Whether it’s because of the adventures that commonly happen there or their sheer beauty or some other characteristic, I am drawn to the mountains; particularly the Rocky Mountains. My wife, Lurey, and I once visited the part of the Rockies that lie in Colorado and Wyoming. We met my brother, Ron, and Carrol, his wife, in Craig, Colorado for a foray into elk country where later Ron was to hunt the majestic animals with me

    The ladies managed to endure the rocky back country trails and numerous stops to view some animal or rock formation through binoculars with a minimum of complaints. A picnic beneath a cottonwood on the banks of the Little Snake River provided time to regain equilibrium from the tossing and pounding they suffered in the back seat of the Toyota 4-Runner.

    Part of their uncomfortable ride was withstood with a measure of enthusiasm when we spotted a mountain lion in a desert flat and took off in the Toyota across the brushy terrain to keep the fleeing cat in sight. The ground featured too many badger holes, brush clumps and rocks for us to stay in view of the cougar for long. He sprinted a quarter mile to safety in the rocks and caves of a rimrock cliff. We likely caught him in the open on a fresh kill in a shallow, weedy draw.

    A central purpose for the trip was for the others to meet Wanda Walker, the rancher on whose place I bagged my finest bull elk and who rescued me off the mother of all cliffs when deep snow and darkness stranded me there several years earlier. We met Wanda and her daughter, Dawn, on the road that led to her house; a road over a mile in length, the last stretch of which drops a thousand feet down to her house in a gorge along Vermillion Creek .

    The descending snarl of switchbacks has no rail along the cliff edges and its dirt has no rocks or gravel, thus becoming mud that rejects even 4-WD vehicles when it rains or is soaked with snow melt. In these frequent instances Wanda stayed at the ranch house until it dried out or froze hard, at which time she could motor up out of the canyon to make the 100 mile trip to town for supplies. Some time back when the lady was almost 80 she had to make a doctor visit in town after a bull she had roped jerked her off her horse and broke her shoulder.

    Sadly, Wanda, my brother and my wife have since passed away. Wanda had moved to her first new house on her other property at the base of Douglas Mountain.

    Ron and I spent a night in one of Wanda’s log cabins on top of the flat mountain. It’s a thousand feet above the new house and the ranch house that her father-in-law bought early last century, along with considerable acreage, for $300. The location is known as Brown’s Park (formerly Brown’s Hole). His relatives were visited there at least once by Butch Cassidy, who was a full time resident in hideouts around the area when he was not robbing trains or banks. The outlaws were friends of most early settlers thereabouts and often helped with chores and stayed for supper.

    After spending the night in the cabin with a window open, which was large enough for bears to enter, we learned from a fellow back in town that “they have been releasing bears out on that mountain, the ones that have caused trouble up in Yellowstone. All kinds of bears.” I had taken a long scouting walk along the rim of the mountain cliff and through the ponderosa forest around the cabin at sunup one morning, not realizing there had been a significant increase in the local bear population. I packed a powerful sidearm to scare off any aggressive bear or mountain lion, but was not aware at the time of the likelihood of needing it.

    We saw golden eagles, sage grouse, elk, mule deer and hundreds of antelope. Seven muley bucks crossed a trail in front of our 4WD on one mountain. Ron identified many western birds he knew of because he studied birds. He saw the beautiful western tanager and the rufous hummingbird and several others he had never seen before. Hawks were everywhere.

    The magnetism of the mountain west for me may be in large part due to the enormous amount of land and wildlife when compared to the very small number of people. Those, mostly eastern city dwellers, who wring their hands and proclaim that we are running out of room for the exploding human population, should take a trip out west, say to Wyoming or New Mexico, after which they might decide to search for something else to worry about.