Out there with Tom: American Prairie: a closer look

The Antelope campground where we stayed in the cabin

The abandoned one-room Prairie Union School

A magnificent bull elk we saw at Slippery Ann

There's nothing like a prairie sunset

Fourchette Bay on Fort Peck Lake adjacent to the UL Bend Wilderness

We didn't see many bison, but enjoyed this one

We traveled to the center of Montana for a three-day tour of the American Prairie project, a massive non-government effort to consolidate, preserve and restore one of four temperate grassland environments in the world.

It has patched together purchased ranches and attached grazing leases of about 500,000 acres with the goal of a 3.2 million acres that would include portions of the C.M. Russell National Wildlife Refuge, Missouri River Breaks National Monument, the Wild and Scenic Missouri River, the U.L. Bend Wilderness Area and adjacent other public and private lands.

There are 800 bison grazing the land now, with a goal of 5,000.

The size and remoteness and sparsity of the land stretches the mind and senses.

The tour was put together by Nora Gray with the help of Camille Consolvo and enhanced by Nora's husband, Randy.

We stayed at one of the project's cabins on Antelope Creek, adjacent to a BLM Wilderness Study Area. One evening we traveled south to the Slippery Ann area along the Missouri near James Kipp State Park, and watched rutting bull elk gather up their harems of cow elk, driving off younger challengers.

You do a trip like this and expect lots of driving ---- we figured about 500 miles --- much of it on one-track dirt roads that turn to gumbo when it rains.

That took us to various units developed by American Prairie, including an education center, the Fouchette Bay Overlook on Fort Peck Reservoir, and a buffalo jump. Outside the prairie we also visited the nearby Little Rockies mountain range and the mining town of Zortman with its historical cemetery and legacy of environmental degradation. It is in the so-called "Grinnell Notch" in the Fort Belknap Indian Reservation. The tribal government is also raising bison and has many of the same aspirations as American Prairie, with which it has formed a partnership.

There is considerable push back from local ranchers who don't like American Prairie buying up ranches and introducing bison. We saw numerous, "Save the Cowboy, Stop American Prairie," signs on our travels around the American Prairie.

We also visited American Prairie's headquarters on Lewistown's Main Street, a museum of all things prairie, a worthwhile stop for anyone.

The American Prairie landscape is an empty one, while full of animal and vegetative life. It is difficult to describe because it is so vast, but it is incredibly beautiful and empty.

We'll be traveling there every year from now on, and I hope staying in other spots.

The American Prairie website is worth a visit: americanprairie.org

Fall colors in Glacier, a visit with Bill Borah

High School classmate Bill Borah visited Browning in the past week, giving me an excuse to see him and take in Glacier Park's Fall colors.

I had climbed Mount Borah in Idaho with him in 1998, a mountain named for his famous uncle, Sen. William Borah.

Bill was visiting a friend, Brother Dale, who runs the Christian Brothers DeLaSalle School in Browning. They went to college together in Memphis at Christian Brothers College.

Bill is a Human Rights Judge in Chicago.