Nature News from GYE#63

August 28, 2025
The heat of summer

Summer has been fast and furious with late Spring snow bringing us into summer with some moisture. Wildflowers bloomed in abundance, as you saw from my June newsletter, but this is the time of year when things are drying out and the wind blows constantly. We have experienced some wildfires around SW Montana. A friend and I hiked up Hebgen Mountain earlier this week and saw planes, called Super Scoopers, gliding along the surface of the lake and “scooping” up 1400-1600 gallons of water in one pass! It was like an air show as 2 planes flying together as they dropped down to the lake, gliding across the surface as they scooped up water, then gain elevation and fly out of sight to the West Fork (of Beaver Creek) and proceed to dump their aqueous loads into the flames. That was out of sight for us, but we knew where they were going and saw them return every 7-8 minutes to do it all again! ( They can fly 4 hours without refueling) The Scoopers can dump up to 40,000 gallons of water on a fire in one day. Other ground support resources for the Beaver Creek (West Fork) Fire include 12 smoke jumpers, four rappelers, three Type-3 IC fire engines, and one Type-5 Engine, according to a press release from the Custer Gallatin National Forest office.

**Super Scooper plane/ Bridger aerospace**

https://youtu.be/6-5PeiLH4T0?feature=shared

watch this video for more info about the Super scooper

Prior to the fires taking off, I’ve seen some fantastic wild country this summer on some adventures with friends. What would we do without wild places to feed our souls? Here, where we can nourish a deep, personal connection to the natural world, we can find peace of mind and heart.

**Looking out at the Grand Teton Range from the Gros Ventre Valley**

“Something will have gone out of us as a people if we ever let the remaining wilderness be destroyed … We simply need that wild country available to us, even if we never do more than drive to its edge and look in.” ― Wallace Stegner

If future generations are to remember us with gratitude rather than contempt, we must leave them something more than the miracles of our technology. We must leave them a glimpse of the world as it was in the beginning, not just after we got through with it. President Lyndon Johnson while we was signing the wilderness act of 1964

…I am glad I shall never be young without wild country to be young in. Of what avail are forty freedoms without a blank spot on the map?—Aldo Leopold

Nature is not a place to visit, it is home—Gary Snyder

All of these quotations above sum up the experience of being in the wild country for multiple days. One has time to slow down and remember what it is like not to hear a phone or alarm or a garbage truck banging the cans in the morning as your neighbor’s trash is picked up. Being out for a few days helps to strip away all the distractions of everyday life and focus on this gift of a planet that we inhabit. The concerns of the day are water, food, experiencing the beauty and finding a good place to set up a tent at the end of the day, even as one gets tired along the way.
Below, I will share a few photos from some of my adventures this summer. My guiding and teaching also took me to some very special places in nature. I feel doubly blessed and fortunate for all of the folks with whom I have shared these experiences.