WILD HORSE PLAINS MONTANA

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CREAM OF THE COUNTRY

A snow-country "banana belt."

By Sara Pacher

Photographs By Phil Schofield

YOU WON'T FIND "WILD HORSE Plains" on a Montana map, because that name for the lushly beautiful lower valley of the Clark Fork River, in what is now the southern half of Sanders County, is no longer used. Protected by the Cabinet Mountains on the north, the Bitterroot Range on the west and the Mission Range on the east, the

valley's climate is almost Pacific maritime, causing some of its residents to complain during recent winters that they can't get their fill of cross-country skiing because there's not enough snow. For this reason, Native Americans wintered their horses on the valley's abundant bunch grass long before the first settlers arrived. Later, fur trappers of the

Hudson's Bay Company did the same.

Horses, though not wild ones, still roam this rich land, and the name survives in the county's most pleasing town of Plains (pop. 1,090), known as Horse Plains until 1883, when the Northern Pacific Railway passed through, and the post office was moved into town from its location at the old Clark/Lynch Ranch, a former stop on the Pony Express. Cattle are still big business here, too.

Land of the Shining Mountains Let me tell you some of my impressions of this special place. First of all, it's "Big Sky Country." Despite the impressive, often snow-covered peaks in almost every direction, there's never a closed-in feeling. You can stand on a sunny hillside alive with meadowlarks, look across an impossibly wide valley of waving grain and fruit trees to the silvery light of a rainstorm drenching a distant mountainside, and wait for the almost inevitable rainbows. The Clark Fork River (formerly called the Saleesh), which flows through the plains, is as wide in places as a good-sized lake, and the trees along its banks are frequently adorned with osprey nests. Spring snowmelt can make for fast canoe or raft rides, but the water gentles in summer, presenting dozens of fine beaches and swimming holes. (Otters and beavers commonly share the recreational opportunities!)

In addition, there are nearby lakes. Sailboaters and windsurfers are just an hour away from the very deep and magnificent 200-square-mile Flathead Lake, the largest freshwater lake in the western United States. Its sky blue water, bordered by the majestic Mission Range, is renowned to fishermen for its cutthroat and Dolly Varden trout, its Mackinaw and kokanee salmon. There are also excellent whitefish, bass in protected bays, and perch in fall and winter. Flathead Lake is a tourist destination, but even in midsummer, you might have one of the smaller fish-filled lakes in the north or just outside of the county practically to yourself.

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