Regarding busts and bighorns

Sunday was a mighty exciting time after the TV baseball game. Luckily I have a strong heart. Was reclined in the living room chair scrolling through the channels when suddenly there were beautiful girls doing erotic dances on a raised bar and they had lost the top part of their costumes. Was thankful a commercial came on just when Iris entered the room… but then she stayed until the "Striptease" movie started again. "George Ostrom!" she said, "What in heavens name are you watching?"

"Oh? It's an educational documentary featuring Demi Moore and Burt Reynolds exposing how thoughtless men take advantage of beautiful young ladies in night clubs. It's a spin-off of Wild Kingdom."

"And, just how do you think that sort of thing is educational?"

"Well, I'm taking notes about the worst parts so I can report it to the people who own the cable network. They probably don't have any idea those young ladles are deliberately taking their clothes off so men will stuff money in their undies."

"When do you think you'll stop taking notes?"

"Just the very minute this nasty, disgusting stuff is over."

Got three unusual photo-ops last Thursday morning in Glacier Park with son Shannon. Just east of Logan Pass saw a big full curl bighorn ram climb a small cliff above the road, where he began busily chomping mouthfuls of bright orange mountain ash berries. He utterly cleaned off a large bush up as far as he could reach. Never ever saw that before.

Down a bit further, spotted a younger ram coming up Going to the Sun Highway toward our car through the tunnel. Stopped to try for a picture of that event but he got out and leaped up on the rock railing. From there he soared through space onto a point of rock immediately south of the tunnel entrance, balancing hundreds of feet above nothing but air. Got a fine picture of that.

On the flats near Two Dog Creek we came upon a beautifully colored young coyote patiently trying to catch gophers, mice and voles. It did a lot of listening and stalking but only one time did it do the leap in the air to come down on a potential lunch. We couldn't tell if it caught something under his paws or not. Grass was too deep. The coyote was close to the roadway so we had great photo angles and the light was right. After about 20 minutes of no-luck hunting, the young animal went to a service berry bush and began eating the berries, using front teeth to pull them off one at a time. Ate berries for 15 minutes then crossed the road on the St. Mary Lake side and disappeared in the brush.

Many members of Thursday Over the Hill Gang went to climb Mt. Pollock and the Bishops Cap via Lunch Creek last Thursday. Those two dominant points sit high on the Continental Divide and are where we had my sixty-ninth birthday party 10 years ago. Last week the gang didn't fare well. Ran into rain and then snow which made the climbing too dangerous.

Best day of the year to climb mountains on the continental divide is July 24. I've told them that before.

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