RYE CREEK -- Montana troubadour Jack Gladstone dubbed her the "Lady of the Big Sky."

Hundreds of Bitterrooters trekked up the Skalkaho Highway and a narrow Forest Service road southeast of Hamilton on Saturday to see the 100-year-old lady sawed down.

Make that 100 years plus.

"I counted 104 rings," joked Lisa Philipps of Hamilton, as sawyer Charlie Miller passed around a couple of "cookies" -- the narrow slices from the bottom of the handsome subalpine fir that two months from Sunday will become the nation's 2008 Capitol Christmas Tree in Washington, D.C.

The turnout, estimated at 625 people, took Bitterroot National Forest officials by surprise.

At one point nearly 200 men, women, children and dogs lined up near the junction of Skalkaho and Rye Creek roads, waiting for a Forest Service shuttle bus to haul them the four miles up the creek to the site of the tree-cutting ceremony.

A smaller red bus that brought carolers from Darby was pressed into shuttle service for a time, and still the pre-cut ceremonies were delayed for an hour.

But everyone got in on the crowning event. The crowd watched from behind a pink ribbon 100 feet down the road as Miller and Leroy Christofferson of Missoula fired up their chain saws shortly before noon.

The tree, among several nominated for the honor and the one selected earlier this year by a Washington official, was secured by cable from a towering crane. Christofferson, representing the logging industry, made the initial cuts. Miller, assistant fire manager for the Bitterroot National Forest Service, finished them off as two 4-foot blocks were removed.

"We wanted to have a little unity," said Miller. "There's too much of this conflict. We need to get together with everybody. Loggers built this country, but logging is kind of a declining thing right now.

"When (Christofferson) asked if he could be a part of this, I said let's cut it together."

Miller has been running a chain saw for more than 30 years, but said he'd never performed for a crowd like this one.

"My lips were a little dry, my throat was a little dry," he admitted. "But once I started going, it just kind of all came back."

When all was ready, the crane gently swung the giant lady over to the road and set it butt down, as the crowd, many of whom clambered up a rocky slope to watch, applauded and snapped photographs.

Just as gently, the crane, operated by Otto's Towing and Crane of Missoula, laid the tree lengthwise on the road. It wasn't until then that the avid spectators got their first full sense of its immensity and symmetry, walking along its length and remarking at its girth.

"If you touch it you'll get sappy," warned a Forest Service official.

Out came a tape measure to get an official height -- 78 feet, 3 inches.

"It had to be 70 feet. Now it just has to fit on the trailer," said Chuck Oliver, a district engineer for the Forest Service out of Darby. "This gives us a little bit extra to work with."

The tree was loaded onto a specially made flatbed trailer and towed down to Hamilton later in the day. There the first of what will be dozens of public receptions was planned for Saturday evening.

It'll be placed in a preservative container for the ride across the country, which begins Tuesday with stops in Stevensville at mid-day and at the Wingate Inn west of Missoula at 5 p.m.

Its route takes it north to Pablo and Columbia Falls on Wednesday, then across the mountains to Browning, Cut Bank and Shelby.

All along the way, decorations made by school children of Montana will be presented to the Christmas Tree Caravan, adding to a collection that has already reached 5,000. Some ornaments even came from Kumamoto, Japan, a sister state of Montana's.

Among the caravan's stops across the country will be a two-day stay in Branson, Mo.

"So Andy Williams and the Lennon Sisters are going to sing to your tree," Georgia Colter, a vice president for National Van Lines, told an appreciative crowd before the tree came down.

This is the third year Colter's company has transported the Capitol Christmas Tree. It came from the Olympic National Forest in Washington in 2006 and from Vermont in 2007.

"We have never seen a turnout like this," she said.

Indeed, the event seemed to touch a lot of chords with the onlookers.

A Capitol Christmas Tree -- not to be confused with the National Christmas Tree that's planted near the White House and lighted each year by the President and First Lady -- has been hauled to Washington, D.C., each year since 1970 by the National Forest Service.

The Bitterroot tree is only the second from Montana. In 1989, a 60-foot Englemann spruce was provided by the Kootenai National Forest near Libby.

Wes Ediger of Stevensville climbed carefully down a bank and made his way to the tree's stump. He came back with a limb from "the Lady," breaking off a branch to present to his wife Leastha and friend Sherri Profitt of Lolo.

"This is a historic tree," Wes said. "I'm going to send branches to my kids in Los Angeles, Boise and Coeur d'Alene."

Philipps, a conservationist in the Bitterroot, is in the business of saving trees from being cut down.

But this, she said, was a celebration of trees, "and I love to see that respect for the trees and for the forest."

Gladstone stood on a stump above the road and talked of the inspiration for "Heart of Montana," a song he wrote specifically for the 2008 Christmas Tree and one he'll sing in Washington, D.C., on Dec. 2.

A friend at Salish Kootenai College helped him out.

"He told me we're like a pine cone," Gladstone said. "We start out from the Great Mystery, and we grow for our 70, 80, maybe 100 years, and then we pass back into the Great Mystery."

The tree across the road, he continued, is on the verge of making its journey back to that Great Mystery. Before it does, "it will represent the state of Montana, it will represent the cities and the spirit of the Big Sky Country here in Montana for a couple of months in our nation's capital."

Gladstone then launched into "Heart of Montana," accompanied as he will be in Washington by the Montana A Cappella Society from the Bitterroot Valley.

"She's seen Indians and mountain men and growing pains developin'," they sang. "This Lady of the Big Sky, Our Lady of the Sun ... is part of the Heart of Montana."

"I saw some tears in people's eyes when Jack Gladstone was singing," said Philipps. "It's really neat, because they've got compassion for the trees."

In addition to the Capitol tree, some 70 companion trees will be sent to Washington, including 40 off school trust land, said State Forester Bob Harrington. Others come from F.A. Stoltz Land and Lumber Co., the Mannix Brothers ranch in Helmville, and from a 4-H club in Hill County. A tree from the Salish Kootenai tribe will be displayed at the Native American Museum in D.C. as well.

More information on the Bitterroot's Capitol Christmas Tree project can be found at capitolchristmastree2008.com. To follow the tree's route as it makes its way back to Washington, D.C., log on to www.trackthetree.com.