By Rick Graetz
University of Montana 

Montana east of the mountains

A celebration of an uncommon landscape

 

November 11, 2022

Rick and Susie Graetz

Powder River, near Miles City

One June evening a few years back found us at the site of Chief Joseph's surrender, just beyond the northern slopes of the Bear Paw Mountains. A thunderstorm was tailing off in a cloud-laden sky. On the western horizon, a widening gap revealed a setting sun.

As a prelude to an unfolding concert the elements and the heavens merged. As pastel hues of crimson tinted the breaking clouds, the sun slowly disappeared from sight. Just when we thought the drama was complete, the pinks intensified and began to blend with shades of purple, blue, orange and red. Soon a burning sky in all directions bathed the earth in enchanting light. The tops of the Bear Paw picked up an orange flame, to the east the Little Rockies glowed in gold, and far to the south and north, lightning bolts danced like fireworks. Montana east of the mountains was suspended in an exceptionally brilliant yet dreamlike display as the day came to a close.

Magnificent sunsets and sunrises are common in this uncommon landscape, a region encompassing two-thirds of Montana. The imposing Rocky Mountain Front defines its western flank, the sweep of the open terrain flows east from here. On the north, it stretches 460 miles from Browning and the east slopes of Glacier National Park to the North Dakota line just beyond Sidney. Somewhat less defined, the central boundary begins in the valley of the upper Musselshell River, near Harlowton, and reaches for 300 miles to our state's eastern edge. On the south, it's 250 miles as the golden eagle glides, from Red Lodge and the east face of the Beartooth Mountains following the Wyoming border to the South Dakota line.

A distinct region unto itself, and one of America's great pieces of geography, this corner of the Great Plains harbors unique landforms. Grand scenes - badlands, sculptured sandstone, river breaks, canyons, wilderness grasslands, wildlife refuges, lakes and island mountain ranges - intermingle with smaller bits of geologic wonderment. Space, much of it undisturbed, is its greatest commodity. This vast territory of unending sky delivers a feeling of no borders or confinement where a human can stretch and breathe.

At first, the openness, the immensity and the distances may seem overpowering. Gradually, though, you get comfortable with it all; then you notice the beauty and splendor. Not just the imposing geologic structures, but also the abundance of simple grandeur ... cottonwoods along a small creek; a lone tree silhouetted on a hillside; waves of wheat dancing in the summer wind; the first rays of sun illuminating sandstone cliffs; delicate snow patterns drifted against a weathered barn; the northern lights shimmering across the night sky; antelope moving quietly through sagebrush-covered prairie and the soft fusion of earth and sky on horizons that seem endless.

Striking features command your attention ... the 1,000-foot deep canyons of the Missouri River; the enormity of Fort Peck Lake; stately prairie buttes; isolated mountain ranges including the Little Rockies and Big Snowies; the Makoshika and Terry badlands and the canyons of the Bighorn River.

Montana's mightiest waterways have carved their routes through this territory. Born of mountain snows and springs, the prairie gives them room to grow. They are fabled waters ... the Missouri, the Yellowstone, the Marias, the Judith, the Bighorn, the Powder, the Tongue, the Milk and the Musselshell. The wide Missouri and the free-flowing Yellowstone were routes of exploration for Meriwether Lewis, William Clark and other adventurers.

In legend, scenic beauty and recreation, the Missouri stands out. It was the goal of the first fur hunters and of Thomas Jefferson in 1803 as he planned the exploration of the Louisiana Territory.

Serving as a lifeline to Montana, the "Big Muddy," as it is sometimes called, played a major role in creating our state. Among other epics in our history, it witnessed the era of the fur traders, the discovery of gold, Native American trials and tribulations and steamboat travel to Fort Benton ... Montana's birthplace. Indeed it helped open the west like no other route.

The Missouri's flow is launched at the meeting of the waters near Three Forks in western Montana. Here the Madison, Jefferson and Gallatin rivers join to power the big river. En route north and east, it picks up more volume from the Dearborn, Teton, Marias, Judith, Musselshell, Milk and other tributaries.

A now great waterway passes silently through some of the most remote and least inhabited country in the West. Nearly 150 miles of the river, beginning at Fort Benton, have been designated as the Upper Missouri River Breaks National Monument ... protected forever. Its eastern reaches meander through the rugged Missouri Breaks and the huge Charles M. Russell National Wildlife Refuge. At Fort Peck, a dam has turned the river into the fourth-largest reservoir in the world-125-mile long Fort Peck Lake, a Montana treasure with a shoreline of 1,600 miles.

As for the Yellowstone River, French trappers, well before Lewis and Clark, entered the lower part naming it "La Roche Jaune" for the tint of the river rocks at low water.

Montana's Yellowstone River drains a 70,000-square mile piece of the west in grand fashion. It gathers some of the finest mountain and prairie topography on the planet ... peaks reaching past 12,000 feet in elevation, the largest high mountain lake on the continent, dense evergreen forests, buttes, colorful badlands, deep canyons, sweet smelling sage and juniper covered hills. Once serving as "a moving highway" into the wilderness, this unique river mirrored the passage of millions of bison, the travels of the Corps of Discovery, creation of the nation's first national park, the foundations of a state and the unfortunate ousting of the regions first occupants - the great Indian population.

Today it provides recreation, irrigation and beauty to Montana east of the mountains. This, the largest undammed river in North America, begins its flow from the north face of Younts Peak in the Teton Wilderness, south of Yellowstone National Park in the Wyoming high country. From there it rushes 670 miles to meet the Missouri in North Dakota, just beyond the Montana line.

It gains strength from waters pouring out of the Absaroka-Beartooth ... the Boulder, Stillwater and Clarks Fork and farther downriver from the Bighorn, Tongue and Powder.

THIS STORY WILL BE CONTINUED NEXT WEEK

 

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