In the Wake of the Wind

Story and Photos by Bruce Bash

If you live in southeast Idaho and you want to see the Night Tracks, you have to be lucky.

Lucky enough to have a day of wind that rattles the chimes outside the bedroom window and pushes children’s play balls into the street. The kind of wind that tips over flower pots sunbathing on the deck and litters the yard with the brittle branches of shade trees. Some people cringe and shy away from going outside on such a windy day, but if you want to see the Night Tracks, you must have the wind.

And if you are lucky, the wind that huffed and puffed all day long will suddenly stop blowing at dusk, as if it ran out of breath, as if totally spent. This gives you the chance to go outside and straighten the overturned lawn chairs and rake up remnants of dried leaves jammed into the corner of the fence. It’s a bit of work, of course, but the calm, silent evening is necessary if you want to see the Night Tracks.