Dream Jurney Day 5

We packed our stuff faster than what was responsible, and put the pedal to the metal to get back to Looking Glass Hill for the sunrise, the Prius popping a wheelie the entire way. This dirty thermometer hung outside reading twenty seven degrees. The dingy car from the night before had left the wayside, in its wake, wet gravel and the stench of human waste. We considered moving on, but the sun was upon us and we had to stay if we were to catch it at all.

When the sun hit the side of the mountains, I FaceTimed Rachelle and the yellow aspens dotted the space between the tall firs, spruce, and larch. White foggy clouds blanketed the water below us, drifting with the whipping air from the deep hidden valleys beyond the illuminated spires. Silence filled our periphery, and a peaceful slow scene unfolded before us.

When I am staring at the this language of nature, I get the thought over and over: Before I was born, you were here. My whole life you have been here. When I leave, you will still be here. When I die, you will be here much longer. This feeling of permanence beyond my small human existence reveals itself. I stand in my new awareness and then I leave, forgetting all the eternal wisdom immediately, sliding down the easy hillside of memory.

By the time we made it to St. Mary, the sun was over the horizon and burning off the thick clouds smothering the glacial lakes. We met a man on a rock wall, smoking a cigarette, filming a time lapse of the cloud burning. He worked at the local campground so he could live near the park, spending his mornings making instagram reels for his followers.

Aspens in the fall in Glacier are the incarnation of angels from the deep reaches of heaven where beauty is abundant, clear, and necessary. I stumbled through the stands on the side of the highway, floored with waves of numen on the way to Many Glacier. Chris searched for the Perfect Wood in the underbrush, and a lone bald eagle, perched upon a fir with the grey peaks behind it, waited just long enough for us to say hello before he took off to his secret eagle life.

In 2015, when I first visited Glacier, I prayed a foolish prayer to see a bear. Within five seconds of the words ‘amen’ I popped a tire, got out of the car to change it, a man from Atlanta helped me, and from our crouching frustration we saw it. A grizzly emerged from the underbrush and crossed the road right in front of us. We were terrified and had nowhere to flee if it had a sudden bone to pick with us. I found myself saying the same foolish prayer again as we headed down the same road.

But instead of a Grizzly, we got Lisa.

Lisa was looking up at the side of Altyn Peak with a high powered scope and I asked her what she had found. Her cult leader eyes lit up as words spilled out of her, as if she had been waiting on destiny to pull us together and this was the moment she had prepared for her entire life. Her chewed on figernails pointed out a herd of bighorns lazing about high up in the rocks. A old man with wild greasy white hair and Lennon sunglasses in bright flowery wide-leg pants teamed up with her to tell us about the fauna of Glacier, the two of them trading facts and naming locations only locals would know. Neither of them were locals.

We snuck away as Beloved Mother Lisa and Hippy Boy fell in love with each other, and we drove to the closed visitor center where Lisa promised mountain goats, bear, and bull moose. We had all our equipment out, looking up into the heavenly beauty of the crag, but no mountain goats appeared. Straining into our own scope and Chris’s telescoping camera, we caught the attention of a few other mountain goat hunters. But none of us saw anything.

A dingy red car from the early 90s drove up with smudgy windows and one headlight falling out. Lisa popped her head out of the opening door. “Did you find anything up there?” she asked through her manic smile. After hearing of our failures she set up her scope and told us where to look for the fluffy white puff balls of goat. Her words barely escaped her excited breathing at her superior prowess.

But there they were. Cute little marshmallow mountain goats, living their own obscure life in the far reaches of our vision, growing their coats out for the winter. As we stood there listening to Lisa’s flat educated diatribes, a huge herd of sheep revealed themselves to us even higher than the goats. Her mischievous eyes narrowed as she told the story of Hangaround Hank who had been in Swiftwater Lake all day, mating with any cow that came along. Lisa’s husky laugh filled the air like a burning Montana cloud.

We were mesmerized by Lisa’s expertise and her unwashed appearance. She was a sage distilling and dispensing wisdom and guidance for our adventure ahead. Our brains were washed by her soft convincing voice and we followed her into the woods like two stupid morons. Thankfully she did not ask us to drink any Kool Aid. Instead, she led us to Fishercap Lake where Hangaround Hank might be finding more ladies to take to the Moose Club for a fancy evening.

Froth dripped from Lisa’s mouth at the thought of seeing more and more animals through her expensive lens. After five minutes of watching a duck quack, she broke our fledgling born again soulds and left. Together, Chris and I exhaled. Silence fell upon the still water. Above us, the white sun shone unhindered in the cerulean sky. It was almost warm. I carried my borrowed camera and fiddled with the settings like I understood what ISO meant. Hank never showed up, but it felt so good to sit and take it in.

On the way back Chris asked me, “What do you want me to do if a bear attacks you?” Before I could answer, we heard a snarl from the bushes six feet to our right. We stopped dead in our tracks and then got the hell out of there, the question left unanswered.

Mother Lisa was in the parking talking to two new delicious looking stupid morons, who would no doubt follow her into the woods without question. We drove off, waving our thanks, glad to finally be heading to my second favorite drive in America, Going-To-The-Sun Road.

Beauty. Unless you go there, you will not understand. I promise it is worth the four day trip.

Because of the Shutdown, there were no bathrooms open anywhere. And in the off season, there were no gas stations or restaurants. We dreamt of a place to pee, eat a ribeye, and get a cup of coffee, not at the same time. But the barren wasteland of commerce and governance preceded us, and we had to rely on the french press that had worn off hours ago, the Walmart granola bars, and the lucky one seater latrine with a line we found hiding in the corner of a wayside halfway up to Logan’s Pass.

A slender waterfall washed the hillside. Chris got his gear out, and while I stood there, minding my own business, squinting out at the carved layered Rockies, a man approached me asking me if I had seen any bears today. After telling him about Lisa guiding us to the goats and sheep and even the herd standing by Swiftwater as we drove out of Many Glacier, he told me about how he and his dad had hundreds of youtube videos of them singing songs and exploring nature. His name was Ceth and he was a really chill guy.

We passed on Logan’s Pass because there were so many people. By the time the road started heading down through the mountains, we were so hungry we didn’t care about gazing upon the actual face of God anymore. We tried to speed through the rest of the park, but were forced to enjoy the scenery a little longer behind an 83 year old man chain smoking out the window of his 1992 red Chevy Silverado.

In West Glacier I called my son, and we found a place that serves Ribeye up the road in Columbia Falls called Gunsight Saloon. Never has a beer and a pile of meat tasted so good as the sun travelled into Idaho and Washington. Adrenaline had pumped through our veins all day, and now, in the dark wooden restaurant, we crashed into the melted heap of peace and full stomachs.