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A True legend of the American West, Arnold “Smoke” Elser – The Cowboy and The Immigrant
When my feet sunk deep into the wet ground far away from the hills where I was born, I knew my husband and I had found the right spot. Our horses had steadily climbed the steep mountain trail for 12 miles, weaving through sheer cliffs. Here, on top of the pass, the rock gently leveled out on a marshy 40-acre meadow — the perfect campsite at 6,700 feet
For 50 years, one of the last living (and working) legends of the American West, Arnold “Smoke” Elser, made camp here. Now at age 90, Smoke is well-known beyond Montana as an award-winning outfitter, horse and mule packer, teacher, and conservationist. Our unlikely friendship brought me to the top of this mountain, changed my life, and gave the world his stories.
Big Sky Journal in Fall 2024 | Feature Stories
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‘Hush of the land’: Friendship stokes embers of Smoke Elser stories packing into The Bob Marshall Wilderness
“Hush of the Land” is not a memoir, although Arnold Elser does recount much of his biography growing up in Ohio, getting nicknamed “Smokey” while working as a wildland firefighter at Ohio State University, and how Montana outfitter “Howard Copenhaver thought it wasn’t much of a name for a packer and changed it to ‘Smoke.’”
