The thing about Montana

The thing about Montana is that it is insanely beautiful.  I forget this constantly-- especially when I'm running errands or sitting at my computer at work.  Maybe this much beauty is too much to hold in one's tiny brain- it's bound to make one distracted or daydreamy.

But step out on the trail and Montana comes full force flooding into consciousness.  Fresh.

Bond Lake in the Swan Range of northwestern Montana

A 2,300 foot climb up the Bond Creek Trail to Bond Lake.  No one is around so I jump in.  Cool waters, fish jumping.  There is something about immersion in freezing waters that makes this landscape more comprehensible.  Or maybe it's just the brain slowing down in the cold.

Above Trinkus Lake

Going around blind corners, I hear my voice echoing across the entire valley as I announce my presence to possibly bears.  Deep, resonating, a powerful voice that means business.  I think back to the weak, quavering voice of my first few solo hikes in grizzly country.  This place has changed me.  Now I have a voice that penetrates around corners.

Frolicing.

At the junction with the Wire Trail, there is much not-knowing.  Will the next few miles to the lake wear me out in this heat?  Do I have enough water to get me there/ will the lake be dry/ drinkable?  Will there be grizzlies?  Will the clouds bring a storm and if so will I be stuck high on a ridge in the lightening?  I weigh what I know with all the uncertainty of new territory.

Closer to sky.

The name of the next lake is “Crevice Lakes.”  I don’t know what crevice means when it comes to lakes but it sounds like something I’d like.  Time to move forward despite the uncertainty.  Don’t I have everything I could possibly need right here on my back?  Don’t I have the experience to go along with it?  Isn’t an open heart even more critical than all of that?

Strong legs carry me forward. Where they get their power, I never know.

I feel the heat in the form of light nausea at the pit of my stomach.  How far is the next lake?  Two miles in this heat seems endlessly far and I recheck my water supply to see if there is enough to spare to soak a bandana for my neck.  Then up ahead, an unexpect gift.

How is there still snow in July?  In this heat?

In mid-July!  Snow is packed into my hat cooling me off instantly. More snow goes down into my shirt— the melting water drips down cooling me twice.

Rocks cradle water

Rock spines slice through Crevice Lake

Sight is restored as the snow cools me down.  Breaking through the trees, the endless mountains with impossible angles stretch out.  Tears start to run down my checks.  Sometimes I can’t stand it all, this beautiful Montana landscape.  I shout my frustrations into the wind, “How can I ever leave you, Montana?”

Epic ridgewalking along spines of mountains, views stretching east and west

Mountains don't respond though.  There are no answers. It's up to me to make sense of all this.

The scent up here… not overly sweet, just… right. The Swan Range smells like the fitting end of a long beloved book- deliciously complex, satisfying, provoking.  I love this smell, I think.

Close up.

I wonder if this is how it goes with all wild mountain places.  Certainly I felt like this with the High Sierra.  But Montana- isn’t this more beautiful than even that?  Is it even right to compare?  What even is beauty?  What is it about the power of a place to make us gasp, to make us wonder?

Time to make camp

Then there is the slowly creeping evening light. Eager to go to bed in my hammock, but I have to wait and watch.  Bird dart and chase each other.  What if I fall asleep before all the colors turn?

Beckoning.

Yellow hour

Pinks start to appear

Nearly there orange

I laugh because it matters not if I am hear to watch it or not.  It happens here, day after day, all of this.  Somehow that is comforting, knowing this continues to be here even when I'm back in town, even when I leave Montana.  This will all be here.  Maybe some of this will stay with me.  Maybe there is some of this that I will never forget because it has changed me so.  If not the beauty, then the scars this place has left.

Breathing it in.

Morning again

This trip will be my last solo in Montana.  I'm completing my second term with Montana State Parks Americorps.  I thought I'd stay here forever, but it's clear I have to leave now.  How can I possibly be anywhere else though!?!?  Guess I'll find out soon enough.

Trip information
Bond Creek Trail
Alpine Trail #7
Crevice Lake

Confessions of an introvert

I could tell you all sorts of reasons why I’m on this trail here alone...  How I am training for my next backpacking trip next month.  Because I see the Swan Range from where I live and I crave the sense of home that I get from knowing the mountains around me.  All true.  But really it's an inner drive for solitude. 

Climbing 4000 feet to the top of Columbia Mountain, the northernmost peak in the Swan Range.  Leaving behind civilization (i.e. the Flathead Valley).

Being new in town too, I get frustrated with myself that I can't always go on social hikes, organized hikes, where I'd meet other people.  How am I going to make friends out here?   Too much socializing makes me exhausted though.  Ah, the problem of being an introvert.

It's just me up here on the summit of Columbia Mountain.  And I won't see anyone else for the rest of the day either.  Which actually makes me happy.

“Is there some way I can change my personality.”  I asked a therapist many years ago, “Am I stuck being an INFJ for the rest of my life?”  At the time I was upset about other aspects of my personally.  "Do you really want to be another person who doesn’t feel like you do?" she responded.

Would I really want to be an extrovert, given the choice?  Not that I have a choice.  Why is it so hard to admit that I want to backpack solo?  Can't I just accept this need for solitude?  Celebrate it, perhaps?

Thus, I am out here, for another solo backpacking trip, along the Swan Crest/ Alpine Trail in northwestern Montana.  I could have gone backpacking with someone else.  But no, I need this.

Entering a vibrant world.

Alone, the rhythm of my breath synchs to the pace of my footsteps.  Settling into my all day pace—the one that I can sustain the entire day.  I breathe a sign of relief.

Watching this.

I don’t know how people think surrounded by people.  I want uninterrupted chunks of time to be with the questions that burn in me.  To let the thoughts rattle around in by brain until they wear themselves out, so my mind can grow quiet.

Reflections in still waters.

Only then can I really see these mountains.  I feel immersed, heightened senses, a connection with this landscape.  When I’m up here alone, I understand.  I find meaning.

Possibilities.  Things start to make more sense.

This is the sleep that is most restorative.  How come sleep is better out in the woods than it ever is in town?

Recharged, I can go back to start another week.  To make connections with people, to dive into the projects that I believe in, to work on collaborations that I find so fulfilling. 

Hopefully next week, I'll have the energy to go backpacking with friends.  Cause it really is more fun with to share the outdoors with people.  In a different sort of way.

Waking up refreshed.

Watching clouds licking the mountaintops as the storm rolls in.  Change is coming.  It always does.

Information and hiking details
This was an out and back along the northern part of the Swan Range.  Starting from Columbia Mountain, joining the Alpine Trail #7, going all the way to where I left off previously, then going back to camp at Lamoose Lake, then returning back the way I came. 

Here is a description for climbing Columbia Mountain.

I love my new map which shows this hike-- the Bob Marshall Wilderness Complex-Northern Half, by Cairn.  Makes for really good bedtime reading/dreaming.

Leaving you with one final wildflower.

Second solo

Back to the same trailhead that I’d taken my first solo backpacking trip in Montana two weeks ago.  Starting out disappointed that I haven’t pushed myself harder to go somewhere new, but making peace with my decision to take baby steps in backpacking where grizzly bears are rare but present.  The Jewel Basin not only has fewer bear, but also starting off with a 3000 foot climb will allow me to relax and tune into my surroundings.  My goals are (1) to find somewhere special to watch the Summer Solstice sunset, and (2) not die.

So much snow has melted in just two weeks.  Crater Notch is almost unrecognizable.

Climbing the Crater Notch Trail, I start to relax, the fears recede.  I remember another advantage to visiting the same trail repeatedly—I can observe the sequence of wildflowers that have bloomed and gone to seed over time and at different elevations.  My understanding of Montana plant ecology grows.  Ah yes, this is why I backpack—for botany, to look at plants!  And of course to see deeply, to gain insight.

This orchid may not look like much, but I am excited to spot it.  I think it's a bog orchid but need to confirm the ID.  (Too much wind had to hold it still.)

Blueberries already!

At the pass, I cross over into the slopes that had been covered in snow just two weeks ago.  The landscape has transformed from white to lush green.  This is how spring happens in high elevations here- quickly, the plants emerging even through the snow to get a head start and then this explosion.  Spring is a verb as much as a noun.

Receding snow, exploding spring.

On the way to Big Hawk Lake, a solo backpacker heading in the opposite direction stops to talk.  When C. starts describing water sources up ahead, I want to jump for joy.  A real backpacker conversation!  The kind I took for granted on the PCT but have missed out here.  Instantly, I feel a bond, so the questions stream out of me.  Where are you from?  What other trails are there around here that you like?  Have you had any trouble being a solo backpacker?   If we were on the PCT, it would be socially acceptable for me to say hey let’s take off our packs, sit here a while together and have a snack together.  We would pick each others brains about trails, share our life stories and become friends.  I have to remind myself that the social norms on the long trails don’t apply here.  Usually I’m the one trying to assess if other people I meet on the trail are creepy, but in this case I’m the one that might be acting sketchy by wanting to be so friendly to someone I just met.  I hike on, missing the social aspects of being on a long trail. 

Rocks and scree south of Alpine Lake.

The views open up in new directions at the Wheeler Creek junction.  I’m at the edge of my map and C. told me the trail just goes down after this, so I have lunch at the pond before turning around.

The side trail to Big Hawk Lake is thick with tall brush and mosquitoes swarm me at the lakes, just like C. warned.  After a swim, I turn around again to return to Alpine Lake, which has the best likelihood for the sunset I’m looking for.  As I scramble over rocks looking for sheltered, well-spaced trees, I pause to watch a mountain goat and her baby.  I head off in the other direction away from them.  Only a while later do I round a bend and come right smack face to face with them.  Sorry, I’d forgotten to be loud.

Retreating down the trail, I run into a couple heading towards the lake to camp.  They are not discouraged about the mountain goat hanging around the campsite.  I’m still wary of mountain goats so I bushwhack to the far side of the lake, which also happens to give me a prime spot for sunset viewing.   On the rocks, I watch the mountain goats hanging around the other campers, and hear them yelling.  Glad it’s not me over there.

Hanging the bear bag on a high branch.

I struggle to stay awake until sunset (long after hiker midnight so far north), but I'm determined to celebrate the longest day of the year.  Finally, there are colors reflecting in the lake, and everything is beautiful and peaceful and my heart leaps with happiness. 

Happy Solstice from Alpine Lake.

I sleep soundly, snug in my hammock, listening to birds.

The next morning, I take the long way back to the trailhead.

Birch Lake looked completely different than it had a when I went there in early June.

Sharing the view from the Mt. Aeneas Trail of the Picnic Lakes with a furry friend.

Aptly named Switchbacks Trail, descends to the road, and then a short but dusty roadwalk gets me back to where I started.

Even though I started at the same trailhead this week, I’ve gone further than I had previously.  More important, I’ve gotten to welcome summer to the high country here in Montana.  Going solo this second time was easier--I could relax.  As much as I miss the social aspects of the long trails, being a weekend backpacker really has some advantages, especially in being able to see the changes over the season.  I can appreciate this better having had both experiences.


Trail info:
Alpine Lake Trail #7
Crater Notch Trail
Switchbacks Trail
Mount Aeneas Trail

Dayhike to Wildcat Lake

I am further north than I was for last weekend's solo overnight trip, at the Strawberry Lake trailhead in the Jewel Basin of northwestern Montana.  I venture north and south along the Alpine Trail #7 for as far as I can get until the snowy traverses keep me from getting any further.

Still snow up here.

I’ve got everything I need to stay overnight at Wildcat Lake, and yet, I end up going back to my car and driving home at the end of the day.  Physically, I want to keep hiking.  But I’m tired of thinking about grizzly bears.  I’m tired of shouting around corners.  All the noise stresses me out.  Some people say to just not worry about it.  But I’m not there yet. 

Wildcat Lake.

When I get home, I resolve to spend time doing more research about grizzlies, and reaching out to people I can trust about solo backpacking in Montana.

*****

My backpacking mentor reminds me to build on what I do know, and gave guidance on mental aspects (thanks Stacy).   Yet, I still have questions like how do you look at a bear long enough to tell if it’s a black bear or a grizzly bear but yet not look it in the eye.  Also puzzling is whether to camp where lots of other people are present since grizzlies tend to avoid people, or to camp where there are few people where bears are less likely to be attracted by food smells and be further from habituated bears. 

My supervisor lends me an education video called “Staying Safe in Bear Country."  She shows me the skulls of grizzly and black bears, and talks about differences in their evolution.  Also in preparation for an educational program, she shows me key differences between the skulls of carnivores, herbivores, and omnivores.  I run my fingers over the carnassial teeth and sagittal crest of the wolf skull, and study the orientation of the eye sockets in the deer.

Nothing like some comparative anatomy to put things in perspective.

A lifelong reluctance to studying mammals is replaced by curiosity.  Just because I have focused my life on studying botany and entomology doesn’t mean I cannot start now.  This attitude adjustment is a huge start.  

I knew moving to Montana would bring my backpacking skills to new levels, I just didn’t expect it to be this tough.  Sifting through and digesting the advice I’ve been getting about hiking solo in grizzly country takes time.  I have to be patient with myself, take the long view.   It will be worth it.

Lupine and the long view.

For more information on these trails in the Jewel Basin:
Strawberry Lake Trail
Alpine Trail

First solo overnight in Montana

My first solo backpacking trip in Montana.  I’m standing at the top of the pass about to drop down to the lake to camp.  Last chance to turn around.  Last cell service.   I think I'm ready for this, but then the flood of emotions washes over me.  My resolve waivers.

View from Crater Notch.

I get out my phone and dial.  My voice is shaky, “What am I doing out here?  Are grizzly bears going to eat me?” 

“No, you’ll just get mauled.”

I find this immensely reassuring.  Still Waters always knows the right thing to say.

I find it tough being scared of bears.  I’ve encountered plenty of black bears, have hundreds (thousands?) of solo miles under my belt.  I thought I got past this long ago.  But things were different in Yosemite, in the Smokies.  This is Montana.  These are grizzly bears, a whole different beast.   Signs and guidebooks say “never hike alone in grizzly country” and all the hikers I see carry bear spray.

Twisted beargrass.

The biggest thing for me are the mental aspects.  I have doubts about whether I can trust what my instincts and gut reactions will be when I do see a grizzly for the first time.  But then I remember how I reacted when I saw my first mountain lion, my first problem bear in Denali--I know I handled those well.  I mentally practice what I will do when I see a bear here.  

I choose this trip deliberately since a friend says this is a safer place to go solo, I scouted it last week and saw no signs of bears, bear spray is on my hipbelt, I make a ton of noise, I stay aware, and plan not to travel at dusk or dawn.

I’ve mitigated all the risks except the one--I am solo.

It's just me out here.

Is that a good choice?  I’ve been weighing this the entire two months I’ve been in Montana, and this is the first solo backpacking trip I’ve taken even though I’ve been itching to get out since day one.  What tipped me over the edge was that I finally had to weight the costs of NOT backpacking solo.  Staying home due to fear.  The guidebooks don’t mention that part.  They don’t give advice to those of us who who crave the feeling of being out here alone.

Sunset over In-Thlam-Keh Lake in the Jewel Basin.

I cross over the pass, glassade down the steep snow slope.  It’s a whole different world on this side of the mountain, thick snow, a few deer tracks, bird song, but it is otherwise quiet.  Instead of fear, I feel a heightened awareness that I get when I'm solo.  Senses sharpen.  I explore, I watch, I soak it all in.  I am at peace.

I hang my food up higher than I imagine I could ever throw the bear rope.

I find a spot that feels safe, and tuck my hammock into the trees.  I am surprised that I sleep so soundly.

Yes, this is worth it.

Hammock.

More info on the Jewel Basin of Northwestern Montana:
Jewel Basin Hiking Area
Jewel Basin map

Around Twin Lakes in the Jewel Basin

Only a week has gone by, yet so much snow has melted that the Camp Misery parking lot in northwestern Montana’s Jewel Basin is now completely clear.  Eli and I take the Windy Gap Trail up the valley though glacier lily slopes.  Then around the bend to a different world of scree fields, and through the gap into the snow-country.  Maybe we will reach Twin Lakes, maybe not. This type of hike is about exploring, not reaching any destination.  To see how far you can go in all directions, to push the limits of terrain and skill.

Into the snow.

All the melting has changed the terrain and hiking conditions.  Slushier snow, more tree-well holes, and deeper suncups makes for unstable footing.  There are a few tumbles and the exhilaration of falling.  It was much easier hiking the previous week on the superhighways of firm, continuous snow.  The thing that’s the same is the challenge of navigation without being able to see the trail.

Where's the trail?

Why are we up here when we could stay in the wildflower country down below where it is lush and easy and feet won’t go numb from cold?  The feeling that these snowy landscapes give me that permeates my being and provides an intangible answer.  The feeling of being small amid the vastness.  I live for moments like this.  The awe.  I need nothing more.

Simply awesome.

Our hike takes the shape of a many-pointed star.  We try each of the trails radiating out from Windy Gap— an out and back to Twin Lakes (the only lake we end up reaching), then off in either direction along the Alpine Trail as far as we dare. 

Down to Twin Lakes.

The mirrored reflection in Twin Lakes is broken by bubbles caused by decomposing organic matter.

I like exploring like this.  Your understanding of the topography and terrain deeps when you head out in many directions instead of sticking to the linear, unidirectional path.

“Let’s go this way, I think we can make it around that knob.”  Then after kickstepping halfway up the slope, “I’m too scared, let’s turn around.”

Eli makes the call to turn around at other points—when bushwhacking steeply downhill towards the end of the day proves too exhausting.  Again, when the cornices above us look dangerous.  I like that we turn around when we do.  We make it to the top of a huge snowfield on the way to Wildcat Lake and the view is breathtaking. 

What are we doing here?

I thing I love about the star shaped hike is that there is no autopilot hiking—you are confronted at every moment with questions of what am I doing here and where I am going.  You keep wondering why, why, why am I here.  By looking at these questions from all the directions, perhaps I can come closer to an answer.

For more information on the Jewel Basin of northwestern Montana:
Jewel Basin Hiking Area
Jewel Basin map

Where are you going?