Helena man embarks on journey into Bitterroots
By MICHAEL MOORE of the Missoulian
Richard Layne walks into the mountains on Tuesday on a journey that melds the philosophical with the practical.
He will crisscross the Selway-Bitterroot Wilderness for the love of beautiful country, but he'll also walk for the promise of money, for the hope that some magazine publisher will buy his unfolding story and photographs.
He will walk alone, for 125 miles, in part because he is a self-confessed “jerk,” but also because he doesn't think anyone else can keep up with a 56-year-old mountain man.
“I'm doing this because I love these places, but I'm coming forward about it because I need the money,” the Helena carpet cleaner said Monday as he hiked up Mount Helena for a final training trip.
Richard Layne is experienced in the backcountry. He's traveled extensively in Glacier National Park in the winter, producing short, electronic books of prose and pictures that he sells on his Web site, richardlaynephoto.com.
The e-book sales are infrequent enough to warrant the carpet cleaning business he runs.
“If I wanted to live on that, I'd have to do something else,” Layne said with a laugh. “But you know, I just have to go, in part to take the pictures. That's what I just love.”
His Bitterroot trip will be an epic journey that could easily turn disastrous. With a 95-pound pack, he'll start into the Bitterroots at Blodgett Canyon, where he's already done a scouting trip. He'll cross Blodgett Pass, then wander mostly west and a little north to Big Sand Lake and eventually Elk Summit, where a friend has cached some provisions.
From Elk Summit, he'll head south toward Moose Creek, then continue on toward Paradise, an outpost on the Selway River, where another supply cache will await him.
If everything goes well, he'll emerge at the West Fork Ranger Station west of Sula in about three weeks. He'll travel when the snow is cold, resting in the afternoons when the weather warms.
“Oh, it's going to be dangerous,” Layne said. “And it's going to be a hell of a tough trip.”
But really, that's the point. Anything else would be just another walk in the wild, indistinguishable from any garden-variety hike.
Layne, in both an interview and an e-mail he sent to the Missoulian and other publications, clearly doesn't see himself as anything less than a reincarnation of the great explorers.
“Needless to say, the danger is real and only an accomplished individual in this type of survival/travel should even consider such an epic journey,” Layne wrote. “By the time most of you read this, I will already be back inside the mouth of the beast and moving forward.”
Back in Helena, his wife will be at home worrying. He understands fully that what he's doing is selfish and self-indulgent.
“She'll be worried and there's a part of me that feels bad, but it doesn't stop me,” Layne said. “This is the meaning for me. I went into the mountains in 1965 and I haven't been the same since.”
