On an invigorating morning in Montana's Bitterroot Valley, with the first big snow of the season draping the sagebrush, and the sun angle yet low enough that as frost settles out of the intense blue the heavens seem to be raining glitter, I strap on skis, whistle for my wolf-hybrid to join me, and set out across the foothills of the Sapphire Mountains to look for elk. It is one of those incredible daybreaks that in late twentieth-century human description (or so the thought forms in my mind) would come across, frankly, as so beautiful, it's almost corny.