Pristine Watershed
by Justin Black, iLCP Director and Chief of Staff
July 29, 2009
There must be dozens of streams named “Sage Creek” in western North America, but it’s a safe bet that our Flathead RAVE team campsite was nestled beside the prettiest of the lot. Flowing from headwaters born of snowmelt high on the Continental Divide along the British Columbia-Alberta border, this Flathead River tributary carries downstream a geological cross-section of the sedimentary rock layers that make up the Rocky Mountains – layers that include the oldest sedimentary formations in the Rockies, containing fossils from the Cambrian period, over 500 million years old.
The bed of Sage Creek is a mosaic of stones in a full spectrum of colors, all polished smooth over the millennia. Sunlight penetrates the crystal-clear water, its rays bent by ripples on the surface, to dance across the rocks in undulating patterns of shadow and highlight. I spent an afternoon hiking upstream from camp, wading through the icy water and over gravel bars, photographing as I went. Rather than burden myself with a canteen, I drank directly from the creek whenever I felt thirsty. The water was unadulterated and pure, even at the relatively low elevation of our camp down in the valley.
With only the murmur of the creek tumbling over river rock in the background, I found myself tuning into all sorts of subtleties of life around the creek. A red-tailed hawk cried as it soared in lazy circles overhead. A nervous merganser led her new brood of thirteen ducklings past me, running rather than swimming whenever it was shallow enough for them to get their feet down on the bottom. A young white-tail buck emerged on a game trail to browse the grasses along the bank, in just the place where a few minutes before I had seen fresh elk, grizzly, and cougar footprints. That’s the Flathead: wild, full of life, and unspoiled. It’s a world-class natural treasure worthy of preservation, and I feel fortunate to have been a visitor there.
– Justin Black, Director and Chief of Staff, iLCP
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