Desert twilight never lasts as long as you want it to. Just when it seems the landscape is as beautiful as it could be, and your eyes have adjusted to catch the subtle colors, the light fades to black and you’re left staring into the darkness. My last rafting trip through the Grand Canyon felt a bit like desert twilight. After a short two weeks, as I was fully adjusting to life on the river, I had to pack up and walk away.

Getting to the river always seems to be a challenge, and a 1,000 mile drive in a ’67 VW Microbus made the trip more interesting than usual. The bus managed the drive down from Missoula just fine, plugging along through snowstorms on the Idaho-Utah border and the endless road construction in Salt Lake City. Even packed to the ceiling with gear, we arrived at Lee’s Ferry only a little later than everyone else.

A year before, I had stood at Lee’s Ferry and asked the ranger what flows we would have for our trip. When I sounded surprised and excited by a peak flow of 19,000 cfs (cubic feet per second), he just smiled and mentioned it was nothing compared to the 100,000 cfs flows of a bygone time. Those flows are gone now, courtesy of Glen Canyon Dam.

Completed in 1966, the dam backed up the Colorado River for 186 miles, taking 17 years to entirely fill the new reservoir, Lake Powell. The reservoir was named for explorer John Wesley Powell, the first European American to pass through the Grand Canyon during the 1869 Powell Geographic Expedition. Powell knew the canyon when it was truly wild. Long before we thought that “taming” a river was a good idea, Powell wrote of the incredible scenery and geology of the entire canyon. I imagine him spinning in his grave at the knowledge Glen Canyon sits under 130 feet of water, the reservoir named in “honor” of him.

But because Glen Canyon was drowned, the Colorado still flows freely though the Grand Canyon today. Visiting in the winter offers a slightly less congested experience, as no motor boats are allowed from November to February. Our trip stretched out over 23 days and, although I had to hike out halfway, I still managed to pack in a deep appreciation of the canyon’s natural beauty. We had days of sunshine, rain, even a light snowfall, and spent our time hiking some of the lesser-known side canyons.

In the accompanying photo essay, I’ve tried to give an overview of my brief time spent in the canyon, from starry nights at camp to paddling some of our biggest rapids. On the 15-mile hike out, I caught the sunset over the canyon one last time. As I was enjoying all the canyon colors, the last light faded to black, and I was left with three more miles of hiking through knee deep snow. Desert twilight, still elusive.

According to Montana Department of Transportation regulations, the big-rig machinery was cleared to move at midnight, but didn’t begin the drive until just before 1 a.m.

As soon as the rigs planned movement was confirmed, opponents were ready in what organizer Zack Porter called “impromptu” but “well-planned” demonstrations. Around 5:30 p.m., around 60 protesters, most carrying signs regarding big oil, walked south on Higgins Street, chanting variations of, “Hey, hey! Ho, ho! These mega-loads have got to go!”

Several hours later on Reserve Street, the typically quiet late night buzzed with activity. Workers hustled to set out orange traffic cones and to remove overhead road signs. A large crowd gathered near the intersection of Reserve and South — the majority of them protesters, although a few people who just wanted a glimpse also showed up. As the megaloads neared, the group swelled into the street, toward the trucks. They stayed in the street for several minutes, until officers compelled the crowd back to the sidewalks.

The rig equipment was enormous, pulled by a semi-truck, each around 26 feet high and 29 feet wide, weighing about 650 total tons and dwarfing nearby vehicles and people.  Astounded at the trucks’ size, one woman shouted, “Oh, my god. They’re huge!”

The protesters followed the loads, relocating further north on Reserve Street, where the Montana Highway Patrol confirms at least one person was arrested.

Organized by All Against the Haul and the No Shipment Network, Porter said the rallies were intended to “tell our elected officials to make a choice — to stand with the corporations or to support small businesses that are the driving sector of our economy.”

The convoy reached Interstate 90 at about 3:30 a.m., and parked just before the Orange Street exit.

Salmon at Sunrise

Perched at 8,944 feet, Salmon Mountain Lookout commands a view that stretches through Idaho across two wilderness areas and three states. Looking west on a clear day, you can make out the Seven Devils Mountains, just across the Snake River from the Oregon Border. Turn around to the east, and the Bitterroot and Beaverhead Mountains of Montana fade into the distance.

Located deep in the Frank Church River of No Return Wilderness along the Magruder Corridor Road, the lookout has been staffed by volunteers since 1982. The Forest Service took many lookouts out of commission during the early ‘80s, sometimes even burning them to the ground to avoid maintaining them. Salmon Mountain was saved from the match thanks to a small group of people who donated their time to staff the lookout for the fire season.

I know this place. The first time I spent the night there, I was two weeks old. Since then, I have been back almost every summer. In the last 20 years, I’ve seen fires torch trees with 100-foot flames, watched wolves disappear into the forest and felt the steady pressure of civilization invade this arguably wild land. After all, it’s hard to call something capital-W Wilderness when a road runs right through the middle and has fewer potholes than my driveway.

During summer, tourists point their 40-foot mobile homes across the largest wilderness area in the lower 48, wondering if there are any gas stations in Darby, MT. The end of tourist season, to a small extent, provides the feeling that this area is again “untrammeled by man.”

In the accompanying photo essay, I have tried to capture Salmon Mountain Lookout in late autumn, when the wilderness is a bit closer to what it was meant to be.

An artist's rendering of a proposed wildlife crossing over Interstate 70 on Vail Pass by Janet Rosenberg and Associates, one of five teams competing to design the project. Image courtesy ARC International Wildlife Crossing Infrastructure Design Competition.

Last weekend, hosts of a competition to design a wildlife overpass on West Vail Pass in Colorado’s High Country unveiled proposals from the project’s five finalists. Design teams from around the world took a stab at designing the bridge after planners selected Vail Pass as the site for a crossing that will use modern design standards to safely guide bears, elk, coyotes and other animals across a steep stretch of Interstate 70.

A good wildlife crossing results in fewer car crashes and less roadkill. As Allen Best wrote in October, the ARC International Wildlife Crossing Infrastructure Design Competition selected West Vail Pass in part because it’s the site of many animal-vehicle collisions, and it’s known as a Berlin Wall for wildlife. More than 100 firms from around the world participated in the design competition.

The finalists’ proposals use a number of inventive concepts that make the famous wildlife crossings in Canada’s Banff National Park look like, well, a bunch of grass-covered highway bridges. Wildlife crossings are typically built from steel and concrete, but the competitors who submitted plans for Vail Pass worked to use lighter, more sustainable designs that will be more appealing to animals. A few of their 21st-century innovations:

Veterans Day - Hamilton, MT

Ninety-one years ago, President Woodrow Wilson proclaimed Nov. 11–Armistice Day–as a holiday honoring military veterans. The holiday signified the end of World War I on the “eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month” of 1918.

Many nicknamed World War I “The Great War,” thinking it would never happen again. Since the cessation of World War I, however, the United States has participated in numerous military conflicts and wars, creating more veterans.

Initially, Armistice Day celebrated veterans who served in WWI. However, with the help and lobbying of a shoe-store owner from Emporia, Kan., President Dwight Eisenhower signed a law on May 26, 1954, making Nov. 11 a day that celebrates and remembers every fallen and living United States soldier.

Every year we celebrate our veterans on the eleventh day of the eleventh month with parades, pancake breakfasts, assemblies and observances.

On Nov. 11th, 2010, University of Montana photojournalism students attended events across Western Montana, capturing them in photographs.

These photos were shot by Intermediate Photojournalism students from associate professor Keith Graham’s and assistant professor Jeremy Lurgio’s class of UM’s School of Journalism. Our thanks to them and, especially, to all who serve.

Opportunity Resources Halloween Dance

Halloween, although over for this year, deserves documenting. It’s the one holiday where it seems entire communities are plunged into a subculture society. It is as if each person gets to choose a new role to play, a new person or thing to be. We get to ask: “For tonight, how do I want to interact with the world? Make it laugh? Turn it on? Impress it? Make it think?” Our costume choices reflect a part of us. It’s art: a holiday where everyone becomes an actor. Pumpkin carving? Sculpture at its finest. Trick-or-treating? Performance art on the grandest of scales. Halloween is made up of self expression.

These shots of Halloween in Missoula reflect that. They were taken in disparate locations: Downtown, at a party, in the mall, at an elementary school and in the gymnasium of Opportunity Resources Inc., a nonprofit helping people with disabilities since 1955. At each location, the spirit of becoming that is Halloween shined as brightly as ever.

Greta Rybus is a freelance photographer who shoots Halloween every year. Because she really, really loves it.

Like this photo essay? Please see our companion feature on this year’s Festival of the Dead in Missoula.

This year, the Day of the Dead parade rolled down Higgins Avenue on one of those perfect autumn days, the golden light dying on the hills surrounding town. Capturing it all were University of Montana photojournalism students, as they have in past years.

For 2010, the skeletons seemed bigger and more numerous. The puppets were grander. The dead were honored. The living rejoiced. There was fire and art and, in general, joy

It wasn’t Mexico City, but Missoula, once again, proved it’s up to the task of tradition.

Our thanks to Jeremy Lurgio, assistant professor, and Keith Graham, associate professor, and their talented students.

If you like this photo essay, please see our companion feature, Halloween 2010 in Pictures by freelance photographer Greta Rybus.