Hamilton, Montana

Easy ride down the Bitterroot Valley to Hamilton, except for the rain. I travelled on a wonderful 16-mile bike path that parallels the busy SR93. On either side of me rose mountain ranges—the Bitterroots on the left, the Sapphires on the right. Across the entire valley hung a white sheet of clouds.

As the going was easy and mechanical, my mind took flight and soon I was a 10-year-old under the sheets of my bed at night with a flashlight playing with my toy soldiers. One side of my bed valley was controlled by the goodies, the opposite side by the enemy. At least until one of my parents peaked their head in the door to see if I was sleeping.

My reality check this day came as I passed a sign on a property fence that read: Big Sky Beetle Works. I stopped and thought that it must be a VW repair shop. But way out here? And the sign had a picture of a beetle, not a VW Bug. I rode down the dirt lane and yelled: “Hullo!?” I was greeted by Tracy Hass and he son Sawyer. Tracy explained that they raised dermestid beetles, which are carrion eaters. The bugs are used to clean the skulls of deer, elk, buffalo, wolves, anything. “We remove the eyes and brains first because they are poisonous to beetles,” she said. Each skull is placed in a stainless steel pan. The beetles do their thing in humidity- and temperature- controlled room which has a horrendous smell when the door is opened. “We’re just speeding up what takes place naturally in the wild,” she said. A deer skull will be cleaned in 3 days. The skull is then placed in a special solution of hydrogen peroxide for three days. The result is a brilliant white skull that can be used in taxidermy or put on display by itself.

They have customers in 42 states. Three very big alligator skulls sat on the floor awaiting shipment back to their respective owners.

Haas also specializes in analyzing bear and wolf scat (poop).

In Hamilton I stopped at the Ravalli County Museum. What caught my eye were models of two ticks 32 times natural size. When you turned the handle to see the dorsal and ventral sides an eerie sound was created. Is that the sound of a tick?

Why ticks? Because it was scientists at the Rocky Mountain Institute, now part of the National Institutes of Health, in Hamilton who discovered the vaccine to combat Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever. At one point, 77% of people afflicted with Spotted Fever died.

The spent the night at the home of Cassie and Tim Buhl. We connected through www.warmshowers.org, an international online community of bike riders who offer fellow travelers a free place to stay for the night. Cassie develops vaccines at RMI, Tim is a nurse at the Hamilton hospital. That’s what they do so they can “live,” as they say. With backgrounds as rafting guides, ski and kayak instructors, managing. rafting companies, finish carpentry, cooking at a lodge in Alaska, and a zillion other things, they spend all their free time outdoors.

Tim was planning two trips: A climb of Mt. Rainer this July, and a backcountry ski adventure in February to a Canadian lodge and ski area that can only be reached by helicopter.

They took me to meet a friend who operates a bike shop, Red Barn Bike Shop, in the middle of a field in the middle of nowhere. Somehow he pulls it off. His specialty is building custom mountain bikes.

We went to the local brewery Bitter Root Brewing. I paid for a round of beers for all of us and bought Cassie and Tim a growler full of their favorite beer. We trashed our beer cards as we left. At home, Cassie made a wonderful meal with vegetables from their weekly allotment from a nearby organic cooperative.