A Cycle Set in Stone

In the mountains that sprawl across the American West, the white of winter lingers longer than most realize, except perhaps some late skiers. The coastal lands and much of the flatlands have already regained their seasonal colors. But in the towering mountains so vast and wild they teach humility just by standing there, spring comes according to the height of the slopes--the closer to the sun, the later the spring. Which is why elk take their sweet time climbing back to the high country’s sweet grasses. Snowflakes melt slowly there, which means the creeks last longer into the dry summers. Each feature of each slope, like the shape of each disappearing snowflake, tells a unique, silent story through its trees, grasses and even rocks.

This is the true spring story of one stone on a Rocky Mountain mountainside some miles north of Choteau, Mont. The rock is drab black, flat, seemingly unworthy of newspaper note. It’s about the size of those immense china platters grandmothers used to portage the turkey from the kitchen. That rock has resided on the same mountainside for eons, silently playing an important role in neighborhood life.

As the snows slowly recede these days, more of that black rock is seen by the sun, which shines one minute longer every day. As the rock warms, it heats the damp soil beneath. There, thousands of ants, hibernating since early October, begin to stir, to tunnel, to procreate and to recycle the mountain’s natural debris one cubic foot at a time.

One day--maybe in May, maybe in July--another neighborhood resident will happen by, a grumpy black bear. It will see that flat black rock and remember a mother’s lesson learned years ago. The bear will flip over the stone. The ants will scurry for safety from the sudden light. The bear will scoop out several pawfuls of ants and eggs and dirt for a snack before moving on. The bear will not get every ant, which is the way nature arranges such things. The surviving ants will quickly find that same warm stone a foot or so down the mountainside and rebuild their colony under it. They will prosper there until another creature happens by and wonders what might reside beneath a large, flat stone.

If you look closely as the snows melt away these spring days, stretching way up that mountainside you can see many small indentations in the dirt, like telltale steps back into time. After countless centuries of being turned over, that rock isn’t even halfway down this mountain. Which leaves a lot of small stories to tell in silence during generations of springtimes to come.