My wife and I have been traveling up to ol’ Ted Turner’s property, The Flying-D Ranch, for years now. Typically, we drive out about an hour before sunset and slowly bump along the gravel section watching for wildlife, all the while deeply inhaling the beauty of the Spanish Peaks. One year, a bull moose stood in the middle of the rushing Spanish Creek, very near the road, in regal splendor. He slowly turned his massive head toward us with open curiosity. That was better than any TV show.

Another time, 150 bison blocked the road. Completely. We turned off the car for 25 or 30 minutes and waited. It was a rare gift to just sit there and be entirely enveloped by this iconic scene. Meanwhile, up above us a grizzly bear was playing with her cub, near the tree line, on a lush, green hill. Once, in the dusky late summer light, a large wolf slanted out of the woods. Deer and elk gave it a wide berth as it moved with sleekness and power—and obvious intent. One autumn, on a moonless night, we parked out there beneath the inky sky and watched the pulsating band of the Milky Way cartwheel up and out of Yellowstone to the south. We watched this “drama” unfold in hushed silence. Some gifts herald the profound.

Ted Turner bought this enormous property in 1989. With well over 100,000 acres of pristine wilderness and vistas, he could easily have developed it, but he did not. Instead, he removed the fence lines that had previously penned in cattle and left that valley, along with those magnificent panoramas, the way that God created them. Which is to say, he left them pretty much perfect.

It’s been a cool and wet spring. We’ve needed that. Early one morning, we decided to drive up to “Ted’s Ranch.” We would then continue with a trek up to Pioneer Falls via the trail that starts where that road ends.

The morning was frozen in perfection—the light brilliant, the wildlife plentiful… and those snow-capped mountains sat at the end of the valley on thrones of brilliant crystal, just waiting for us to arrive.

We were the only ones crossing the footbridge as snowmelt sang beneath our feet. How has it been that so many years have slipped past since we last did this hike? I don’t know. I suppose that sometimes we take the closest people in our lives, and perhaps even the ordinary, for granted. We don’t mean to, but we do. Well, on this morning we would change that.

We followed the lilt of the Spanish Creek up through woods and out into sun-splashed meadows. Flowers, soaked in dew, were just beginning to nod awake. Soon, they would wheel and spin their plates of color up into the rising sun. Two-and-a-half miles later, Pioneer Falls was in full flush as the mighty mountains above her shed off their mantles of snow beneath the yellow sun. The powerful mixture of cold mountain air and the mighty sound of crashing ice water was intoxicating.

We sat in slices of yellow warmth and nibbled on our snacks as the sun nosed its way into every dark fold of this good earth. After a well-earned break, we walked up the trail another five minutes. That extra effort brought us out into large mountain meadows which, at this time of year, are brimming with flowers of every color and every scent. To the south, the mighty snowclad mountains of Big Sky filled the horizon. We stood alone in a sea of flowers and mountains, all held tight by the vast blue Montana sky. It was like witnessing the first day of creation—everything leaning into perfect harmony.

What a gift.