About castles and coyotes

On the drive to the Bison Range last Sunday, my son and I were able to see many costly, expensive, sumptuous homes that cost a lot of money. Most are above and along Flathead Lake. One on Papoose Island may have over $10 million just in concrete and masonry work. A huge modern castle on top of the high hill west of the old "Lookout" cliffs has probably cost the owner more money for just the road and water than most of us earn in our lifetimes.

Get in an airplane and buzz around the valley and you will see dozens and dozens of new trophy type homes in the multi-million dollar class. Most of you know this, so I'll stop preaching to the choir.

The purpose of the above paragraph is to cause us all to carefully think about news releases this past week talking about the "median" cost of a home in the Flathead now standing at $245,000 (Two Hundred Forty Five Thousand Dollars). I find fault with the word "median," which comes for the Latin medianus, meaning the middle. If all of us working together are to find a solution to the "beyond reach for family homes" problem in the Flathead, maybe we should first find a more meaningful method of determining the "average" cost of the kind of house most of us consider adequate.

Cost of housing for people on average incomes is a serious difficulty right now in our valley, affecting the entire area economy, but it doesn't make for an interesting weekly column so let's go to something else.

Actually, watching coyotes barking at each other and howling is a rare event for most of us, but Shan and I were able to sit for some time Saturday studying three coyotes prowling the sidehill across Pauline Creek at the Bison Rage. The only bad thing was, they were too far away for pictures.

I'm surprised at the number of folks, old timers and newcomers alike, who have not taken the 18-mile drive over Red Sleep Mountain. It is closed for the winter now but you absolutely should include it in your plans for next spring. To mark the end of this year's bison range tour over Red Sleep, Shan and I did it three times Sunday and we'll be there when it opens next spring.

What is there to see? Leaving the Visitors Center, the road climbs sharply up Headquarters Ridge for hundreds of feet then drops steeply down to the Pauline Creek drainage, which empties into the stately meandering Flathead River just outside the Range boundary. The moderate drive up Pauline can reveal wildlife and birds galore before the real fun begins at Elk Lane. The grade starts getting steeper with sharp curves and switchbacks. Veteran Red Sleepers know that any turn can reveal wildlife ranging from mule deer to bison, bear, bighorns or elk. Last Sunday, the colored foliage displays were brilliant, often backgrounded by evergreen forest.

Where you cross the north ridge just below Red Sleep's summit, there is a turnout where it seems you can see half the world. To the north is the entire Flathead Valley up past Ronan, Polson, across Flathead Lake and into the peaks of the Whitefish Range and Glacier. Got to have a clear day for that far. To the east, majestically towering Mission Range in its entirety is laid out from north to south. The mission town of St. Ignatius and the beautiful farmlands around it are lying 2,000 feet below.

The trip down the southeast ridges of Red Sleep is in open rangeland and you'd better use the lowest gear in your car. At the bottom, the road skirts the east side of buffalo and antelope country of Alexander Basin for several miles before turning west along Mission Creek. Drive slowly, look carefully. Some of the most productive wildlife viewing and photography in the USA can be right there.

Got to leave now. Iris wants me to put away the garden hoses. Maybe I'll do two today… and the other one tomorrow.

G. George Ostrom is the news director of KOFI radio and a Hungry Horse News columnist.