Last month in Yellowstone National Park my young daughter barreled down a roadside bank to see bison in the Hayden Valley. She tripped, and I held my breath as she hung airborne for a moment, then slammed hard on her belly and skidded downhill, plowing dirt with her face, her legs curled up over her head like a scorpion tail.
I cuddled her bruised body and pride on the hillside. She spat grit from her teeth while tourists stampeded past to get their outdoor fix in a place that protects wildness by prohibiting most forms of development and resource extraction.
Where we live, near Whitehall, there are no bison. But we know a good many places in the forest to camp and fish and explore because there are few roads, few people, and ridge after ridge of elk tracks and headwater creeks.
