The year was 2002. I was 21 years old and living in a teepee outside of West Yellowstone, Montana. I was here for bison, to monitor them, to document their movements outside of the park boundaries, and hopefully help aid in putting a stop to the Montana Department of Livestock’s wholesale slaughter of any and all of these Pleistocene thunder beasts who dared stick their nose over a line drawn on a map. In the surrounding National Forests, elevations tend to be lower, with less snow than the Yellowstone Plateau, and all things green happen here first for so many reasons. As a result, animals have the tendency to work their way down the Madison River, out of the national park, and into greener pastures. The audacity.

Days were spent on patrol in the forest. Miles of dirt road turned into miles of off trail hiking. Glacier lilies and lupine and monkey flowers and shooting stars of the spring had given way to the year’s crop of hawthorn berries. Snow was once again starting to fall in the mountains. And temperatures were plunging into the low 30s again most mornings.

On this day, we were searching for two large bull bison that had been reported by another field crew in the Gallatin National Forest the evening before. The annual rut was underway, and as is the habit of large mature bulls, these two had likely finished their rounds and moved away from the herds of cows and calves and young male upstarts. I can’t blame them. It’s like comparing the quiet solitude of the mountains to the bustling noise of society down below.

It didn’t take long for us to track the old bulls to a small meadow in the forest where they had bedded down. Unshouldering our packs, we leaned back against lodgepole pines as we took notes of the days events. But sitting around watching bison chew cud can become a bit monotonous and so my mind and eyes began wandering through the forest around me.

Through the trees, it looked as though there was another opening, another meadow of sorts, a couple hundred yards from where we set. Backcountry meadows like this often hold winter sheds from elk and moose, the ultimate prize for anyone willing to explore this time of year. And in short order I was on my feet re-shouldering my day back and hiking through the forest toward the light.