Who was Bill Yenne?

It was 12 years ago when we lost Bill, but it doesn't seem that long. Guess that's why I was so surprised last Thursday during a bull session with young adult hikers I met up on the Sun Highway. One of them asked, "Who was Bill Yenne?"

For those who never knew him and for those who can never forget him, this is what I said in September of 1994:

If I could have ridden 10,000 miles of mountain trails with Bill Yenne it wouldn't have been enough, but I'm thankful for the few hundred we did ride together…and campfires we shared. They weren't all sunny days; but even a tough one wasn't so bad when sharing adventure with the top hand.

Bill Yenne might have been the best packer to ever throw a diamond hitch or pull a string of mules over the Continental Divide in a blizzard. He was a charter member of "The Wild Bunch," and their guest each year at the National Finals Rodeo. Bill remembered more cowboy lore, famous horses and riders, winners and losers, than anyone I ever knew. He dressed immaculately with mustache trimmed, and was never seen unshaven. It was fundamental that all stock in his string were saddled and packed in showcase style.

One time I told Bill I thought he and the movie actor Errol Flynn had similar features, and Bill said, "Yes, Flynn did have that much goin' for him, but I always felt a little sorry for Errol because he just didn't seem to have my appeal to the wimmin'."

Bill was a proud and kindly man, a teacher of youth, and an unequalled wilderness guide. He was also a sophisticated world traveler, but when he put on that Stetson hat, climbed aboard his fancy horse, and started spinning a high country yarn, his listeners didn't know if he'd ever been south of Belton.

Above everything else, he was the consummate western storyteller. The topic didn't matter. You could ask either an intelligent question or a dumb one, then settle back because a fantastic tale was coming your way.

With disarming ease he laced his stories with names, dates, and tiny details, which established unquestionable authenticity. He related each story with a sincerity and force, which absolutely defied you to not believe every single word. He set you up…and in the end, he lowered the boom.

My trying to tell one of Bill's stories is a fool's game…but somebody has to do it.

It was late August 1966. Bill was guiding three government big shots and one Hungry Horse columnist on a saddle horse trip over Glacier Park's Boulder Pass during a snowstorm. In the rocks above the Hole in the Wall Basin we found a young woman in distress. She and the rest of a geology class from the University of Michigan had lost the trail. She didn't know where the others were and was suffering from hypothermia. Bill told her to stay put while he and I found the others. Visibility was zilch, but we rounded them all up, told them to stick right behind one another and follow us.

Few of that Michigan group were equipped for the snow but walking warmed them up, and at a little lake a mile below Brown's Pass we broke out of bad weather, built a friendly fire for warmth and coffee, and soon had them in good spirits. Then…one of the students innocently asked, "Mr. Yenne, do many people break the rules and take home a rock from Glacier Park?"

Bill tips the brim of his hat back with a thumb, gazes out over the awesome collection of towering peaks and ten zillion rocks, then says, "Not often, but that sort of thing does happen now and then. Only five years back there was a lady out here from Philadelphia…or one of those big eastern seaports, and just up there on the south side of Mt. Chapman (Bill motions to the north) she picked up a pretty rock…wasn't a big one…around half a pound as I recall…kinda reddish color with a white streak through it.

"Anyway, she put it in her pack and carried it down to Goat Haunt, and with the innocence of a lamb, illegally smuggled it into Canada on the Waterton Ferry, then doggone if she didn't smuggle it back into the United States in a bus over Chief Mountain Road. I recall she was a school marm…about 41 or 42 years old. Well sir!…later that winter back in the far east she gets to readin' the literature of her vacation out here and comes to that part where it says visitors can not remove anything from Glacier National Park.

"Lucky for us, this lady was a Christian and knew she had sinned, so she gets that rock off the mantle, wraps it in a lot of excelsior and mails it in a padded box to Park Headquarters. I was gone that day…checking on horses at Perma, but others say the Superintendent and the Chief Naturalist were both excited when that package came…even debated over who should sign for it. They convened a special panel and called in consulting geologists, including the renowned Ned Barrow from Yellowstone, to make sure it was one of our rocks.

"During the next full-staff meeting on April 12th it was decided that because I had been in Glacier longer than anyone else, I should be in charge of that rock."

Bill pauses here, looks out over the great expanse of towering peaks. Then shaking his head in disbelief and in a voice filled with humble emotion he speaks, "I was touched by the faith placed in me…but I'll tell you folks the truth. As well as I know this Park, it was into August before I figured out where that rock fit."

It's sort of fun for me to think of Bill up there at the Big Corral in the Sky…hunkered down in his chaps and swappin' yarns with Mark Twain, Charlie Russell, and Will Rogers.

He'll hold his own.