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Brief Encounters with the Richest Man on Earth
Updated: 5 days ago
Cabinet Mountain Wilderness Trip Report
Day 1
Setting my camera atop a still warm car, I took in a shallow breath of mountain air. Containing notes of cedar and sweet earth, the scent was familiar. I had met it on the north end of the Cabinet Mountains two weeks earlier. The trip had been one for the books. Dramatic landscape, incredible weather, abundant wildlife, stimulating light and a challenging, yet interesting route, the experience had greatly exceeded what little expectations I had placed on it.
Going into that first Wilderness to Wilderness trip, I had worked really hard on neutralizing expectations. A summer of high anxiety and an extended depressive spell had led me back to buddhism and mindfulness. Like a flat spot just large enough for a one-person tent, the teachings of buddha, as translated to me, the lay American, had become a refuge. Confronting suffering through processes focused on cultivating presence deeply resonate with me. It feels as true to the human experience as anything I’ve encountered. And it was with a buddhist mindset I had entered the Cabinet Mountain Wilderness two weeks earlier. I was on that first trip, in short, present.
But, in the intervening period I had lost my way. Business stress paired with a decrease in my spiritual practice had triggered a reversion to my old habit nature. I had, in the days leading up to this second trip, been rushing around, worrying about everything I could get my grubby little mind on and feeling generally dysregulated. I was, in short, not present.
And so it was that I shouldered my pack and began the walk to my destination for the day, a large subalpine lake. For the first several miles the trail paralleled and variously crisscrossed a tumbling creek under a dense canopy of young cedars. The trail itself was an old roadbed that serviced a long defunct gold and silver mining operation. Many of the buildings, large sheet metal things, remain today. The road ended at a waterfall and what appeared to be the heart of the mining operation. A gate prohibited entrance into a 800-foot mining shaft. Whether or not the mine produced the riches I supposed its owners sought, I was unable to deduce in a cursory web search. The base of the waterfall was littered with rusted mining equipment. I shot some video and took a snack break seated atop a large concrete block.
Beyond the waterfall, the trail climbed the headwall up to the lake. I crossed the Cabinet Mountain Wilderness boundary sign just shy of the water. Wow! What a scene. The narrow glacially carved valley held a mile-long lake flanked by mountains sharply rising 2,500 feet on either side. Looking towards the head of the lake, the valley narrowed, gently rising to a saddle. If it was early fall two week’s earlier, it was peak now. The landscape was technicolor. Every shade of the warm end of the color spectrum was present.
I quickly made camp on the peninsula near the lake’s outlet. But I couldn’t relax. I felt distinctly uneasy. My anxious brain began scanning for threats.
First, my left knee hurt,
then left hip.
Maybe I have a headache? My stomach is churning. Oh no!!!
What do I think I am doing here!?
Alone, in the backcountry, with a mountain of medical problems.
I gotta get out of here!!!
Slow down,
deep breath,
Another one,
and another.
One more.
I felt the soft edge of a panic attack near and then, consciously breathing, a vague sense of ease. I didn’t feel fully settled, but I felt in control. My body still hurt in mysterious ways, but I knew I was safe. Breathing had made it so. I felt the ‘gap’ I had read about on my previous trip to the Cabinets. The space where you, for a moment, pull back, and see the situation clear-eyed, without the myriad emotional overtones of an overstimulated mind-body. In such moments, thoughts, worries and fears reveal themselves to be nothing more fickle externalities, separate from self.
That gap, deep presence, was just enough for me to pick up my camera and get curious. Sunset was an hour away and golden light had begun spilling into the valley I had hiked up. The light skimmed a ridge draped in golden larch. The gap widened. Suddenly, I was power walking down the trail, then picking my way through rocks up a talus - basketball-sized rocks - slope. I lost myself in the movement. I was free. I rapidly deployed my tripod, fine-tuned the composition and dialed in the settings. The scene was transcendent. Click and look, click and look. Golden light, golden meadow and golden trees, I had found what the miner’s sought. Gold. Everywhere.
Click and look. The light began to fade. Breathe and look, breathe and look.
That thirty minutes immersed in the moment, in the gap, had calmed me down. Yes, my left knee ached, but it no longer commanded my complete attention. It was background, supplanted by a foreground of rich sensory experiences. I could proceed.
I returned to camp, stored my food and drifted off.
Day 2
Predawn light was just enough for me to click off my headlamp as I scrambled up the steep slope on the east side of the lake. Clear skies promised more golden light. My goal for sunrise was to capture an image of the lake with the peak above it aglow. I found a nice little perch free of obstructions ~300 feet above lake where such a shot was possible. A mountain goat kid hollared for its mom a few hundred feet above me. I stayed alert for rocks made airborne by the traipsing goats.
Soft orange light began to appear on the summit of the peak. I skipped the tripod in favor of nimble movement with the camera, capturing a variety of compositions. This was thrilling photography! I scrambled around, clicking and shouting my praise for the scene. What a place!
After an hour with the vista, the full spectrum of visible wavelengths reached the landscape, the light changing from orange to yellow and finally to white. On my descent back to camp, I had a slow motion slip on beargrass, laying me down on the slope. At eye level, a small fern shown through red and yellow leaves. What a lovely little scene. Remaining in the position I had fallen into, I dispatched my camera from my shoulder clip and snapped a couple of shots.
I packed up camp and began walking. Officially, the trail ended at the lake, so I was pleased to find a fairly well established user trail on the west side of the lake in the direction of pass. My route would take me along the lake up to the pass and then up a ridge to an unnamed peak where I hoped to camp as close to its summit as was reasonable (flat spot, water). The summit of the unnamed peak, according to to maps, seemed to allow for a composition featuring the Cabinet Mountain Wilderness with the Great Burn Recommended Wilderness framed between two peaks. My plan was to camp up there for two nights - two sunset/sunrise cycles - to maximize chances of refining a composition made alive by interesting light. Of course, this was all theoretical. I had to get there first.
The user trail took me into a little hanging valley below the pass. The color palette was exquisite. Massive monochromatic boulders, originating from the cliffs above were scattered amongst peak fall foliage. I walked slowly, not wanting to miss a place like this. I reasoned if I couldn’t make it up to the unnamed peak, I would spend the next two nights on and around this magical little valley. Water was abundant, seeping and springing out of fissures in the rock. Hidden aquifers stored immense amounts of the freshest water money can’t buy. The Cabinet Mountains, being the highest range as you head east from the Cascades across Eastern Washington and the panhandle of Idaho, catch more Pacific Northwest moisture than any other range in Montana outside of Glacier National Park. The west side of the range receives up to 100 inches of precipitation a year, much of that falling as snow in the high country, melting in the spring/summer, seeping through the porous rocks and replenishing the aquifers that filter some of North America’s purest water. A better system for water collection and purification couldn’t be designed, not at this scale. It’s perfect.
I dropped my pack at the top of the pass and took lunch. 1,000 feet of climbing in 1/3 mile separated me from my destination. My pack felt heavy. It was heavy. On this trip, I had a medium format camera system (102 megapixels for the high resolution Wilderness to Wilderness image), full frame camera system (45 megapixels for wildlife and incidental images) and a more substantial tripod up to the task of the larger camera. As much as I felt my weary body, I felt a surge of excitement looking up the ridge. Lunch was short. I hoisted my pack, shortened my trekking poles and slowly plodded upwards. After a couple hundred feet, the slope steepened into sparse subalpine firs with slippery beargrass underfoot. I took advantage of the sturdy little trees, softly grabbing their thin trunks and branches for stability as I climbed.
Just as soon as I began to contemplate a break, the slope slackened. I angled my way to a small saddle that would deposit me at the lake I planned to use as a base for the next two days. My steps quickened with curiosity. Aha! There it was, the lake I had been staring at on a map for several weeks. The lake sat in a sea of quartzite talus stones with a single flat grassy spot large enough for a tent. A refuge, camp.
The surge of excitement continued, propelling me to quickly set up camp and scurry the 200 feet to the top of the ridge to see if the perspective worked as I had fantasized. I had the giddyness of a child hopping pack free rock to rock. Gaining the ridge, I turned south, eager to see the Northern Bitterroot and Great Burn Recommended Wilderness framed between two peaks. And… nothing. The smoke of a wildfire burning on the extreme north end of the Bitterroots was blowing exactly south-southwest, completing obscuring the Great Burn. What’s more, tendrils of smoke from a fire burning to the northwest, driven by the same wind, were weaving their way through the valleys in my direction. I was on an island between fires. The wind was forecasted to shift to a more southerly direction, which would take care of the Northern Bitterroot fire, thus clearing the view to the Great Burn, but would push the smoke out of the northwest right on top of me. I tempered my disappointment with the facts. I had 48 hours of fair weather before a large cold front was forecasted to arrive. A lot can change in two days. I took some deep breathes and accepted that, regardless of whether the view opened up, I would make the most of my time in this exquisite little basin.
I passed the rest of the afternoon reading and napping, before heading up to the highest point of the ridge 400 feet above camp for sunset. I knew, given the smoke, that ‘the shot’ wouldn’t be possible, but I wanted to begin playing with compositions. The cool autumn night would sink the smoke into the valleys, potentially clearing the horizon come sunrise. I wanted to understand the puzzle pieces of the foreground and Cabinet Mountains unhurried in case the Great Burn was out in the morning. By golden hour, the smoke from the northwest had drifted into the basin.
Returning to camp in dusky light, I made dinner and watched the stars come out. I opted to sleep with the tent open and my torso out the door. The Milky Way spanned from horizon to horizon overhead and, at times, looked three-dimensional. One, two, three shooting stars…
Day 3
I photographed moonrise from the comfort of my sleeping bag while sipping coffee at 5AM and headed up the mountain at 5:30AM. The visible world existed within the thirty foot cone of my headlamp. I walked upwards until there were no more rocks above me. The eastern horizon glowed faintly while the southern view remained in darkness. Keen to see if the Great Burn was visible ~85 miles south, I tripoded my medium format camera and took a few long exposures to reveal what my eyes couldn’t yet see. A sharp horizon! The smoke had cleared. Adrenaline hit, the Wilderness to Wilderness shot from the Cabinets to the Great Burn might be possible after all. I went to work refining a composition as the predawn glow expanded. When first light hit the surrounding peaks, I knew I didn’t have a strong image. A month earlier, the more northerly sun would have sidelit the peaks in the middle ground, bringing the scene to life, but the low autumnal sun rose behind the peaks in my south facing composition, blocking any light from giving separation and creating depth in the landscape. Still, knowing this wouldn’t be ‘the shot,’ I continued shooting, delighting in the day come to life.
It was difficult to believe that, in spite of federally legislated protection above ground, a mining company had recently been given the green light to proceed with an “exploration” operation, tunneling from outside the Wilderness boundary into the heart of the very mountain I sat upon. Hydrologists expressed concern that the adit, horizontal mining shaft, could lower the aquifer, potentially draining the pristine alpine lakes in the basin. Additionally, the discharge of the treated wastewater back into the creek is likely to raise the temperature downstream beyond the functional limit of spawning bull trout. Still, the operation proceeds apace. The mining company is in search of copper and silver veins - a different kind of ‘gap’ - in the quartzite. The company is promising 20-35 jobs to Libby, a town that experienced one of the worst man-made environmental disasters in U.S. history via an asbestos-laden vermiculite mine through the 1990s. Who is this mine for? And at what cost to the watershed?
Returning to camp an hour later, I decided to dedicate the rest of the day to photographing mountain hamsters, pika. At nearly 160 acres of nothing but talus, the basin was a sprawling pika homestead. I first posted up with a cup of coffee under the cover of my sleeping bag in the grass adjacent my tent. Book in hand and telephoto lens within reach, I’d wait for the telltale squeak of a nearby pika, slowly exchange the book for camera and snap a few photos. The mountain hamster eventually scurried along and back to reading I went. It was wildlife photography at its laziest and, for me, most enjoyable. I took the show on the road in the afternoon, leaving my campsite for other parts of the pika megalopolis, bumping a lone billy goat along the way.
By late afternoon, I was back at camp under my sleeping bag photographing some of the local crew. Back into my book, whoosh! An airburst just a few feet above my head. Turning quickly in the direction of travel, a small bird of prey, already a hundred feet away, pulled out of a shallow dive. A birder friend later identified the bird as likely a prairie falcon, a notorious pika hunter. The birds cruise at 45+ mph just a meter or two above the ground, ready to snag an unsuspecting victim. The falcon and I were after the same thing, albeit with very different objectives for our quarry. A few minutes later, whoosh! Again, a pulse of air, then sight of the bird. I didn’t attempt to photograph the acrobatic flyer. Over the course of the remainder of the afternoon, the prairie falcon startled me a dozen or more times on its hunting flightpath. It never seemed to catch anything other than my attention.
I was glad for the gaps created by these rich experiences in nature. They pulled me out of my head and into the flow of real things. Still, in idle moments, I felt unsettled and restless. I couldn’t fully relax into the place as I had two weeks earlier on the north end of the range. Whereas deep breaths had yielded total immersion on the last trip, they got me just below the panic line on this outing. I wrote extensively in my journal on the last trip and on this one, I couldn’t write at all. I realized then, in the field, that this was the point. I was battle-testing the operating system. In spite of this low-level dysregulation, I was sticking with it, breathing, and occasionally finding the gaps - moments of clarity - along the way. Worried thoughts passed like wisps of smoke in the wind. Dramatic light, technicolor fall foliage, steep ascents, squeaking mountain hamsters and swooping falcons, had, brought me out of myself, into something larger. These moments immersed in the landscape had led me from one gap to another in spite of myself. They were carrying me and, although I may not have been at total peace, I was alive, and that was the point.
As afternoon became evening, the wind picked up, adding a touch of additional unsettledness to the nervous system battle test. Assuming that the smoke had been reanimated by the warmth of the day thus obscuring the southern horizon, I was reticent to head up the ridge again to photograph sunset. Having no other plans, I gave it a go, returning to the point ~200 feet directly above my little lake. To my surprise, the immediate view - the Cabinets - was smokeless and the horizon view was relatively clear. I excitedly went to work on compositions. Found one! Unfortunately, the only lens I had brought for the medium format camera was not quite wide enough for the scene. Plan b. My full frame camera with an ultra-wide lens was up to the task. The scene was huge and would require maximum detail and perfect sharpness to hold up to mural-sized printing for the exhibition. I enabled the camera’s 400mp IBIS high resolution mode, where it shoots 16 images, slightly moving the sensor between each, creating ultra high resolution images. The scene would require three of those images to maximize detail and sharpness: one focused close (foreground detail), one focused to infinity (middle and background detail) and one underexposed at infinity (retain detail in the sky). All of the exposures would later be blended into one image. With an hour until sunset, I practiced the moves. Click, click, click. Double-check focus and exposure. Repeat.
The composition felt right. It felt like how I was beginning to understand the Cabinet Mountain Wilderness. Sharp alpine peaks along a central crest, crystalline waters and a vast field of quartzite shared the top of the playbill in this mountain drama. And, of course, critically for a Wilderness to Wilderness image, the Great Burn Recommended Wilderness was visible on the horizon 85 miles away. But as much as I loved the view, it suffered from the same affliction of the morning’s composition. It was flat. Building clouds prevented any light from giving shape to the landscape’s features. A large peak immediately to the west obscured the path of the setting sun, leaving it unclear if there were any gaps in the clouds to throw some light on the scene. All I could do is wait and see. I continued practicing the exposure moves as I waited.
Fifteen minutes before sunset, faint copper light began lighting up the peak immediately in front of me, then another, and another. The light’s intensity steadily grew. I couldn’t believe it. I hooped and hollered to the sky, relishing in the magic of the light. The scene had come alive. Well rehearsed, the camera moves were automatic. Click, click, click. “Woohoo!” Click, click, click. “Yessss!” I cheered for the thrill of the experience as much as I was the potential capture of the first headliner image of the project.
Golden hour was proceeded by one the most vibrant sunsets I have ever seen. The light show took place in a direction which no compositions really worked. I stowed my cameras and I hollered with joy to the west. The pikas squeaked. I returned to camp as the last of the light faded, buzzing with excitement. Dinner was as it was the night before, under stars. After tidying up camp and securing my food, I crawled into my sleeping bag, contentedly aware that sleep would not come easily after such stimulation. I took to counting shooting stars again. One, two…
Day 4
Crash!
The wind had leveled up. My tent was folding with each gust. I was grateful that I had added extra guylines the day before. Even so, the tent was nearing the edge of its capabilities. I would hear what sounded like a freight train on the pass above and then, a couple of seconds later, crash, the tent would fold under the air's weight. Wide awake at 4AM, some three and a half hours before sunrise, I stared at the Milk Way. The stars were pinpoints. At least the wind had completely cleared the smoke. Knowing there was no more sleep with the din of the wind, I brewed some coffee and read. Growing restless at 5:30AM, I packed up my camera gear and headed for the peak 400-feet above camp, pausing regularly for wind gusts. I began repeating into the wind:
“Worry and fear will kill me,
curiosity and movement will save me.”
The mantra grew louder, shouted into the biggest gusts. Shouting turned to singing.
“Worry and fear will kill me,
curiosity and movement will save me.”
Just shy of the top, I donned all my layers and took shelter behind a boulder. An hour or so later, in dawn’s light, I began framing up a composition with an old gnarly tree I had spotted a couple of days earlier. I held onto my camera and tripod as the wind ripped over the peak. Sunrise unfolded as it had the day before, spilling precious little light into the scene, resulting in a relatively flat scene. Regardless, I relished in the exhilaration of being a part of the weather and experimenting with a new composition.
I headed back to camp thirty minutes after sunrise. Nearing camp, I noticed that my tent looked funny. It was hunched over and lilting to one side. Upon reaching the tent, I found that, while I was away, the wind had broke one of the tent poles in three places. Yikes. I had tentative plans to stay another night back down at the subalpine lake, but realized, staring at my collapsed tent, it was not to be. The cold front was slated to arrive that night, bringing with it rain and potentially snow up high. It was time to go.
I packed up between gusts, thanked the campsite, and began the steep descent back to the pass. A short slip on beargrass resulted in a broken trekking pole. Another pole down. At the top of the pass, I took a deep breath and noticed a line of plants snaking its way through the gray rock, apparently fed by a vein of hidden water. The lifeforce seeped and sprung out of every crack in the idyllic hanging valley. I forced myself to slow down. I didn't want to miss anything. The fall colors, which I assumed could not be more varied and vibrant three days earlier, were somehow richer. As I turned the corner down the little valley, the partially diffused sun backlit the foliage revealing one of the largest lodes of gold, copper and silver I had ever seen. I stopped, set down my pack and looked. The scene was soundtracked by a babbling creek, suddenly brought to life where the springs converged. The beauty brought me to the verge of tears. I wanted for nothing. I was, in that moment of presence, the richest man on Earth.
Closing Thoughts
What a gift it has been to spend so much time in the Cabinet Mountain Wilderness this fall. From the damp pockets of inland temperate rainforest in the low valleys to the steep glacially carved peaks, the Cabinet Mountains are alive. The Cabinet Mountain Wilderness to Great Burn Recommended Wilderness is the crux of this project in terms of distance. At ~85 miles distant, it is the furthest by almost double of all the others. What's more, the Northern Bitterroot, where the Great Burn is, is not an especially prominent range, adding to the difficulties of gaining a sightline. I learned a lot about how best to map, strategically camp and compose these images during my time in the Cabinet Mountain Wilderness. What a place to learn. What a place to be. I could spend the rest of my life watching the light in the Cabinets and die happy, but the project continues.
Upon reviewing images from the trip, I’ve determined that I successfully captured the Cabinet Mountain Wilderness headliner image (above image at the end of day 3) with the northern end of the Great Burn Recommended Wilderness peeking through 85 miles away. The image feels complete. To the Great Burn! I mapped out my first trip with potential compositions from the peak on the horizon of the Cabinet image to the Selway-Bitterroot Wilderness. The distance for the next image is ~35 miles.
Wow! Richest man on earth, indeed!! Thanks for keeping it coming.
I have been inspired by your work ever since my son and daughter-in-law
lived in Missoula around 2019. A few weeks shy of 68 years around the sun
I participated as a beginner in my first photography show last week with my landscapes
from National & State Parks from Jekyll Island, Ga to Yosemite, Ca to Glacier,Mt.
Thanks for your inspiring work!
Absolutely beautiful!!!!!!