Page 53 - Flathead Beacon // 4.13.16

MOUNTAIN EXPOSURE
OUTDOORS IN BRIEF
Hundreds of Miles of Bob Marshall Trails to be Cleared After Fire Season
Last year, wild res burned nearly 100 square miles of wil- derness in the Bob Marshall Wil- derness Complex. Now, U.S. For- est Service o cials face the task of cleaning up the mess left behind and restoring the trails.
O cials say last year’s wild re season was not the largest but was substantial, with dozens of res burning across the complex.
Spotted Bear District Ranger Deb Mucklow said it will cost $250,000 to restore 122 miles of burned-over trails in her dis- trict, but she’s only got $80,000 to spend.
The Forest Service also is reducing its backcountry trails funding by 30 percent over three years for the region cover- ing Montana and parts of Idaho, North Dakota and South Dakota. Mucklow says she is waiting to learn how those cutbacks will be allocated.
Wilderness Association Hosts Summer Kicko Party at Kalispell Brewery
The Montana Wilderness Association is launching another fun summer of adventures on the trail with its Spring Into Summer kicko party at Kalispell Brewing Company on Thursday, April 14 from 5-8 p.m. At the event, MWA will announce the Wilderness Walks around the state and volun- teer projects on the Continental Divide Trail. The hikes and adven- tures are free and open to the pub- lic. In Northwest Montana, MWA o ers almost 30 guided Wilder- ness Walks ranging in di culty from easy to strenuous.
Montana Wilderness Associa- tion is also launching a new inter- active online hiking guide. Out- door enthusiasts can get online to review local hikes, upload photos, submit new hikes and suggest the best place to grab a meal after a long day on the trail. Check it out at HikeWildMontana.org.
If you would like to be featured in “Mountain Exposure,” email information to news@ atheadbeacon.com.
OUT OF BOUNDS ROB BREEDING
BIG VOICE FOR IBIG COUNTRY
SUSPECT EVERY EXPAT CALIFOR- nian in Montana has a story about the moment they realized it was time
to move. Mine involves Merle Haggard. I was a college student paying the bills working in a record store. For people of a certain age, that immediately ups my rank on the hipness scale by a factor of 10. But for anyone so young they’ve never pondered the merits of hip replacement surgery, “record store” might as well be
written in Mandarin.
To clarify for all the young invinci-
bles out there, record stores were a cool place to work back in the 20th century. We sold records, 12-inch discs of vinyl that mechanically converted music into sound waves via a needle and turntable, and then through an ampli er that was attached, using wires, to speakers. Like today, those speakers were judged by their size. Unlike today, bigger was bet- ter for the speakers of my youth.
We all thought ourselves hipsters, and record store hipsters, circa the early 1980s, all listened to punk rock or some variation of the form. It’s just what we did.
Back then my idea of a great weekend wasn’t shing the Missouri, it involved driving to LA and thumbing through stacks of records at the small, boutique record shops that featured imports of the best of British punk.
I was at the record shop one day, prac- ticing the uninterested a ect I deployed when the zombie-like unhip, search- ing for Phil Collins’ latest, invaded our sanctuary of hipness, when someone returned a “defective” copy of Merle Hag- gard’s “Epic Hits: The First 11.” Albums were often returned in those days, usu- ally because the buyer had an inexpen- sive turntable that skipped or otherwise malfunctioned. Being that “smart aleck” was the other persona I too often turned to in my misbegotten youth, I decided to replace whatever was spinning on the turntable at the moment – probably Ultravox or The Clash – with that Hag- gard LP.
I was sure I’d make everyone mad in the joint.
Well, the response wasn’t quite what I expected. Yeah, most folks in the shop weren’t too thrilled to hear old-school country, but my reaction wasn’t what I expected either. I liked it. No, I dug it. Haggard, I realized, wasn’t just some yokel whining about cheating women or too much whisky. This was an American poet, telling our story to the accompa- niment of slide guitar. Toward the end of the rst side (kids, that was a thing) I was rethinking what country music meant to me. Then the nal song of side A, “Big City,” started with that sweet d- dle intro, and the course of my life was permanently changed.
It’s not that I had never considered moving to Montana before that moment. Heck, I thought myself something of an accomplished y sher by that point so I had some idea what Montana meant, and I wanted to be there.
But when Merle sang, “Turn me loose, set me free, somewhere in the middle of Montana,” I had my con rmation. It took some time, but within a few years I was in the Bitterroot, living the semi-respect- able life of a sportswriter at the Hamil- ton daily newspaper. Like me, Merle was a California boy. But his words fueled the Montana dream it took me almost a decade to realize.
The poignant, sophisticated work Haggard produced over a decades-long career established him as one of the all- time great American artists, regardless of medium. He didn’t rely on simplistic jin- goism, the boosterism devoid of self-re- ection that is too common in much of country music. His lyrics re ect what makes America great, that this country is strong enough to withstand the collective self-re ection — and sometimes harsh criticism — of those who love it most.
And he suggested that a place some- where in the middle of what is best about America is actually a place somewhere in Montana.
He was absolutely right.
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APRIL 13, 2016 // FLATHEADBEACON.COM
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