Dispatches from the Wild: Springtime and all 

Welcoming back the sun in the Northern Rockies 

By Benjamin Alva Polley EBS COLUMNIST 

After the vernal equinox in March, the earth’s axial tilt is such that the sun extends beyond the celestial equator above northern latitudes like Montana. The days grow longer and the nights shorter. The hush of winter is replaced with birdsong as bluebirds, meadowlarks and robins return. Honking Canada geese and snow geese arrow northbound. Dirty-laundry-looking clouds pass, dropping graupel, rain and snow before the sun reappears only minutes later. This is springtime in Montana.  

Snow peels back from around tree wells, the smell of Earth’s tannins stirs in the sunshine, and sap begins to flow again as the world awakens with steady temperatures above freezing. The warmer days bring an unstable atmosphere, with moisture in storm clouds spilling rain. The smell of rain after it first falls is called petrichor, the chemical compounds of water, ozone, and geosmin that mix together. Geosmin is dying micro-organisms in the soil mixing with oils from plant leaves, which helps to create that wonderful smell of spring rain. Snow melts on the valley floor, and violet-colored crocuses, yellow daffodils and tulips sprout and blossom from the damp soil.  

Human travelers feel the pull of spring as they return north after spending their winters in warmer climates. A mass migration of Sprinter vans, RVs and Westphalias march up the highway and back to the summer homes. 

The russet and burgundy willows lining creeks and rivers lighten their red anti-freeze properties for different shades, and furry pussy willows pop, lining the thickets in alternating fashion. Tawny, dead-looking grasses slowly vibrate with life, turning green. Insects, including bumble bees, flies, moths and mosquitoes, solar-charge their batteries before buzzing from flower to flower, while other insects hatch in the warmth. Trout have been relatively dormant since fall but become hungry and increasingly active in early spring. However, once trickling creeks transform into torrents and rivers swell with snowmelt and become blown out, trout again slumber until the water becomes clear, level or drop. Once water temperatures increase, more insects will hatch, and trout will become aggressive again, just in time for ospreys and egrets to come home. 

Western Montana’s hillsides exchange winter’s white skirts—stenciled with animal tracks and matted-dull brown thatch—for spring’s brighter attire. Spring lays down flower garlands, welcoming the return of the sun’s heat and a return to life’s abundance. Like little yellow suns, buttercups, yellow bells, dandelions, glacier lilies, and arrowleaf balsamroot mimic their celestial father. Bitterroots, mountain bluebells, larkspur, lupine, nine-leaf desert parsley, phlox, prairie smoke, shooting stars, and violets rise to the occasion and begin marching up the hillside. 

Flowering fruit trees blossom in scented perfumes carried on the breeze. New cottonwood buds unfurl in a sticky golden resin resembling honey caramel—a spicy-sweet pungent smell. Life again thrives in the Northern Rockies. 

Above the tree-lined ridges, snow-covered mountain ranges of the Absarokas, Beartooths, Beaverheads, Bridgers, Boulders, Crazies, Gallatins, Madisons, Spanish Peaks, Tobacco Roots, and Ruby Mountains tower above in jagged smiles. Throughout spring and summer, animals return to the mountains’ higher regions with the vertical greening of plants. In late April and May, rain showers and solar rays peel back a meadow’s white carpet and a floral bouquet of biodiversity blooms. 

Spring’s colors in Montana are a welcoming sight after winter’s dull grays. And young or old, Montanans again begin to get a skip in their step. 

Benjamin Alva Polley is a place-based storyteller with stories published in Outside, Adventure Journal, Popular Science, Field & Stream, Esquire, Sierra, Audubon, Earth Island Journal, Modern Huntsman, and other publications at his website www.benjaminpolley.com/stories. He holds a master’s in Environmental Science and Natural Resource Journalism from the University of Montana.