R O C K Y M O U N T a I
Crown of the Continent: The Living Heritage BIGHORN SHEEP IN THE ROCKY MOUNTAIN FRONT STEVEN GNAM GEOLOGIC GRANDEUR top a snow-dusted peak in October, a friend and I hear an elk bugle. Scanning meadows below with For millions of years, ancient sea- variety of plants and animals. Transboundary Flathead E-3 Triple Divide Peak F-5 d’Oreille Coyote stories, can be seen beds were twisted, folded, and lifted Unbounded by dams, dikes, or Get an early start for a long day-hike to in huge ripple marks in Camas Prairie. binoculars, I spot instead a silver-tipped grizzly bear, Crowsnest Pass D-3 diversions, this meandering flood- this three-faceted jeweled spire, divid- A by the tectonic crush of Pacific and Prepare for bracing winds at adjoining Mission Mountains Wilderness plain ecosystem is known as the ing Rocky Mountain waters among the fl exing its massive shoulder hump to excavate glacier lilies. North American plates. Successive lakes where clashing Pacific and Arctic Areas I-4 “This is his place,” my friend says. “He owns this country.” North Fork Flathead in Montana Saskatchewan River’s amble to Hudson ice ages then plowed through rela- air masses funnel through a mountain and simply as the Flathead in Bay, the Missouri-Mississippi’s slide to Rugged hikers scale ragged peaks Indeed, while we have eliminated grizzlies in so many tively soft limestone layers to carve gap along the Continental Divide, caus- British Columbia. Grizzly bears, the Gulf of Mexico, and the Columbia’s jutting 7,000 feet (2,134 meters) places, a robust population freely roams the Crown of the river valleys, leaving behind dark ing abrupt transitions in tree species, wolves, and wolverines radiate plunge to the Pacific Ocean.
[Show full text]