, come in under a low, massive, dark covered entry and stop and stare up at the sight. It is twilight dark, and has the sort of coziness that you associate with rustic log interiors, but it is so huge and sort of delicate that it is mesmerizing. I couldn’t stop looking up at it, moving 30 feet and looking up again. Architecture as sculpture. We took an architectural tour, and got to see inside a tiny bedroom, double bed, pegs on the wall and a sink replacing the original pitcher and bowl. Bathroom down the hall. http://www.nps.gov/history/history/online_books/harrison/harrison3.htm will tell you what we learned.

Not only is it a wonder, but it started the Architectural style known as National Park Rustic or Parkitecture. When the National Park Service was formed in 1916, one of its directives was to fit into the landscape, not dominate it (per Olmsted of Central Park fame and others) so a committee of architects and landscape architects was formed to develop the standards. Briefly this meant using local materials, rustic, as in whole logs rather than sawn, low profile, and in keeping with the park’s natural and historical features. These standards gave the national parks their unique look, log guardrails, huge stone and log buildings and entrances.

The Northern Pacific RR was the major funding source for the inn, as the rush of tourist train passengers meant a “modern” and comfortable hotel at Yellowstone was necessary. This included electric light, full plumbing, steam heat and a big wooden door to lock out the wild at night.

So is this the wildness that is the preservation of the world? Not hardly, unless you count the damage the bears and buffalo do to tourists. Certainly the backcountry is pretty wild, and the park is proud of its successful introduction of wolves. We were in constant traffic on the main roads and in gridlock if an animal was visible, and this is very early in the season. The next day the park got buried in snow, by then we had fled to Bozeman MT, where it is 43 and raining endlessly.

Salt Lake

Our route north was in two of the long flat valleys of the Great Basin, miles and miles with the mountains on either side going up in a smooth swoop, and nothing in sight ahead. There are a few salt flats, but mostly these valleys are dry sagebrush. We cut east across a couple of valleys, and then over a rise, the Bonneville Salt flats.

White, white, flat flat, the air a little pale with wind-carried salt. At the edges, red raggedy rocks, dangerously sharp and not of this planet. Still some distant snow covered ranges, but once we are out on I-80 in the middle of it, only a faint blueness. 60 miles of sensory deprivation, and mirages of water, the red rocks become islands, the road looks as though a big puddle is ahead, and even Don’s trailer gets wavy and indistinct. Out here they race things, sometimes each other, sometimes just the clock. It is strange enough on the highway with other vehicles and the RR tracks on the right, I can’t imagine what it would be like to sit in a rocket powered car trying to set the land speed record. Not a tree or a light pole to hang your eyes on, nothing but white, and a black line to steer by, as though you out ran your sight. I wonder if they see mirages.

Occasionally there is standing water, pale green, and nothing growing at all. It smells salty like the sea, but with no rotting flora and fauna smell, it is clearly not the ocean we smell, just pure salt. They scrape up this salt, refine it and on the table it goes, although the majority of it was used in silver refining.

The Great Salt Lake is indeed great, big enough for sailing boats and salty enough to float you high. After the mirage lakes of the salt flats, it was a little hard to believe my eyes. The grand Wasatch Mountains surround the south east and eastern end of the lake, massive and snowy, and Brigham Young’s city sits there, protected from the north winds, and green as the mountains catch moisture coming from the lake. There are many green fields of alfalfa, and cattle once we get beyond the city up the east side of the lake.

I sort of imagine that the first Mormans must have thought this was their own promised land, and it is an amazing place. We just zoomed on through, not much for city tourism. It was a long day and we are taking a layover in Garland, where the mountains have run out and it is very green pasture land. We are also looking at some cold and wet weather that will be coming in to the north of us, and trying to decide what to do.

We have had perfect weather for the whole trip, but now rain and cold and snow are predicted for Jackson WY and Yellowstone. We had planned to stay in Jackson, so I could finally see the Tetons, then go up and stay in Yellowstone for a few days. As the National Forest CG in Jackson isn’t open yet, we were stuck with $50 a night parking lots. They probably wouldn’t let me park the Airstream out of the way for free either, a trick we have managed to do almost everywhere. Then we thought about Yellowstone in the rain and snow decided to head for the Idaho side, West Yellowstone area. We then could take the last nice day in Yellowstone and bag the rest of it.

So we came up the Snake River Valley into Idaho, through the naked potato fields, and hay fields with lots of sweeps for irrigation. The mountains were pale and snow covered, and very far off. Above Rexburg, we were suddenly climbing into real mountains, with snow hiding under the lodge pole pines, Snowy peaks on all sides. To the East, the Tetons poke up over the ridges, impossible vertical peaks, so steep and rocky the snow is blown off. Someday, I’ll get to see them, watch the sun come up on them with the lake at their feet.



More snow in the open areas and hiding in the pines, and at the campground in Island Park, the bathhouse is drifted shut, and many sites still are snow bound. We have been sort of chasing spring as we go north, and right now, I think we went a little too fast.