1.
I didn’t know what I was driving 11 hours out there to see. Somewhere, in the back of my mind, an incredibly minor part have always felt a loyalty to the idea that the reason to see things is that they are simply there. The idea, however, was a satellite that orbited around a giant planet of aversion to lengthy flights and endless crawls through interstate highways.
So it had been a disaster from the beginning. I was blood-shot tired yet overcaffeinated. I'd also forgotten about a bunch of things which I had strategically placed right on the desk approaching my exit from the house. Things like a wide-angle lens, a journal, my passport (for Banff), a Chernow biography of George Washington, etc. I even neglected to charge my camera, for fuck's sake. Choiceless, I began to offset the bitter lamentations I was feeling at the time and decided to proceed the trip with forced relish while napping at a Rest Area near Spokane, Wa. Perhaps a quiet week in the mountains would benefit from as little details as possible - Rest Areas have a glow to them that’s totally je ne sais quoi.
I arrived at Glacier National Park, set my tent up, rested a little, and was ready to go for a jog on a trail which wasn’t far from my lot by 17:00h. The trail was lush, in spite of the remnants of a wildfire which swallowed the area 11 years ago. Huckleberries abounded, pine-needles cushioned the path, the sky had a cool hue which struck nicely with the warm air. It was quiet in spite of the innocuously
occasional
cacophony that took provenance from the muzzle of marmots and other minute critters. I got back into my campsite an hour later, prepared dinner, and stowed all food items away by 19:00h. The park ranger patrolling the area told me there was a presentation planned for that evening. Since the night was young and I still had a modicum of energy left, I decided to attend. The topic; Predators: Bears and Wolves. The park ranger who performed the presentation spoke with a warm voice. It was reassuring and calm, and it drove one to feel as if an NPR show was airing.
Brian, the ranger, was ruthless with his imageries from the start; wolves can dissect every part of an animal leaving behind only its head and spine. He immediately handed out a photograph of a cow exhibiting precisely his description for all to relish and enjoy. This, accompanied by the above said soft tone of voice, was completely inharmonious and threw my perspective off rather quickly; so bears and wolves are nice, but they will kill you? Halfway into his soliloquy, he mentioned this: Since grizzlies are now cognizant of staying away from human food, (thank you, Wilderness Act) they settle for huckleberries and grass. In fact, one of the hotbeds for grizzly dining was on a huckleberry thicket field auspiciously located from off the trail not far from the makeshift amphitheater upon which his audience sat. Holy shit, did he mean that trail I was just on?
The next day, I took the shuttle up Going-to-the-Sun Rd to Logan Pass and hiked the relatively easy Highline Trail. The plan was to hike up/down towards Granite Park Chalet for lunch and then head back towards Logan Pass to do the touristy things. Like life, you set off into trails with a plan, but stuff would come up and you'd do something else completely. So that totally happened here. About 6.5 miles into my trek, a fork appeared. The Highline Trail was to the left and the other, Glacier Peak, shot near-vertically to the right. A hiker, with his Arcteryx base-layer, gaiters, trekking poles, pickaxe, ropes and other mountaineering regalia I’m too alien at identifying the names of was descending the latter. I asked what the view up there was like and he replied only that "it’s indescribable." Pointing at my Nikon he shoed me to go, else I would totally regret it. This was met with a caveat; the trail was only a little over half-mile long, but the gain in altitude was near 1000 ft. A sufficient premise for hauling all of his mountaineering equipment. Challenge, implicitly proposed. Challenge explicitly accepted. Plus, the fact that there's something indescribable to see up there was a good enough reason to proceed with the extra hike.
2.
Glacier Peak, the 0.6 mile path I was currently on, wasn’t like anything I’ve ever treaded. It was unforgiving and kind, grotesque yet elegant. It had a personality, and character, and it made you feel detached, like in a dream where the things you saw weren’t actually there, but there they were. Bighorn sheep blazing up and down something close to 90˚ rocky crags. There were spots from distant mountaintops which looked like polished diamonds but were later deduced into glistening ice energized by the sun ensconced behind the clouds. The vast green below and massive cathedrals of earth across a dark verdant chasm made you feel trepidatious and insignificant. If there was something in this world that could humble a person down to his own inadequate presence, this was it.
Five minutes into my attempt at Glacier Peak, my eyes began pirouetting and it confused horizons from other horizons. Should one rest a Spirit Level on the width of this path, the discovery would be that it was grossly uneven, with an unmistakable bias towards the abyss. Unlike the Highline Trail, Glacier Peak was exposed, lacking in flora, or things to hold on to should one necessitate aid for stability. There were boulders that blocked the path, which I later realized were actually the path itself. Twenty minutes in, I summited the peak; there was no one there. At well over 7000 ft., I struggled for oxygen, the wind swept with unwelcoming
invasion, and I could not seem to recover from the dizzying tremulousness of the landscape. The peak was little more than 4 feet wide and spanned the length of a bus stop. The glacier on one side dropped like a frozen waterfall and opposite that was a crenelation of boulders. There was no room for comfort, little space for maneuvering, and an ostensibly zero margin for error. The view, however, was precisely what I had expected from my brief conversation with the mountaineer. Imagine the almost metaphorical phrase "on top of the world" in its most literal representation. If the hike up there made one feel diminutive, being up there made one feel even smaller. I took my camera and pressed on the shutter with trembling hands. The viewfinder garnered fuzzy, unfocused images and the occasion demanded my tripod which had been earning a free ride, unused, protruding, and forgotten in my backpack. I turned to release a buckle from the pack when one of my tripod's legs struck a boulder. In consequence, this caused a chain reaction which mimicked an intensity similar to another person shoving against my body with vindictive greed. My back angled towards Grinnell Glacier which fell 1500 ft below, and there were no ledges present to count on for safety or repose. Gravity began pulling me down, increasing in strength towards the point of no return. That sinking feeling of end had materialized, and the visceral reaction to collapse struck in - which, fortunately, was the right thing to do. Falling off to my knee was better than riding the force of momentum. Infinitely better. Instead of surfing down to oblivion, my hefty Nikon pulled me onto my left side. There, I grabbed a sheet of granite and kicked my right foot away from the drop, fell on my knee, then shoulder, then I pushed my entire body so that now my back faced and rested on the boulder. That whole thing was over as soon as it happened
, and I was too parched to cry.
3.
After a few desperate moments of composing myself back into gear, I was able to take a couple of vista shots, and a selfie using my ultra-light (in comparison) iPhone camera.
In short, I made it back down, ate lunch at Granite Park Chalet as planned, but instead of going back up Logan Pass, I decided to proceed and finish my hike at The Loop where I caught another shuttle back to camp. Things sort of went accordingly, I guess.
The next day, my camera battery ran low and died before breakfast - It wouldn’t make sense tugging it along as I went in search of sights. I caught shuttle after shuttle toward destinations I hadn’t planned on visiting; St. Mary, Two Medicine, etc. It was touristy, yeah, but it was also fairly fulfilling, and I was pretty sure I didn't need my Nikon for it. Like life, I set into trails expecting certain things, while vastly different outcomes would occur.
(Story needs revision)
Sweeping vistas on the Highline Trail.
Glacier Peak Summit, Grinnel Glacier directly below. Note: You're looking down, not across.
The requisite post-near-mortem selfie.
See the rest of them here:
Mountains (GNP, MT)
