Distinctly Montana Magazine

The hoofs of animals in the Yaak, benefi- ciaries of the soft and spongy rotting substrate of the forests, are better preserved than those of others of same-species counterparts found elsewhere in the West, and the knees and hips of humans are likewise subject to less cumula- tive wear and tear. Walking in the Yaak, however, isn't real high on the to-do list. The viewscapes are interior, sightlines are usually limited at best due to the dense forests. Fully one-third of the valley has been heavily managed, which, until fairly recently, often meant large clearcuts. There are places in the Yaak that have no semblance to the dramatic and beautiful rock- and ice-scapes so celebrated, and justly so, in much of the rest of Montana: the Beartooths and Cabinets, Mis- sions and Bitterroots, Bob Marshall and Scape- goat, Crazies and etc. The Yaak's backcountry is different from anywhere else, in that it is a bio- logical wilderness, not a recreational wilderness. There's an incredible diversity of plant and animal life present in part because of the Yaak's unique geography, situated in a vibrant green cleft that combines more than any other the lush, rainfor- est rot with the more dynamic fire ecology of the central Rockies. There is not only the diversity of plant and animal life, but also a secondary diversity of relationships between species that is not found elsewhere in Montana. And in ad- dition to being the wettest part of Montana, it is the lowest; the Yaak flows into the Kootenai River (largest tributary to the Columbia) at an elevation of only 1,880 feet. NOW THAT WE ARE MOVING FURTHER INTO A DRYER, THE YAAK SEEMS TO ME EVEN RARER AND MORE VALUABLE WARMING WORLD, THAN EVER. Another strange fact regarding the Yaak and its history with water: the ice left here last. Even as the rest of the western Montana landscape was emerging from the thinning ice shield, being carved and shredded into many of the same fantastic cirques and spires and scallops that remain still today, the Yaak slept beneath thousands of feet of blue ice. The weight of the ice pressed down on the old Cambrian sediments, pressuring and reshaping those layers as if with immense bands, squeez- ing and folding and sculpting soft clay, produc- ing not the high jagged sawteeth that pierced the ice but instead more subtle, muscular, rounded shapes. The contours resembled less often the savage, dramatic geometry of knife- blades and arêtes, but rather the coiled tension and poised grace of animals, waiting to be set into motion. It wasn't the water that first got my atten- tion. It was more private. Here in the Yaak, you could take a few steps and vanish, could be swallowed by something enormous. The creeks were tiny, could often be leapt over without getting one's boots wet, or could be traversed by stone- jumping, on one's way farther and deeper into the dramat- ic thing, the seemingly-endless forest. Even the Yaak River, at certain times of year, could be rock-hopped or, in the long winter, walked across, every winter day a miracle, the ice squeaking tight and cold underfoot, like the taut skin of a drum or a banjo. The air so cold your eyelashes try to freeze-weld with even the faintest bit of moisture. Why Kootenai Falls DISTINCTLY MONTANA | DIGITAL Watch the Yaak Falls video, go to... 20 www.distinctlymontana.com/yaak123 DISTINCTLY MONTANA • SUMMER 2012

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