In the Deer Lodge Valley, Ranching and Restoring a River

By Bryce Andrews, 6-17-08

	Caption: Bryce Andrews, this summer's ranch hand at Dry Cottonwood Creek in the Deer Lodge Valley

In 2005, the Clark Fork Coalition, a non-profit river conservation group, bought a 2,300-acre cattle ranch in the heart of the Deer Lodge Valley. It’s smack in the middle of the nation’s largest Superfund complex—the upper Clark Fork River from Butte to Missoula—where the toxic remnants from a century of mining are about to be cleaned up in the largest “river fix” ever undertaken in the West.

But the first step is to put boots on the ground. Those boots are mine this summer, as the Coalition’s ranch hand at Dry Cottonwood Creek. I’ll be fixing fence, moving cattle, monitoring water use, and looking for opportunities to start restoration projects. In this blog, I’ll record the way things are on the ranch, as well as my thoughts about work, ecology and life in the Deer Lodge valley. I hope you’ll read along.

Week 1: First Impressions

The ranch is green and the roads are potholed from spring rain. Coming to work from the little house I rent outside of Deer Lodge, I drive a county road that looks down across the western end of the property—a floodplain ditched for haying and bisected by the linked bows of the Clark Fork River. Unplowed strips grow thick with willow and cottonwood. Whitetail deer graze on new shoots in the meadows. Their heads come up as I pass and drop again before I am out of sight. Hawks drift above it all, and though I know they are hunting I never see them dive. Our small bunch of heifers grazes together, strikingly red against the rest of spring.

Down by the river on a clear June morning, this place seems simple, pastoral and beautiful. Irrigation hides the land’s scars, making it easy to get the wrong impression of the ranch, or at least an incomplete one.

But I’m heading east to the higher dry country where our cow-calf pairs are grazing. Where it departs from Dry Cottonwood Creek and begins to climb in earnest, Sand Hollow Road passes between a pair of steep hills. There is nothing remarkable about the hills, except that each has two parallel lines carved vertically into the face closest to the road. These deeply incised ruts are the leftovers from hill climbing on 4-wheelers and dirt bikes. At the bottom of each well-established track is a fencepost. A couple of these posts still wear tattered NO TRESPASSING signs, but most have been run over or shot up. As I drive up Sand Hollow road I find it hard to get too mad at the throttle jockeys—there is no fence, and this spot hasn’t felt like private land in a long time.

We still let the off-roaders park their rigs down here where Sand Hollow starts in the hope that they’ll buzz up the road and play on public land instead of ours. Maybe we shouldn’t. Maybe plunking them down in sight of a steep hillside is a little like waving a red flag in front of a bull and acting surprised when it charges.

Although I haven’t been here long, my first impression is that Dry Cottonwood Creek Ranch exists in a state of limbo. Though it is deeded land, and grazed year round with cattle and wildlife, nobody lives on the place. In the absence of a constant caretaker, certain less-than-desirable land uses have taken root like weeds on a patch of bare dirt. In addition to the off-road crowd there are pistol toting plinkers, underage drinkers and inexplicable pickup truck lurkers. I’ve been told the high school kids have Keggers up here, and that one of their favorite diversions used to be hauling a rusted-out car to the top of the steepest slope available, then rolling it down. When this got boring—hard to see how it could—they burned the car and left the mess.

Part of my job is cleaning up this place, but I can’t dwell on it today. I’m headed farther up the road, to start the stock tanks in Section 27. The pairs are already here. Ted, the ranch manager, moved them yesterday with his family. Now they are thirsty and crowded on the road. They stand in dung piles exuding the sense of slow-witted entitlement that is common to all livestock. They part in front of me and bawl a little, as if to say, “It’s about damn time.”

Back in the truck bed, Tick is working himself up. He trots back and forth and I watch the mirrors to see him poke his cow dog blockhead out one side and then the other. Tick has what Heeler breeders call a half mask: He is dark brown on the left side of his face, blazed white up the forehead and gray-speckled everywhere else. Only half of him is visible in the side view mirror, so as he zips back and forth I have a brown dog, a gray dog, a brown dog again.

Tick wants to bite something. Since before I knew him, his world has revolved around cattle. He’s a full time cow dog that has been unfairly and permanently saddled with a part time ranch hand. In Missoula, during the school year, vents his frustration on cats, squirrels and neighbor dogs. It takes a jog to cheer him up. But out here, standing on the wheel well with cattle passing by, Tick is in his element. He leans towards an oblivious calf and snaps his jaws. He does it twice and through the open window I can hear his teeth meeting to make the sound of his name: He says tick! Tick! And then leans back and smiles.

At the junction box I pull the cap off a vertical section of three-foot culvert, reach down between the spider webs, twist the ball valve’s handle a quarter turn, and listen to water rushing downhill. I press my palm against the black PVC of the mainline pipe and feel the water moving. Looking up the line I can see Section 35, where our pairs will be in a week. Further off, grass gives way to the trees of Deer Lodge National Forest, the source of this water and the ultimate summer destination of our herd.

Some of the cows are moving toward the nearest tank, walking unhurried with their calves in tow. It’s grazing season and they know the drill.

Week 2