Yesterday I had the nearest miss with hypothermia I've had in years of mountaineering and outdoor adventuring.  A photo crew from Colorado came to shoot me for the Patagonia summer catalog, which will feature the work of several conservation leaders in the West.  The weather was in the upper 30's, windy, with several inches of fresh snow -- nothing for a Montanan to worry about.  But Tyler and Draper, the photographers, wanted me in shirt sleeves, looking warm and casual -- like summer.  I would be next to a tank top ad, they said. 

Needless-to-say, I am not the babe-like specimen typically featured in Patagonia catalogues.  And I learned from Tyler, 15 or so years my junior, that none of my clothes were right.  The clogs I've worn every day for nearly 25 years: wrong.  Blue jeans: too short.  Beat-up, out-of-style Patagonia shirts, no.  The t-shirts I offered up, nope.  Finally, in exasperation and a little embarrassment, I let him examine the contents of my closet -- where he found a 15 year old button-down, checked shirt with a few holes -- perfect.  (O.K., I admit it: it's a Royal Robbins.) 

Then they shot me in front of our barn, having hosed and shoveled the snow out of the way, with the door slightly opened.  They liked that look, but it meant, of course, that the three goats inside wouldn't stay there.  A goat rodeo was guaranteed.  Annie, Lydia, and Man Goat checked out the camera gear, sniffed at Draper's face, chewed on the hose, butted my dog Little Guy, and eventually broke open a beautifully wrapped box of chocolates that the photographers had graciously given me as a present.  In between they got a few shots.

Hours later, they had me standing at sunset on one of the few wind-blown (brown) spots they could find, waiting for the perfect constellation of clouds.  It was a long wait.  I put on my parka as we watched the sun slip over the Gallatin Range and flood the sky with a golden afterglow.  We watched pink and orange fingers move across the valley, and massage the shoulders of Livingston Peak.  The Gallatin Range became backlight with stunning gray and yellow clouds, moving fast, propelled by high winds. 

To fill in the time until the light was perfect in the photographers' view, I found myself telling them stories, old stories, of my experience with Patagonia, and their support for my grizzly bear and other conservation work -- work that has a way, as bears do, of demanding a lot of space and tolerance, and rubbing people the wrong way. 

I told of Yvon Chouinard's early gift, in 1987, to the Greater Yellowstone Coalition, where I worked as program director for 10 years.  It was a gift of $5,000 -- a fortune, it seemed at the time -- for the protection of the Clarks Fork of the Yellowstone, the headwaters of the longest free-flowing (undammed) river left in the country.  Our goal was to protect the Clarks Fork as a Wild and Scenic River, in a state where none had been designated for reasons that have nothing to do with the wildness of its rivers: Wyoming is one of the most conservative anti-environmental states in the country.  Even my friends in the Sierra Club laughed initially when I told them of my dream.

Yvon had been one of the first kayakers to descend the Clarks Fork Canyon, thought for many years to be unrunnable; and he was an avid ice-climber who had ventured there too in the winter. 

On a trip to Bozeman, his climbing buddy Jack Tackle told him of our small, up-start organization (then only a few years old) that was daring to protect the Clarks Fork, taking on the "water buffalos" (read: dam-builders), and the fiercely conservative Wyoming congressional delegation (remember Alan Simpson?). 

Yvon's gift showed his confidence in our efforts, and buoyed us.  And it allowed us to pursue the tedious, often unpopular political work of cultivating support for this river among conservative Wyoming communities such as Cody.  Indeed, the work became so controversial that at one point, Senator Simpson promised to "wrap a tire-iron around the neck of Lamar Empey," one of the campaign's local leaders.  (This is no joke, it's a direct quote). 

The success of the Clarks Fork campaign, and its designation in 1992 as a Wild and Scenic river, with the support of Wyoming Governor Mike Sullivan and the state's congressional delegation, helped make it possible a few years later to win a campaign against Noranda's New World gold mine, which threatened Yellowstone Park's wildlife and waters, including the Clarks Fork.  The second battle would have been a lot harder without the first -- and the first was kicked off, in part, by a gift from Patagonia and Yvon, in his ice-climbing clothes.

Many other conservation groups have similar stories: because of the support of Yvon Chouinard and Patagonia at an early, key stage, they were able to gain the traction needed to win in even the most hostile arenas in the West.  The ripple effects of their gifts have been as big as Montana's sky.

Which just then broke open: the gray clouds right above me were back-lit in pink.  Coat off, they said.  Look warm, nice summer day.  I was thankful that they were shooting stills, not film, so my shaking wouldn't show.  I tried to smile and looked toward the snow-covered Absaroka Mountains, the northern reach of an ecosystem I've spent 30 years trying to protect. 

Thank you Patagonia, thank you Yvon!  I would be happy to get hypothermic for you anytime.