Monitoring the Fire

The Derby Mountain fire started over a week ago and has spread toward Big Timber and the Boulder Valley, burning almost 200,000 acres and destroying at least 20 homes. So far, Val's ranch is safe but we wanted to take the 4-wheeler out to the farthest hilltop to monitor the fire's spread.

The wind had kicked up when we reached a lookout point and we could see the fire in the distance - about a half dozen different locations. We watched great plumes of smoke billow up as the wind pushed the fire ahead, but Val thought the ranch would be safe.

We drove around thousands of acres for 3-4 hours. Val has mostly red angus cattle and the neighboring rancher has mostly black angus, so we checked to see if any of the cattle got mixed up when the fence was broken recently. Saw several fairly fresh piles of bear scat, but no sightings of Teddy. The choke cherries are very abundant this year and we could see that the bear was feasting on the bounty.

There were a couple of 'sheepherders monuments' up on a ridge. These are stone cairns that sheepherders built long ago - probably out of boredom from the monotony of the job.

The scent of sage was lovely when we drove through large patches of it. I stopped to pick some big bundles, along with some juniper branches so I can tie together small bundles for myself and friends.