INTRODUCTION 



Conservation and Diplomacy 



Saving a Montana Treasure 



A fisherman thigh-deep in sparkling waters 

 waves his rod against a backdrop of rustling cot- 

 tonwoods. A bighorn sheep feeds placidly in a 

 meadow beneath a craggy bluff, A boy in rubber 

 boots shoos a herd of cattle home at sunset, past 

 the tumbled remains of a miner's shack. These are 

 the kinds of memories a visitor carries away from 

 Rock Creek, a jewel of a Montana stream that seems 

 to def\' the passage of time. But it took more than 

 ancient oceans and earthquakes to sculpt this 

 pristine river valley. Rock Creek remains a produc- 

 tive river and scenic paradise only through the 

 combined efforts of vigilant citizens, responsible 

 landowners and government agencies willing to 

 work with the public. 



Montana has long recognized the value of 

 Rock Creek, naming it one of only seven "blue rib- 

 bon, " world-class fisheries.' The creek tumbles 

 north more than 50 miles from headwaters in the 

 Anaconda Pintlar Wilderness on the Continental 

 Divide to meet the Clark Fork of the Columbia 

 River 20 miles east of Missoula.^ Cradled between 

 the Sapphire Mountains to the west and the John 

 Long Mountains and Flint Creek Valley to the east, 

 its crvstal waters abound with rainbow, brook, cut- 

 throat and lunker brown trout, Dolly Varden and 

 an occasional whitefish. Together with five main 

 tributaries, Rock Creek drains three-quarters of a 

 million acres of land and provides some 280 miles 

 of fishable streams. 



Fly-fishermen from all over the country find 

 their way here, wending along a narrow dirt road 

 up a steep canyon in search of the ideal pool or 

 riffle. (Former Federal Reserve Board Chairman 

 Paul Volcker, visiting Missoula in 1990 to deliver 

 a speech, admitted to a standing-room-only crowd 

 at the University of Montana that he'd timed his trip 

 to coincide with the salmon-fly hatch on Rock 

 Creek. The comment earned him his loudest ova- 

 tion of the evening.) Rock Creek is all the more priz- 

 ed because it offers magnificent fishing, but 

 rewards only the skillful with consistent success. 



The woods, as well as the water, hold 

 remarkable wildlife attractions. Hunters stalk elk 

 and deer through the fir and lodgepole forests of 



the basin. Pondero.sa pines shade the creek banks 

 and larches blaze yellow in autumn, when the 

 bighorn sheep come down to the creek to graze. 

 Bird watchers spot endangered bald eagles and 

 even an occasional peregrine falcon winging 

 through the canyon on mild winter days.' In April, 

 the valley is alive with yellow-and-orange western 

 tanagers. 



But sportsmen and naturalists aren't the only 

 ones with an interest in this river valley. For more 

 than a hundred years, people have depended on 

 Rock Creek for their livelihoods. Many of the ear- 

 ly explorers passed through with little lasting ini- 

 pact: Native American hunting parties;'* Lewis and 

 Clark, who called it the "Rocky Fork of the Clark 

 Fork;" the miner Jim Jones who in 1878 escaped 

 vengeful Nez Perce Indians that murdered three of 

 his partners^; and a year later, Andrew Garcia who 

 came up the creek and over the Sapphire Moun- 

 tains with his Nez Perce wife, leaving on a trail he 

 called a "hell-roarer and fit only for an Injun ."<' 



In the late 1880s, homesteaders followed the 

 trappers and miners, settling to stay for genera- 

 tions.' Together, the.se frontiersmen built sluices 

 and stills, fences and bridges, sawmills and watch- 

 towers. They put out forest fires. They cut trees 

 to clear land, to build homes and to .sell. They 

 diverted water for irrigation and mining. They graz- 

 ed cattle and hunted moose and deer. Inevitably, 

 they changed the landscape they loved— and many 

 did love it. "Those pioneers could have stayed 

 where they were, in farming land that was open 

 and flat with a chance at the sun all day long," a 

 long-time resident told Rock Creek historian 

 Darlene Olson.* "Instead, they took a narrow 

 valley, stingy with daylight and overly generous 

 with rocks, but we all felt the magic that Rock 

 Creek held. . " 



A century later, the tension between scenic 

 preservation and commercial use shapes the course 

 of Rock Creek history. The U.S. Forest Service— 

 which manages 80 percent of the land drained by 

 the creek — builds logging roads and .sells timber on 

 a scale the early settlers could not have imagined.' 

 Power lines first strung in the 1950s cari^- electricity 



