Okay, I admit it: I’ve become horribly spoiled since moving to Missoula from Chicago. This scene, which I filmed yesterday is a mere 40 minutes from my town home in the South Hills.

This is unprecedented for me. Sure, I’m used to camping for weeks at a time in the Rockies, but to actually live there, wake up one morning and decide to visit a place like this is simply not possible in Chicagoland.

The Mission Mountains are perhaps the most majestic range in the Rockies. While not the tallest mountains (McDonald Peak tops out at 9,820 feet), the valley-to-peak ratio is almost 7,000 feet…and no foothills. Few ranges in the lower 48 can compete with this.

Not only are the Missions stunning, but they boast a rich tapestry of megafauna like grizzly bears, wolverine, and lynx (although trappers are doing their best to hammer the wolverine and lynx populations).

I did not want to leave this scene. At all. However, I was comforted by the fact that yeah, I now live here. I guess, deep inside, this has always been my home. But now my body rises and sleeps beneath the peaks.

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Stay tuned for a writing update. It’s a big one.

Amongst the outdoor crowd, these places are often avoided, whispered about as “unsightly”, and left for the animals. I don’t feel that way. Although I enjoy nothing more than verdant forest and mountain streams, there’s a certain sincerity to these fire recovery zones. This sincerity is rooted in the truth of Earth. We were born of fire and ash. This is a violent, devastating, volcanic planet.

Hikers who encounter a burn recovery zone are not witnessing an outlier, or death. What they see is a birth.

I’ll gladly spend all day amongst these silver snags, fishing, daydreaming and hiking. These recovery zones are warmer, and often you can find me basking on a rock like an albino lizard. They also make great grasshopper habitat, and thus the streams are rife with the sound of bony trout jaws smacking crunchy grasshoppers. If one is a fly-fisherman, a hopper pattern would be a good bet here.

Hikers often pass right through recovery zones, not bothering with photos. They’ll continue on to greener, non-burned forests, where they’ll pop selfies. You’ll never find these snags in their photo albums. “Too unsightly”, they’ll say. Or ugly.

But black bears don’t mind, nor various species of woodpeckers. And neither do I. If you’re ever in the mountains, and you see a lunatic lounging about one of these recovery zones, offer a friendly wave and he’ll wave back. And maybe, stick around for a bit. You may find this aesthetic the most pleasing of them all.

A fire recovery zone, Bob Marshall Wilderness, Montana.