Distinctly Montana Magazine

74 D I S T I N C T LY M O N TA N A M A G A Z I N E • FA L L 2 0 2 5 Meanwhile, I asked Ted what he thought. Choosing his words care- fully, Ted reported that he thought the wall is remarkable, very cool to see, and probably natural—a single piece of the 75-78 million-year-old Boulder Batholith. The Batholith formed when magma got close to the earth's surface before cooling, resulting in jutting pieces of granite that, as they lost their heat, fractured, often in systematic ways that can, and frequently do, resemble geo- metric blocks. The Sage Wall, he says, is uncommonly straight but not anomalous enough to indicate, in his studied opinion, the work of a human hand. Or, for that matter, a reptilian claw. We then asked the other fellow, the guy who had paid to bring his family on a lovely Saturday morning contemplating the se- crets of lost civilizations, what he thought. He was politely am- bivalent, noting that he could see the arguments both for and against construction as a provenance. In the end, I think he was happy to have had a nice hike on a beautiful morning, in envi- rons that are beautiful whether they reveal ancient mysteries or not. He did not, however, manage to entirely restrain himself from grumbling about the price. I did a quick calculation in my head. If both of his kids were under seventeen, they got to take the hike for free. So that's $198 for them—$99 an adult. Kids, generously, are free. Our party, Matt, Ted, and myself, cost $297. Altogether, I figured nearly $500 wasn't a bad take for a Saturday morning. If we were actually looking, I reflected optimistically, at evi- dence of a lost civilization that built, for some reason, a big wall amid a collection of broken pieces of batholith, in an area whose strategic importance must now elude us all these eons later? Well, then $99 a head is a pretty good price, all things consid- ered. Of course, it only costs about 700 Egyptian pounds to see the pyramids of the Giza Plateau, which works out to be about $14 in our money. Ted Antonioli, a lifetime Montanan, would surely agree that if Egypt is great, Montana is positively fantastic, probably enough to justify being a little over seven times more expensive than seeing the pyramids. In his words: "It's worth seeing one way or the other, and it was a fun little hike." Higher living, grounded in Montana soil, since 2009. VOTED BEST MARIJUANA DISPENSARY IN MONTANA, WHITEFISH & THE FLATHEAD VALLEY SCAN QR CODE FOR SHOP & SOCIAL BEST CBD BUSINESS BEST DISPENSARY LOCATED IN WHITEFISH & KALISPELL BEST MONTANA MADE GIFT STORE

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