Black Mountain's Past
Exploring ‘america’s serengeti’ with old friends from the swannanoa valley
Wendell Begley
Guest contributor
The Valley Echo
December 7, 2023
America’s Serengeti … Yellowstone’s Vast “Thorofare Wilderness”
In September 2004 this was one of our remote, back-country campsites deep inside Yellowstone Park’s Thorofare Wilderness. The Thorofare is known for being the most remote piece of “wilderness” in the lower 48 States. Photo courtesy of Wendell Begley
From time to time, it is good for the soul to reflect upon experiences and friendships that have afforded us Happiness and Companionship. So, in this Series, that is what I have tried to do. Many “old friends” of mine will recall the featured adventures with brief smiles, a few chuckles, and cherished memories for a lifetime.
Since boyhood days of running trap-lines with Black Mountain’s Wesley Melton (1950-1970) along the birch lined banks of the section of the Swannanoa River, directly behind today’s old, vacant Black Mountain Bi-Lo Store, to years of “hunting and backpacking” throughout the Great American West. I so value those Adventures of yesteryear.
Reflecting on some 45-plus years, my diaries describe 51 trips to the most extraordinary, remote backcountry Colorado, Wyoming and Montana has to offer. My first elk hunt in Wyoming’s Big Horn Mountains was in October of 1974. That trip included Black Mountain’s Will Brigman (1937-2012) and Ken Kendall (1951-2023). The hunting sojourn for the three of us was a 20-mile backpack into Wyoming’s remote Cloud Peak Wilderness. The jump-off point was West Tensleep Lake. The Cloud Peak Wilderness is in Wyoming’s Big Horn Mountains and is widely known as the wildest and most remote section of the Big Horn Range.
Years later, in the 1980s, I favored several hunting adventures along Colorado’s Grand Mesa so much that I named my youngest daughter (Kannah) after the respective Wilderness Boundary and Creek. As fate would have it, one of my last hunting jaunts took place in October 1999 inside the Kannah Creek Wilderness. Our hunting camp was situated in the deep wilderness boundary below Carson Lake, which bordered the world’s largest flat top mountain, the Grand Mesa.
During all 26 of those years and until the late 1990s, our clan of local hunters — Black Mountain boys — always had a unique fall hunt calendared. I usually began planning every expedition a year in advance. During that time, all our hunts were exclusively “homemade.” We did all the research, and never paid a professional guide, never car-hunted off forest service roads, never used a GPS device and always backpacked in and out on foot.
For the most part, the morning and evening destinations were instinctive “bushwhacks” from a “base camp” deep inside a “Federally Designated Wilderness Area/Boundary.” For guidance we had a USGS topo map, compass, altimeter, and a dose of “Good Luck.” As a result, we uncovered the best game trails “be it” a remote high-altitude meadow, uncharted river valley or trail less mountain gap. And yes, what we carried in on our frame packs we carried out, meat and all. The backcountry hunting party usually lasted ten days to two weeks. The hunts were in every sense a true “Wilderness Experience.” Most importantly, our starting point exclusively embraced a “threshold” to one of the West’s largest and most isolated “Federally Declared” Wilderness Boundaries.
As the years passed, I eventually gave up the ol’ long rifle and began capturing my “Western Trophies” through the lens of my Cannon Camera. After 1999, our Adventures transitioned into lengthy, backpacking treks featuring some of the most extraordinary scenery and wildlife the American West had to offer. So, this week, before the Christmas holiday, I toast-up cheers for my good friends, memories and experiences of a lifetime in the Great Outdoors.
Yellowstone’s Thorofare Wilderness
This picture at the top of the page captures one of my most memorable backpacking adventures. I took the extraordinary photograph in late September 2005. At the time, with hiking buddies, pictured above, from left to right, Rodney Magnum, Marshall Roberts, Jack Taylor, and Glenn York, and we were half-way through a bucket list 80-mile journey. Our goal was to make our way to the south end of Yellowstone’s Thorofare Wilderness. Wyoming’s Thorofare is the most remote piece of pure wilderness in the lower 48 states and is flooded with wildlife and incredible scenery. Us fellows forded the historic Yellowstone and Thorofare Rivers, crossed the Western Continental Divide at Two Ocean Plateau, Camped at Mariposa Lake (elevation, 9,000 feet) and walked out of the woods near Lewis Lake inside Yellowstone Park. I composed this picture at the journey’s mid-point near the confluence of the Yellowstone and Thorofare Rivers. The site was west of the Trident Plateau and north of Hawk’s Rest inside the Grand Teton Wilderness. Most nights and early mornings we awoke to serenades of the Yellowstone “Delta Wolf Pack.” As a sidebar, the following spring and summer (2006), Rodney Mangum walked the entire 2,198 miles of the Appalachian Trail, end to end. He always said our trek through the Thorofare was just a “warm-up” event. That it was.
Wesley Melton
My earliest fishing, hunting, and trapping buddy was Black Mountain’s Wesley Melton (1950-1970). Wesley could out-hunt and out-fish any of us boys. We grew up at the foot of Sunset Mountain on the south side of Black Mountain. Before girls, driver’s licenses and Asheville’s Buck’s Drive-In, this is what we did on Saturdays for “Bragging Rights.”
Ted Wheeler
Swannanoa’s Ted Wheeler (now deceased) was one of my oldest friends. Ted and I survived Owen High School together. We shared many memorable fall seasons hunting elusive whitetails near the banks of North Fork’s Laurel Branch, Broad River’s Round Mountain, McDowell County’s Upper Mill Creek and Ridgecrest’s Buck Flats. In fact, our time in the woods competed with Mrs. McCoy and Mr. Pratt class-time at Owen.
Chip Moore
This is one of the most memorable pictures I have of my ol’ hunting buddy, Chip Moore. Chip is standing on a bluff high above Montana’s Flathead River deep inside the Bob Marshall Wilderness. “The Bob” as it is referred to, is the lower 48’s largest and most remote wilderness boundary with over one million acres. It also harbors the densest grizzly bear population in the continental U.S. Back in early September 1979, we spent 12 days elk hunting “The Bob” in Montana’s vast Wilderness, near the Chinese Wall. Our hunting party included myself, Black Mountain’s Chip Moore, Dean Yancey, and Charlie Casey. Dean and Charlie were past superintendents of North Fork’s Asheville Watershed. In 1979, our base camp was situated on the banks of Helen Creek about 18 miles inside the wilderness boundary. I will never forget how bright the stars were in the Nightly Sky.
Mike Goodson and Richard Padgett
In October 1995, Black Mountain’s Mike Goodson (above), Richard Padgett, pictured below standing in Kannah Creek, Greg Davis, Bobby Davis, Ted Minnick and yours truly backpacked and hunted Colorado’s Kannah Creek Wilderness. This rugged wilderness forms a section of the Grand Mesa National Forest.
That year the quaking Aspen were the brightest yellow I can remember. I have always said it is a rare event that beats laying on your back in a quaking Aspen grove, hearing a breeze of wind and seeing the deep blue sky filtered through yellow leaves and white barked Aspens.
Bob Watts
Lastly, I have featured a picture of my ol’ hunting buddy, Bob Watts. I took this picture in December 1985 as Bob was standing behind my 1975 “Hike-In Hand-Built” one-room log cabin (elevation, 6,500 feet) which is situated on the Crest of the Black Mountain Range near Mount Mitchell. I would say that Bob and I have stalked, chased and cussed more whitetails along the “Crest of the Blacks” than any soul living. Of course, in making such a bold claim, I am excepting “Big Tom” Wilson’s and kin as well as all the North Fork Burnetts.”
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Copyright: M. Wendell Begley, series 860, VE3, December 8, 2023
