Distinctly Montana Magazine

w w w. d i s t i n c t ly m o n ta n a . c o m 13 and love this majestic land and come up with that many different definitions of the Front. So, for starters, I'll quote myself when I once wrote that "The boundaries of the Front" stretch from Marias Pass 110 miles south to Rogers Pass and extend from the Continental Divide east to where the foothills interface with the Northern Great Plains. The country exemplifies a genuine 'east of the mountains' feeling marked by wind, eastward-leaning trees, sparse vegeta- tion, great limestone reefs, narrow canyon mouths bound by sheer rock walls, along with a full complement of wild critters." The above might serve as a thumbnail snapshot, but let's take a closer look. Those of us who live for wild country naturally assume that the deeper a person penetrates the back- country the wilder it is. Usually, that is the case, but the Front is a rare exception. You're likely to experience deeper solitude and truer naturalness along the outer eastern fringes of the Front than in the center of the sprawling Bob Marshall Wilderness far to the west. The Front is the most startling wild geog- raphy in America's Northern Rockies south of the Canadian border, a boundary appro- priately known by Native Americans as the "Medicine Line." Although I am fortunate to live near the Front and have visited it count- less times over the past 40-plus years, I never cease to marvel at this abrupt transition between mountains and prairie. From the Blackfeet holy land of the Badger–Two Medi- cine, the country stretches south in a grand spectacle of jagged limestone peaks, sheer walls, parallel reefs, and deep canyons, most of which is managed by the Forest Service as GAiL MOSER M o n t a n a ' s W i l d H e a r t : M o n t a n a ' s W i l d H e a r t : M o n t a n a ' s W i l d H e a r t : T h e R o c k y M o u n t a i n F r o n t T h e R o c k y M o u n t a i n F r o n t T h e R o c k y M o u n t a i n F r o n t

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