The roots of the fire are a deep, rich red - wild strawberry and dogwood and young mountain ash spreading their fall foliage beneath a big, blue sky.
Brightening as it climbs, the flame flickers rosy orange - that’s huckleberry and fireweed, harebell and mountain bluebell, forget-me-not, hollyhock, bluebonnet lupine.
This is nature’s autumnal wardrobe, a gaudy splash of red-cheeked excitement before the dull and drab of winter’s wear.
For eight wonderful miles, Glacier National Park’s Firebrand Pass trail winds through a confusion of fall color. Fortunately, there is a guide.
Naturalist Ellen Horowitz has for years been leading groups on a trip she calls “Autumn in Glacier,” offered by the nonprofit Glacier Institute. This year, she hits the trail on Saturday, Sept. 27, hiking Firebrand through bright meadows, shining aspen glades and the wind-twisted forests of Montana’s Rocky Mountain Front.
Look and you might see grizzlies foraging late-season berry patches. Listen and you might hear elk bugling. Breathe deeply, and smell the earthy richness of a beaver pond in autumn. Taste the last of summer’s huckleberries, now nearly black as the green leaves the leaves. Reach out, and feel the flutter of fall, Mother Nature’s heartbeat racing before it slows so nearly to a stop.
This season is spun by the sun, whose flaxen rays angle a gentle slant through clear, cold air before falling through the eye to trigger a season’s change. The weight of fall light pushes elk down from the mountains, turtles down into muddy bottoms, beavers down into dark, watery lodges, and not a few Montanans down into Arizona.
This is the busy time. The readying.
As the Earth’s 23.5-degree tilt angles Firebrand Pass away from the sun, days shorten and cool. Animals scurry to prepare, to breed, to stockpile. Plants retreat inside themselves, shutting off the plumbing for winter’s freeze.
Then, as leaves dry, chlorophyll bleeds away to reveal the pigments that have hidden so long beneath. The brown tannins and orange carotene and red anthocyanin and yellow xanthophyll, strange and mysterious words, science’s magical words of transformation.
The wild rose becomes rosier, the red osier redder, the fireweed fierier.
A hard early frost can kill the color, forcing trees to drop green leaves not yet turned, but this year, up on Firebrand Pass at least, the palate already is painting the landscape.
Above, kestrels and sharp-shinned hawks and vast “V’s” of geese wheel south. Below, snowberries fatten on the branch, their leaves soaked in merlot.
And through it all travels Horowitz, on her own seasonal migration, tracking through the blaze that is Firebrand and storing its warmth for the long, cold dark of the coming winter.
Glacier ablaze
Join the Glacier Institute for a guided tour of the season, “Autumn in Glacier,” on Saturday, Sept. 27. The science-based educational outfit marks its 25th anniversary this year, partnering with Glacier National Park and the Flathead National Forest to offer a taste of what they call “learning gone wild.“
The fall foliage tour hikes up Firebrand Pass, and is considered a moderate-to-strenuous day trip, suitable for anyone fit for a bit of aerobic exercise. Cost is $65, and teachers can earn up to eight state Office of Public Instruction credits for the course.
Or, if you can’t make the class, take the tour yourself. Just grab a park trail map and step out of your rig just west of mile marker 194 on U.S. Highway 2, not far from Marias Pass, and cross into Glacier Park.
For information about the Glacier Institute course, drop by www.
glacierinstitute.org, or call (406) 755-1211.
Reporter Michael Jamison can be reached at 1-800-366-7186 or at mjamison@missoulian.com.
|
 |
 |
Add your comment now! Write your comment in the form below.
(Email address is for verification only. If you'd like to email a story, look for the link above)