Glacier National Park Trip Report slash Verbal Ramblings.
It is always difficult to come out of the woods. The challenge is to keep yourself. To keep that open space; open mental space and Confidence. And to carry that space into your interactions with “real life”. Out in the backcountry, you can be anything and do anything. Daydreaming becomes reality. There are no boundaries. Edges between you and the lives you could live and paths you can pursue become soft. The real world is tougher, it just is. There are fewer quiet, empty spaces to sit in. The theoretical and conceptual and hoped for outcomes have a layer of Thick Skin around them suddenly. Logistics, opinions and choices compose this skin. In your backcountry daydreams, it all seems just right there in front of you; in reality land it becomes: But How? Are you Sure? People will think you are Nuts! How do you justify yourself; who the f$%k do you think you are anyway? So the challenge is to keep yourself, to keep that Open Space, that sense of possibility and mostly that sense of Confidence in order to the see through the Thick Skin; to see the Paths of Possibility.
Out in the backcountry your frame of mind, focus and energies are not polluted by having to justify your existence.
You talk to the trees and birds and the mountains. And they listen. I am telling you I speak with trees, and it works. Furthermore, the mountains give you an incredible sense of peace. Why? Because they don’t give a s%^t. You are so small and meaningless to them. You are staring up at unfathomable amounts of time passage. Eons and eons of rising and falling and comings and goings. That mountain is just there with these deep broad roots flowing universal energy deep into the core and vastly up into the ether. It IS the Universe. It has been there “forever” and will remain forever, or at least long long long past any sense of time that you or I can conceive of. But not static. Just like you and me, that mountain is a Process, not a static entity. It is just a process moving at a time scale that we cannot possible comprehend. So I can touch the mountain. I can feel the juice. I can sit in that energy...but I do not matter one bit to that mountain or by extenstion, to the universe. Which is quite empowering really. I can be or do anything (unless the Thick Skin scares me off). In fact I had better get after it. I had better be and do what I can. Because nobody cares. The mountain doesn’t. The universe doesn’t. It is just slowly molting away with or without my contribution. So I had better get going here! Do. See. Learn. Embrace my inner crazy, because nobody else really cares! Nobody has time to care! See through the Skin; absorb the Confidence of the mountains and bring it with you, out Here.
Montana is on fire. Turns out so is Washington, Idaho and much of Canada.
From the vantage point of Missoula, Montana; on any vector of travel, backcountry opportunities present themselves. The Selway/Bitterroot, Big Horns, Sawtooths, Anacondas, Beaverheads, Beartooths, Winds..all of Canada and the Yellowstone ecosystem. Generally speaking I prefer heading into Wilderness or National Forests areas versus National Parks because there are almost always less people, and also more freedom of movement and less restriction on places to sleep, overland travel etc. In short; a bit more 3 dimensional, wide open feel, less structure. You don’t always have to stay between the lines.
Glacier National Park is very popular, and very crowded and is known for being quite difficult and bureaucratic with respect to getting in to the backcountry. Difficult I suppose isn’t quite the right word; physical access is actually enhanced by multiple trail heads and robust infrastructure and well maintained trails and bridges over rivers etc; it is just organized and rules based and bureaucratic. You have to get in line, wait your turn, see what is available, pay for you time. You can only sleep at specific designated back country sites, and your itinerary cannot change or be flexible once you get out there. So it can be sort of like going to the DMV; take a number, get in line and hope for the best. But in the end, after the hoops have been traversed, you gain access to top notch scenery. Top notch.

I have been to Glacier twice previously and each time have walked away from the backcountry office frustrated and stymied. The first time I ended up just doing day hikes and sleeping by my car where I could around the park. (It doesn’t take long to find places to sleep in National Forest land around the Park). That was several years ago. Last year I showed up after a solid Canadian road trip and was told that both the front country and back country were basically full and would remain full forever and that I should just keep on moving. Nothing to see here. Ta ta for now. That backcountry permit lady was particularly uninterested in me, displayed no trip planning creativity and clearly was annoyed by all my questions...a DMV employee by winter I can only surmise.
So given my two previous experiences, as much as I love the vistas of Glacier it has a bad overall taste in my mouth from a wilderness/backcountry perspective. I like throwing my gear together, driving to a trailhead and then walking around for a while. However, Montana is on fire…except (at the time anyway) Glacier! Well, I guess we should drive on up there and see about a smoke free backpack. Come on Glacier, let’s make this happen.
I arrived in Glacier and went straight to the Backcountry office. As luck would have it, smoke had begun rolling in that day. So the entire original reason of giving this place the third chance was decaying all ready. To be fair, this time, the backcountry dude was helpful and positive. Very refreshing. He was responsive to my desire to be creative and put together a nice long trip. That being said, nothing was really available, the backcountry was pretty full and the potential itineraries we came up with were convoluted and lacked a certain aesthetic. A backpack should have a flow on a map. It’s artistic. Flow matters. A backpack follows a line or a contour or a recognizable shape. The punchline; try again tomorrow. “Come back at 5 or 6am and wait in line.” Wait, What? Is this a line for Pearl Jam tickets or something? Wait in line at 6am to pay to get tickets to forgo bathing and eating real food and walking around in Grizzly country?
So, as I sat looking out at a smoke covered Lake MacDonald valley, pondering my existence and weighing my options, I said screw it; let’s go West. Go West Young Man, go West. Surely it cannot be smoky and crowded everywhere! Surely Washington can’t be on fire too bro, surely there is some wide open country that will open it’s non-bureaucratic arms to me, give me a big hug, a pat on the butt and invite me in?!
West I drove. North through Eureka, then South along Koocanusa Lake (really cool by the way), through Libby and in to Idaho. Hello Sandpoint my old friend! And then Washington State; brand new turf. But smoke and more smoke everywhere. Surely if I can just get far enough West, it can’t all be on fire. Just a couple more hours… I will say this: I think Washington has some great territory. It gave me a smoky impression of big forests with great windy roads (a lot like Maine!). Wide open farm filled valleys between rolling green mountains. But, I will have to go back because it all lay hidden under a soft fuzzy blanket of smoke. Relatively speaking, Glacier had been crystal clear. After a short sleep on the eastern edge of the Cascades by the car, and an early morning ponder session, I realized the error of my ways. Holy crap; I had just drove half way across Washington to avoid smoke all because I was irritated with the permit people. What an idiot! (head slap open palm) So I tucked tail, turned my ass back around and headed back to the trophy blonde of northern Montana: Glacier.
Oh, dearest backcountry office, let’s try this again. I am sorry I doubted you and acted like a rejected child. I am humbly presenting myself to you again; I am in your hands. Can you help me get in to the backcountry? Dear visitor permitting person wearing a pseudo Ranger costume; can you see past the lines of people and the busyness energy and connect with me as a individual? 86..number 86.

I got permits.
I put in on the afternoon of Day 1 at the Walton trailhead, near Essex and had a forest walk session to Ole Creek (is it Olay! or Ollie?) and spent my first night at an organized backcountry site in Glacier. There is a food prep area, and a food hanging area where you turn your food bags into Bear Piñatas. I met some nice folks from Seattle and Ohio. I pulled a tick off my leg. I have to say the first couple of days I had a lingering layer of anxiety pillowing on the top of my brain. It is hard to say why; but I believe it had to do with the fact that I knew that after this backpack, I was moving to Missoula. That my summer of roaming around and backpacking and fishing and car camping and meeting interesting folks and living wide open with no plan was almost over and that I was going to be thrust into “reality” again, on a more permanent basis with no “plan for life”. No clean straight answer to the Justify Your Existence question of “What do You do?”. Well, to be more precise, I do (and did) have some vague and grand and self delusional plans, but no specifics. The kind of vague, grand, anything is possible notions that are possible in the Wide Open Space of the backcountry, but require a different level of Confidence, Commitment and Detachment from others Judgement to actually execute in the real world. The things that are on my brain are entirely up to me. No structure awaits. No road map to success. No clear purpose. No person to guide me. No specific objectives. Just fuzzy broad goals, to which I am the sole constructor of the framework and bones to support and frame these goals. So I believe that the anticipated clash of the wide open Path of Possibility and the Thick Skin of Reality that await was making me nervous. Can I keep up my imagination? My confidence? Can I keep myself?
Or perhaps it was because I was out solo in Grizzly country. That will certainly elevate the heart rate as you whack through some thick undergrowth stepping over bear crap.

Day 2 found me mucking through a pretty overgrown stretch of trail from Ole Creek to Upper Park. It rained quite hard on me the first night and the underbrush along the trail was soaking wet..so very quickly I was soaking wet and cold. Such is the life in the forest. After a day slog through the woods, I was welcomed to my camp for the night by a huge bull Moose. Lake Isabel was clearly his home; we were just passing through. I shared the Moose sanctuary with Daniel and Graham, both from the Bay Area. Just the 4 of us occupied the side of the Lake, staring up at huge sedimentary cliffs with colorful bands of rock lit up in the evening sun. There was a slight smoky haze in the air, and the lake was set in the middle of an old burn area, making it a quiet, dead zone framed by a smoky mist, huge castle wall cliffs and Mr. Moose just plodding around. I had a good time speaking with the Contractor and the Software Engineer from the Bay Area. I learned a bit about Tinder and briefly about some weird site that facilitates things like “pegging” and being “airtight”. (Do Not Google these things!) But we primarily talked about normal things like jobs, family, relationships, opportunity, the future, uncertainty. It was unclear what views the Moose held on these topics. Chew, stare, chew.
Day 3, in some respects was the real start to the trip with a big long grind up out of the burn area in to the red rocky zone of Two Medicine Pass. First big Pass of the trip and it felt great. My feet were holding up ok and my body felt solid so I pushed around 3 hours from Isabel to the top of the Pass, then threw everything out in the sun to dry and paid homage to the Mountain Sun gods for awhile. The Gods do live in the Mountains. All of them. You’ll find them if you just walk. There is a “flow” out there that is much harder to find on pavement. Roll your shoulders back a bit. Head up slightly, perhaps into the wind or against the sun. Big deep breath, Open Up, and I am telling you (as a very practical, engineering student, former Wall Streeter, former business owner dude, generally not super mystical (yet)); you will find an energy flowing through the mountains, through you and in to the above.

After soaking up some Mountain Juju, I was back in the Groove! No more anxiety. I was in my Wide Open Space again and marching along the Path of Possibility. I waddled my tired butt to No Name Lake (I see what you did there cheeky bastards) for the night. There I met an impressive group of youngsters, part of a Leadership group out of Seattle. They were out for 8 days! There were 2 adult chaperones, but an 18 year old gal was basically in charge. There were some internal disputes around logistics and mileage and when to wake up (a touchy subject for the teenage boy representatives in the group) and it was quite impressive to observe them hash it all out with civility. Perhaps the future is Bright! These kids were talented, witty and seriously good communicators, maybe too good.
Day 4 took me over Dawson and Pitamakan Pass. These are highlights of the Park to anybody that knows the Park (and now for me). It is one of those stretches of trail on which the Trail Crew is just showing off! All well above tree-line, along the edge of a huge dropoff; on loose stone and solid rock, walking along the side of a cliff; a pathway carved from the mountain. It is amazing these trails even exist. Smoke was certainly in the air and across a very short period of time I experienced sun, high winds, and a short burst of rain and hail. As I began to descend Pitamakan, clouds of doom were rolling in from the West as a few tourists cruised off around the ridge in to the unknown. It was an impressive few miles of trail. (and the clouds of doom in the end passed peacefully, no end of the world today).

I took an hour and sat thinking about nothing at Pitamakan Lake. One of the things I’ve learned is to take a good long break each day until your feet harden up. You have to let your feet dry out. In fact, basically every time I take a break, I take my shoes and socks off and let the feet air out. Helps with the blisters big time, and pays off in the later days of a trek once you harden up and start putting in miles. Helps if the sun is out to scorch everything out, but just sitting in a breeze is solid. So I took my hour long break by the Lake practicing “purposelessness”, mental purposelessness anyway. Feet drying is a purpose?

From a storytelling perspective, it was a packed evening at Atlantic Creek that evening. Upon I arrival, I bathed in the Creek (as I always do) and got some water and was snacking and hanging out in the “food prep area”, or the place the bears will come if they are going to come because it is covered in human food smell and toothpaste spit. A tall, skinny gal came rolling through, skipped salutations and went straight to “Where is the water”, in a distressed tone. Being that we were standing about 15 feet from the Creek, this seemed an odd question. She returned a few moments later with a dysfunctional water purifier. One of those UV Steri-pen type things (of which I am unfamiliar), but I guess you stick them in your water and bada bing bada boom the bad stuff dies and you chug away. Anyway, it turns out that she was from Brooklyn (Dumbo!) and that her boyfriend was back up the Trail toward Triple Divide Pass feeling ill and she had run ahead to get water to revive him; hence the modest level of distress. I started squeezing her some water slowly from my Sawyer..and as we exchanged pleasantries we heard a splashing in the Creek. Yup..Griz! First (and last) of the trip. We made a bunch of noise; “Hey Bear!” exclaimed at high volume is the preferred method of deterrent. (I wonder if that is confusing for a Bear. You are saying “Hey” to me as if you’d like to greet me, but the tone you are using is unusually loud, hostile and generally inappropriate for greetings). The confused little guy splashed through the Creek and then nosed up the Path straight towards us. (of course he would; why muck through the underbrush when you can take a perfectly cleared path) until he heard all of our commotion and recognized the error of his ways. He got up on his hind legs to take a sniff of us and with an air of indignation promptly reversed directions and waddled off. I actually had my bear spray out, safety off; this was the closest I have ever been to a Griz. Heart rate elevated. So, this gal from Brooklyn really got the whole deal; dehydration, altitude sickness and a close encounter with a Griz! As luck would have it, Dennis, a backcountry Ranger showed up and Wilderness EMT saved the day; the young couple was seen shortly thereafter hiking out, none the worse for wear after the Ranger checked in and administered officially sanctioned empathy and motivation.
I had a great time chatting with Mr. Ranger. He gets to do big long day hikes all summer long, just checking in on folks and trails and bears in the backcountry. Light trail clearing, site maintenance, bear management, and the periodic Big Deal, like a rescue or forest fire or bear removal situation. A former PCT thru-hiker, he was a cool dude that clearly loved his job and loved the Park. I have to say that everybody I met that worked in or with the Park, displayed a strong sense of pride and ownership in the Park. I get it, now.
Late in the evening, Ashley rolled in with her group of total Rookies. They were beat and hungry and a storm was rolling in. She was a young backpacking Guide (from the Great State of Maine!) out here taking newbies into the woods for short backpacks for a reasonable fee. Part Sherpa, part life coach, part babysitter, part cook, dishwasher; it is a tough job for anybody, and for a youngster she performed admirably. More hope for the future; a talented young gal! She managed to get two gals from Iowa and a Dad and 11 year old son team from the Dirty Jerz, up and over Triple Divide and down to camp, make them dinner in a rainstorm and tuck them all in, none the worse for wear. Bravo.

Day 5 got me up and over Triple Divide Pass, where I sat for almost 2 hours fending off ground squirrels trying to eat my pack (your sweat turns to salt which they crave) and airing out my possessions after the previous night of thunderstorms. (Any my feet of course; you gotta gotta air those gnarly puppies out!) I talked to a handful of folks up there before a long steady grind down and down through an old burn area to Red Eagle Lake for the night. I ran into 4 dudes from Philly who said they had seen a Momma Griz and 2 Cubs nearby and then ran into a large family with several kids all from Wisconsin blissfully strolling along, seemingly unaware that all the brush and berries were prime Griz country and that the little kiddies probably shouldn’t be running ahead by themselves. Presumably however, they were not snacked on, as this would have made national news surely. Or maybe not. Fake News! The kids all had really long hair (boys too) and reminded me of that one hit wonder rock band from Australia back in the day. 3 brothers, one was really young and they had one great song..and disappeared. Anyway, they were long haired rockers from Wisconsin flirting with Death by Griz.
The evening of Day 5 was another really pleasant people surprise. I stayed at Red Eagle Lake. The sites were in a burn area again, so you are really exposed there to the sun and elements, but the upside of a burn is open vistas and a sense of Horizon. There is usually a horizon out here in Montana, where as Back East, you are generally in the woods or surrounded by buildings. A sense of Horizon is always refreshing. I don’t think we verbalize it or sense it directly, but on the shores of a lake or the ocean or at a summit of a mountain or Pass; when the sky opens up and you can see the Edge of earth; your being responds to that Openness. I think that is why we flock to open spaces on our holidays and vacations. Horizon.

I shared a camp that night with a group of college kids from Ohio. Cincinnati (spell that without double checking) and Columbus. They all grew up in Bengal country (easier to spell), and were students at either UC or OSU…big big schools. They described the main street of campus like 5th Avenue between classes as students transitioned from class to class. Saved by the Bell meets Times Square. Sounds like an interesting way to experience college; not clearly good or bad, just unique. They did say how mind blowing sporting events were, and I can only imagine. Particularly OSU football. I love campus. I loved my college years. If I had all the money in the world I’d probably just be a student. In fact, even without all the money in the world, I may still try and pull that off. Of course, being a “student” is a mindset that you can utilize anywhere, but there is (at least in my estimation) great value to being a part of a community or institution devoted to education; isolated and separate from the real world. To be Attached or Detached? Plus, I just enjoy campus physically. The old brick buildings, the walking mall, the old trees, the dirty hippies playing frisbee barefoot.
This group of young men from Ohio impressed the heck out of me. Smart, curious, engaged. Looked you in the eye, responded to intelligent conversations, knew worldly events. Didn’t really give a shart about social media. In short, they seemed very well adjusted and capable. It was a very positive interaction and just blew all kinds of holes in my old man “kids these days” attitude and notions of youth buried in smart phones with no real social skills. I’d say, perhaps because they grew up with it, they are more equipped and more able to handle some of the bullshit that Facebook and constant online stimulus does to us, (or to me anyway). I have found that social media plays too deeply into all my insecurities. (writing and sharing this is a forced exercise in Confidence). It is a great tool for communication, no doubt, but in addition to magnifying my personal insecurities and self doubts I find that it can actually prejudice how I experience something. By that I mean this; I am rolling along minding my business when a photographic moment or memorable experience presents itself and is worthy of sharing with friends and family; as I experience or exist in that moment rather than simply being in the moment, living that moment, I am playing in my head how to describe it or photo it or present it to the social media viewers. So that is really a form of insanity isn’t it? You are not actually living in the moment. You are living in an anticipated, polished up, scripted, marketed moment somewhere in the near future that you’ve framed for your “friends” to view so that your fragile ego can get a few “likes” to sustain you until the next scripted moment comes in to frame. At least this can happen to me, if I am not careful. To begin with, I have always had a difficult time getting out of my head. I am usually lost in my head. So being Present and in the moment under the shadow of social media is just that much more challenging for me. I am working on it though. Hence all the Wide Open and Confidence crap I am spouting in this piece; It is important to be Present. I’ve learned that you can be almost anywhere, but not there. You can be sitting on a beautiful mountain or with dear friends, but lost in your own head, preoccupied by who the hell knows what; fears of the future, or stuck on some regret or misstep in your past, or obsessed by some personal flaw, or just daydreaming about cheetos and toe jam. But in any case you may as well be sitting on a couch in a dark, stimulus free room. You are not Present. You are lost in your head. If you don’t open up, sit up, look around and clear your head and see and hear and smell that mountain top moment, as far as your actual Being is concerned; you were never there. This is not a new idea by any stretch, but something that has become more and more visceral to me as I age; such that the concepts of Being Present or Be Here Now have REAL meaning to me now, and are not just abstract, intangible, something cool to say concepts. It really means something to me and I am working on it; Open up and Soak up the Moment. Who is coming with me? (Jerry Maguire voice).

Day 6 was one of the more nondescript days of the trip. I did hike around St. Mary’s Lake, but it was pretty smoky slog through the forest. I actually felt a bit lonely on Day 6. And that’s all I have to say about that (Forest Gump voice).
Day 7 and Day 8 were lifetimes long; in a good way. Often a day in the back country really seems like a thousand hours; as you live a thousand different lives. Daydreaming all of the choices you can or have made, and visualize out these different paths, all the lives you could have lived; with constant new stimulus from the terrain that you are passing through; new vistas and new landscapes that suck you in and Change you. On these days there is only air and mountains and the psychic strain of fighting to absorb it all, to preserve it, to hold the moments as you walk. It is overload really. You can’t hold on to each glimpse of a peak or jagged edge of rock against a blue sky. The landscape is too broad and too big to hold in any sort of detail. I usually try to keep telling myself “You will likely never be here again”. Soak it up. Life is a one way train, and sure sometimes we get the privilege of retracing our steps..but not often. “Today is the only day, and I am grateful for it”.
Day 7 and 8 also proved somewhat overwhelming due to People. Night 7 was spent sleeping in a “backcountry” site in the “frontcountry”. There are obviously traditional campgrounds in places like Glacier with RV sites and car sites and related amenities. And there are spots for people like me hiking through or bikers etc. So it is an odd juxtaposition of us simple, minimalist folks passing through, coexisting with well supplied, well bathed, well fed, well socialized, well informed, travelers and consumers. It is not a bad thing; it is a great chance to meet interesting folks; just a different set of stimulus and norms around interaction. In the backcountry you spit your toothpaste on the ground, whiz by a tree, splash yourself off in the creek and poo in the woods. You also sit on the ground or tree stumps or rocks. You don’t think twice about these things. Nobody sits on the ground in the front country, at least not often. They don’t air clothes out on pine tree limbs or filter water either. Sitting in the dirt is a clear demarcating event.

On Day 7, I started out on a very very smoky morning and steadily hiked up to Piegan Pass. Despite the smoke, it was just an amazing place. Perhaps the highlight of the hike for me. The climb up to the Pass itself was quite gradual and mellow but opened up to this tight valley framed by a dramatic towering set of cliffs and a super blue little glacial lake. There was snow clinging to the base of the cliff. One pile of snow formed the shape of a huge Poodle that had just peed out a blue lake. It was very windy at the Pass and I encountered one other dude only. My deeply flawed judgement system immediately sized him up and narrated him into a little box; out of his element, scrawny, poorly equipped. I was correct about the scrawny, but nothing else. Little fella was about 5 feet tall, couldn’t have weighed more than 90lbs. He wore big coke bottle glasses and an ancient ball cap, a threadbare wind breaker, (like the kind our Dad’s had in the 60’s), an old fashioned fanny pack with a water bottle and camera and well worn traditional leather boots. Upon reflection, the boots should have been a tell-tale; they clearly had mileage on them.
It turns out, skinny Little Dude had, in this very high wind and very early that morning all ready hiked up Piegan Pass, then scrambled all the way up to the next ridge and out on to Piegan Mountain which stares down at you from the Pass. Easily another 1500 feet of elevation gain and certainly from below, on this smoky, windy, grey, cold morning it looked a like a damned intimidating place to scramble up to; but that is exactly what Little Dude had all ready achieved that morning. He was from Madison Wisconsin. He serves bagels at a bagel shop. And for 30 years he’s been taking his vacations out West and climbing around and bagging peaks and putting down miles. So somewhere in Wisconsin is this non-descript, blink and you’ll miss him dude serving up bagels, to which, (I make the assumption), his customers don’t even give a second thought to after receiving their bagels. They take their bagels and go; but they have just been served by a Mountain Man! Never judge a book by it’s cover. I failed to catch Little Dudes name, but I salute you bagel serving peak bagging Dude!

I descended from the Pass, taking my time and soaking up the scenery. (“Today is the Only Day”). At this point in the hike, after a decent amount of mileage this summer, my body and feet were well adjusted. That is a great moment in a trip when you can walk for several hours at a time and not be in pain or feel thrashed. I regularly feel badly for folks that go out for just 2 or 3 days; you are always in pain and uncomfortable! It gets better physically and spiritually if you stay out longer. Anyway, I walked into the front country at Many Glacier in the start of a cold rain. Suddenly there were cars and people and buildings and everything changes. New rules, new norms, new stimulus. But that is part of it. You have to deal with the real world periodically, at least loosely.
I chatted with Astrid, the cute gal at the permit slash Ranger station and determined where the “backcountry” sites were and where to swim and bathe without scaring the tourists and also assessed my food options. I was in fact, running out of food. It then started in on a cold windy rain. I set up my tarp and sat under it for a bit then met some of my “backcountry” neighbors. One dude, Scott from Seattle, was on his bike for about 2 months following the Rockies from Yellowstone north up to Jasper. Super cool. I also met Samson, a CDT thru-hiker about to complete the Triple Crown. Damn. Makes me feel like a bench player on the Junior Varsity team when I run in to folks that have done so much more mileage, exploration or pushed themselves technically and physically much further than I have. The chilly rain made the concept of going for a swim a rough prospect. It was just too damn cold. But I really dislike going to bed filthy after a day of hiking. As luck would have it, there were coin operated showers and a little restaurant within spitting distance of the sites. Perhaps I am a weirdo, but when I am out on a trip, I like to really be Out until I finish the Task; eat trail food, bathe outdoors, remain away from the public…all until it is time to return and all the miles have been hiked. There is a sense of satisfaction which comes from “suffering” for a length of time and then “splurging” on a good meal and hot shower once the job is done. Part of the pleasure of a long backpack is the resulting sense of great appreciation for the simple comforts of life upon return. Is anything taken more for granted than a hot shower in daily life? Well, it should be considered a serious treat. So with one day to go, it sort of felt like cheating to take a shower and get a hot meal! The task was not complete; I felt as though I was undeservedly spoiling myself. Thus, perhaps in some twist of universal irony; my coin operated shower was f^&ing cold! Ha! Take that self-righteous backpacker boy. So I took a cold shower and got a snack. But then as I sat shivering, common sense set it and I purchased a second warm shower..and it was super hot and felt great. I appreciated the Heck out of it, one scalding droplet at a time. Perhaps that is what matters; appreciation. I then sat at the bar of the Swiftcurrent Motor Inn and ate a delicious bowl of soup with a huge sandwich and interacted with a whole flock of cool folks. A couple of gals on the road from Oregon, (one of which was from Farmington!), a couple with a deep twang in the voice from West Virginia, (talking about suffering through the Obama years), followed by another younger couple from the Dirty Jerz out driving across the country. It was really cool to meet such an array of folks and the people energy had me so jazzed up I barely slept. That and the coffee.
It had proved to be a great day overall. Big huge vistas coupled with positive and interesting human interaction. Deep into the outdoors and then deep into humanity. Those 2 poles define all friction around decision making in my life: should I just wander off and live a life of pure adventure, exploration and curiosity only loosely connected to real life? Or should I engage with people, with the world, have a purpose or “professional” aspirations and contribute? Is a bit of both possible, or by keeping one foot in each realm do you lose the depth of experience that comes from just jumping right in to one pool or the other? All in or all out? Wander or Commit? Detach or Engage? This is the crux move of my decision making process and the tail end of this trip was a mini emersion in that duality. Backcountry meets Frontcountry. Engaged meets Detached; both containing very positive elements as it turns out.
It rained pretty steadily that night and I hardly slept. My mind was on fire thinking about this duality in my life: adventure and detachment on one hand, real investment and interest in people and things and events on the other. I was daydreaming like crazy about of the paths I could take that could maximize my experiences and time spent in each domain. I was flowing in wide Open Mental Space for sure.

My final day, Day 8 began with just engaged to a gal from Thailand, server slash cook, world traveler slash seasonal worker, Eddy doping me up on coffee, eggs and oatmeal at 6am at the Swiftcurrent Motor Inn in Many Glacier. It ended with ex-Marine, ex-Blackwater, base jumper, covered in tattoos, hernia sufferer, PTSD, shrapnel filled, estranged husband and father, about to be heavy equipment operator, recently completed kayak of the Mississippi (60 days), a cycle across the country (31 days) and a thru-hike of the AT (5 months during which he suffered a hernia), Jon dropping me off by my car after an epic 150 mile (or so) hitch. In between I hiked 20 miles up and over Ptarmigan Tunnel, then slugged it out to the road at the Canadian Border (Chief Mountain) through a long hot valley. I had the Tunnel and Pass all to myself and soaked up the cold and quiet moment. I say under a tree and ate a tuna and honey tortilla. I stood in the middle of no-where by the Customs at the Chief Mountain trailhead at the border of Canada for about 2 hours with my thumb out at the end of my hike waiting for a ride. A local kid from Missoula (Greg), up working in Many Glacier for the summer took me on my first leg to Babb. From Babb I got picked up by 4 British students over all the way from London to visit Glacier and Banff. We discussed how properly to say “Glacier” (go find yourself a floppy haired Englishman to say “Glacier”). Cheerio old chaps, God Save the Queen, Ta Ta for Now. I was then picked up by 2, looked like they might die at any moment, Pall Mall smoking eastern Montana gals, a mother and daughter combo out celebrating Mom’s 83rd birthday with their first Ever trip to Glacier. Mom had 24 Great grandkids and 3 Great Great grandkids! Epic. And then finally Jon took me the rest of the way home. And that is life on the trail. A 20 mile hike, 150 mile hitch and a lifetime of memories and a thousand lives lived all in one day. A perfect juxtaposition of the duality of life “out there” versus “right here”. Back vs Front country. Mountains vs People. They both hold infinite adventures, infinite paths, infinite choices, and opportunities. How do we choose? How do we choose who to be or how to live? How do we choose which paths to follow or where to forge ahead on our own? Let me know when you figure it out.

