Early Winter or Going Home 1

Snowy Skies over Glacier National Park - September 26, 2013

*due to driving home & work schedule prior to leaving this is an untimely post, sorry.
As summer fades away one would hope to have an interim period of time where fall is in evidence.  Glacier Park never fails to amaze.  Tomorrow, Wednesday, September 25, 2013, it is supposed to snow at 5000 ft and above...not just a little dusting..they are predicting 6 to 10 inches.  That means that most of the Going to the Sun Road north of Avalanche Creek will be snowed upon.  Awesome!

Just Beginning of Fall Colors at Lake MacDonald - September 26, 2013

But wait a minute, are we really ready for snow?  I know I am not.  I have to get home and if it is snowing now in Glacier what does that say about North Dakota, the snow state of the US.  When I think of North Dakota, I think of snow gates, 90 mph winds and people getting stranded on highways and their cars covered in snow. This is not what I want to deal with on a 2.5 day drive to Indiana.  * 3 days after I arrived home a huge blizzard leaving 48 inches of snow hit South Dakota!

Marias Pass in the Snow on September 30, 2013

However, as I prepare to leave Glacier the snow does indeed start falling.  First snow, happened on my birthday, September 18, 2013.  Following this, it just kept snowing. When I finally did pull out of Essex, MT on my way home the skies were gray, cloudy and my favorite fog was drifting up and down through the valleys covering the tops of my favorite peaks.  Snow was falling like powdered sugar being sprinkled on top of the mountains.  It was fantastically beautiful, a word I've found I've used over and over this summer to describe Glacier...fantastic. 

First Rainbow I saw on September 22, 2013

As my car wove around and through the mountains headed east on Route 2, a road I've come to know like the back of my hand, tears fell from my eyes as they viewed my Glacier for possibly the last time, for sure the last time this year.  It was hard coming home, yet the mountains had in the last weeks given me clues to the upcoming happiness that I'd experience by sending me rainbow after rainbow after rainbow.  I'd not seen another rainbow all summer until mid-September.  Possibly, Glacier was smiling at me and sending me off with its blessing and a reminder that there really is no place like home.

Crazy Clouds Over Glacier

The sun went down over the park as I exited Browning, MT.  Looking back at the mountains they were encircled by a giant, white mass of boiling clouds akin to what you see in the scene in the movie, Ghostbusters.  It was a spectacular sight.

Sunset Over Browning, MT September 29, 2013

But in front of me was clear sky.  As I moved farther and farther away from Glacier, the sun set in a clearing sky, highlighting the still remaining bank of clouds with a beautiful golden light.  I spent the night in Havre, MT and awoke to another partly cloudy day.  I drove through a BIG rainstorm near the border of North Dakota. 

Playing Tumbleweed Dodge Ball

During this portion of my trip, I played a new game called, Tumbleweed Dodge Ball. Winds upwards of 50 mph rocked my car and the torrential rains made visibility very poor.  It, also, set ALL the tumbleweeds living on the sides of the road into motion.  As they danced and twirled and rolled down the highway next to me, gusts of wind pushed one, two or three across the road suddenly, causing me to have to swerve around them. Some were SO large that they would have gotten caught in the undercarriage of my car proving quite irksome to future progress, I feared!  This spectacle kept me giggling because it was such a funny sight.  Who knew that tumbleweeds could cavort?

Rainbow Over Theodore Roosevelt National Park

The rain stopped at the North Dakota border and there over the Theodore Roosevelt National Parka arched a HUGE rainbow!  A final good-bye or a welcome hello from the east.  A sign which encouraged me to continue to think positively about the future that awaited me in Indiana.  

Good Bye For Now, Montana -view of Siyah Mountain

So, good-bye for now, Montana.  You have left an indelible mark upon my soul.  I truly felt at home among your mountains and plains.  Stay safe, Glacier and may you remain ever there for us to love and admire.

Saying Good-by to Summer

Clements Mountain 9/14/2013

A bittersweet smile crossed my face as I stood looking at my favorite view of Clement's Mountain.  For whatever reason, I have loved this mountain from the first moment I saw it in early June.  Its regal continence stirred within my soul a wild longing...where it came from exactly, I do not know.  But this once, glacier clad mountain continues to speak to my wild heart and I acknowledge it with a kiss blown into the wind and few tears.

The side of Clements Mountain 8/2013

I came up here last Saturday thinking it would be my last time up before I move on to other adventures. I came to say goodbye, to ask it to watch over the wildness contained in this beautiful park.  To ask the Guardians who stand tall up there on the peak to keep safe the secrets I have only begun to hear and listen to.  But I was wrong.  I did come another day...yesterday and was able to enjoy the wildness of that mountain in all its glory. 

The meadow below Logan Pass looking up

It was snowing on Logan Pass on September 18, 2013.   Not a lot, not dangerously, the snow melted on the pavement as we rode up the Going to the Sun Road in the Red Jammer Bus, so I felt unafraid but wonderfully, wildly alive.  The small, wet flakes flew in a straight line with the wind into my hand.  Yet they clung 1000 feet up on the tall mountain sides which towered above me.  I was not driving so I could enjoy the cold, wetness as it hit my hands, my face.  I had them both stuck out of the Red Bus windows. 

The view out the back window of the bus

Luckily I was in the back of the bus...no one else cared. I shared the back seat with a stranger, someone I'd just met a few hours before.  The delightful surprise was that we both had our windows rolled down.  I glanced over and he was as enthralled with the weather and drive as I was.  Both of us,  like kids, were hanging out the windows and were enjoying the icy wind and fog-shrouded view of the steep mountains and valley.  I laughed to myself because everyone else was bundled in blankets.

Snow on the Gardne Wall

How great was it that a kindred soul rode in that backseat with me!  I got to enjoy the unusual beauty of the high mountains on such a day with someone who "got it".  That was an extra treat on this, my birthday.  So, the good-bye today was not just to my lovely, wonderful, wild mountains but to my 50's.  Yup it was my 60th birthday. The decade contained great discovery, adventure, health/un-health, happiness/sadness, personal and spiritual growth.  

Reflecting

I remember my 50th birthday, clearly.  I celebrated by backpacking alone out to my favorite spot in the Deem Wilderness, skinny dipping in Lake Monroe with the bridge in full view a few miles away down the lake.  I stood on that day, 10 years ago, upright in the shallow water and waved at the cars as they traveled home unaware of the naked aging yet still fit, beautiful body in the distance!  What will this next decade hold? I do not know. 

Looking back at Logan - Hawk weathering the storm

I am very excited though, if today is an indication of things to come.  How many get to celebrate on top of a 6500 ft peak in a small snow storm?  It was a fine way to say hello to new adventures and to remind me that summer lasts only for a time so live accordingly.

Fields of August Flowers at Logan Pass

The flowers bloom wildly & boldly but for a short time.  Fall comes and they grow golden with the coolness of autumn nights and sometimes the snow touches them early and they pass sooner than they expect to. Thus there is the need to live boldly and show one's true beauty and color as opportunity allows!  But some do survive to stand amidst the snow, brazenly resilient and colorful to the end.

I capture me while taking photo of friends

That will be my new expectation...to stand brazenly and colorfully and to live each day with the remembrance of September's cloudless blue skies.  I will enjoy the sun and walk up the mountain slope as far as I can for as long as I can stand upright to put one foot in front of another.  And then its going to be me and the walker clomping along.  I vow to never take things for granted but to enjoy and be amazed by the surprises around each turn in the road.  

Our shadows dance on top of Red Rock Falls in Many Glacier

So to put it in words we've all heard before and I paraphrase, I want to ...."slide into home base holding a beer glass in one hand and a chocolate bar in the other, beat up, hair askew, reading glasses slightly ajar, Leki poles bent, backpack torn and Keen sandals muddy, Yelling...WHOOO HOOOO! I did it up right!"

Sunset - Doing it up Right!

The Beautiful Summer

I walked the other day on a lovely trail...not too steep but just a little, not too down but just a little...it was just right.  It led me along the river that runs by the Inn.  Its babblings spoke of summer sun and pine scent and peace.  The river carried this news further down and further down into the town where hopefully it spoke its peace, dissipating it into the general population.

It is high summer here in the Montana mountains and with summer comes a plethora of beauty.  So much beauty, often, I find it overwhelming my senses to the point that I cannot blog, write, photograph it...the creation is unable to be documented with sufficient human acts to do it justice..so I do not; I just look and remember. But on this particular day, I found that beauty had turned to bounty.  Lining the trail was the beginning of the summer abundance...you got it....berries!!!

 

 If you have never tasted an alpine strawberry, well then you have never tasted a real strawberry.  They are tiny about the size of the end of my little finger.  They are hard to find, about 1 in every 5 plants has this tiny treat hanging under its leaves.  However, it is packed with the flavor of 10 of those strawberry taffy bars, only better!  Hungrily, I ravaged the tiny plants up the 1.25 mile trail.  The rewards were few but each time I found one I wanted to cry, "Eureka" for the discover meant just the briefest of moments of  exquisite flavor. 

Oh, I guess I also forgot to mention that the first of the Huckleberries were also ripening.  Small, blueberry like berries but different, they tasted more like a blueberry with a pinch of sourness which blended in my mouth to create a need for more.  So, as my hiking partner and I edged our way up the mountain we feasted upon nature's bounty and I tried to remember that the animals who we share this beautiful mountain with also needed this bounty for their survival.

 And there is the rub for me, trying to remember that it is NOT all abut Moi.  In fact, in this place, it most definitely is very little about me.  This is not my home, although it is.  The food that grows in great abundance here is balanced each year so that the true residents of this mountainside can survive.  If I decide that alllll this is really mine and I can take it all, who actually loses?  Not me, for I can go to the grocery and buy really all I will ever need ten times over, only thing I'll lose is the fleeting sensation of pleasure I receive from tasting the berries of the mountains.  This taste reminds me that at some point in time "I" knew about how to take care of myself in the wilderness.  Somewhere back in time, in my wild brain, I knew that this abundance helped "me" through the winter too and I vied with the wildlife for it.  But now, I don't need it so what is my right to it?  

It was with these thoughts rolling about in my head that I hiked up and up not to far, not too long but just enough to view the river flowing happily below, to smell the pine scent, to think about my wild self and to feel the breeze on my face.  All of these sensations helped me to get back to the ancient me, that still small voice on the inside that said, "Eat the berries, but not too much, leave some for those who will come behind you whether it be bear or human.  You do not need it all for nature is abundant and takes care of her own. There will be more for you when you need it, as you need it."  And so, as I reached down to find another tiny, red treasure, I thanked her for her provision and bounty, knowing that she will take care of those who love her.   

Life...Its all about the Details

Looking west towards the restaurant

I sat in my usual seat, on a normal day, in a restaurant a mile down the road from where I work in Montana.  A mile being a close place to visit considering that the grocery is 30+ miles away.  We all have gotten to be friends, the waitress knows me as Vera and when I eat there it feels comfortable and familiar.  That's Montana for you...it really does feel like home.  But familiarity has nothing to do with the wonder that eating here brings.  I sit in this seat, my favorite chair at my favorite table because the hummingbirds are 4 feet away on the other side of a window.  Watching these guys flit about, bobbing and weaving, literally, dancing in the air is a joy I've never experienced before ...being so close to these aerial acrobats makes me feel incredibly connected to nature.

Female Rufous Hummingbird - not taken by me

The Rufous Hummingbird is all of about 3 inches long and according to Cornell is "one of the feistiest of all the Hummingbirds".  Its 3,900 mile trip from Canada to Mexico is a feat incomprehensible to me.  How is it such a small bird can make that journey twice in a year?  Beating its wings uses so much energy, its metabolism so high, that if it did not go into a state of almost suspended animation when it sleeps, it would die.  Lowering its heartbeat to almost nothing, it manages to survive each night.  Living on such a thin edge between survival and death to us would be so stressful, yet for the Rufous Hummingbird, nay all Hummingbirds, it is normal. 

There is a bee in there somewhere

I ponder the lessons this little bird brings to me as I watch it compete with a large black bee or wasp.  They are both after the nectar in the feeder; the bee staying underneath the feeder lapping up the sugar that has leaked from the feeder while the Hummingbird laps directly out of the feeder.  Both are seeking the same source of nourishment but from different spaces and are not really in each others way.  However, they feel threatened at certain times by each others presence enough to chase each other around for what seems like no reason to me and burning vital resources. Useless waste of energy, I think to myself.  What is amazing to me is that the Hummingbird is intimidated by this bee.  I guess the bird fears the sting also.   

Life living on the edge of a gravel pull off

So, the wisdom of the Hummingbird to me, is this: 

1) Life is short yet full of movement and flights of fancy
2) When you need to rest then do it completely, shut down and relax
3) Things that are smaller than you can be intimidating but if you dodge and weave enough or even distract it, you and others can get what you need
4) Sharing is good but sometimes you need to just stand your ground 
5)  Beauty comes even in the smallest of packages
6) Size doesn't matter when it comes to being strong.  What does matter is your attitude, your ability to endure, knowing where your resources are, waiting/resting at the right times and persevering, all are the keys to being strong and surviving the long haul
7) Refuel often and then remember where you found it because you'll need to revisit it again while on this journey
8) Shine like the sun, show off sometimes and fly with quick wings; remember you are beautiful
9) You're going to lose some friends along the way but you have to keep flying even through the disappointment and pain
10) Live like there is no tomorrow because life is short and full of danger; enjoy the moment 

Sometimes you don't make it

 Nature has so many lessons to teach us if we just stop and think about it.  Surrounded by the beauty of the natural world, I find that often I just take a picture to record the moment, instead of stopping to ponder my part in the whole.  I do not remember that I am a participant in the turning of the circle, thinking I can stand apart from it all.  The greatest moments of clarity, I've found, come when I find my true place amongst all the other animals.

Disclaimer:  Of course, I did not have my camera with, so I'll use a picture given to me by an amazing photographer of a Rufous Hummingbird.  This was one of our Hummingbirds at the Izaak earlier this summer.  The rest of the photos are mine, just a few of the amazing things I've seen this summer.



 

Its All About the Weather!

Hiker enjoying a walk on Sun Point Trail - St Mary's Lake

"Sweet days of summer the jasmines in bloom, July is dressed up and playing her tune.....Summer breeze, makes me feel fine, blowing through the jasmine in my mind."  Seals and Crofts

SNOW in May - traveling to Kalispell, MT

It's almost July and I am still wearing fleece and wool slippers.  Last week I finally gave up, I got so cold, that I turned on the electric heater in my basement grotto.  My housemates long for summer.  They wish for the bone-warming sun of the Midwest and South..places most of us hale from.  They yearn with every fiber of their being for the heat-filled days and the rivulets of sweat running from their forehead, dripping off their noses that typify July and August.  At this point in our Montana summer, they sit engulfed in blankets on the porch staring into space imagining the oppressive humidity, roiling clouds and tornado warnings, rain and rainbows of typical summers in the center of the country.  All of us throw on short pants when the temps rise above 65 degrees and also, out come the flip flops.  We stand in the sun wishing for tans when the clouds finally part.

Logan's Pass - June 25, 2013

I consider that a summer like that will never arrive here in the north country.  This land will not see those things except for during a small window of the year and even then it will not be the same.  I no longer worry about the lack of tornado sirens in the hinterlands where I live.  Yes we've had thunder, thunder snow, rainbows, rain and lightening, even had some wind but not humidity or heat.  Those 2 things together for me hallmark summer along with LONG days of sunshine, light and heat.  Now, there are some crazy long days here.  The sky starts getting light around about 4:30 AM and gets dark again about 10:30 PM give or take a few minutes each day.  

View of St Mary's Lake as sun sets on cloudy night about 8 PM

Summer here in Montana will be moments of heat and sun and big sky clouds.  I've heard that someday soon the rain will stop and we'll have some endlessly beautiful, sunny, warm days.  But they'll be followed by cool nights full of fleece and wool socks.  That I do not mind.  It'll be a summer like I've never seen before; nights of 37-ish degrees followed by 70's or maybe 80's without humidity so we'll dry up during the day like mummies without sunscreen.  Lord the wrinkles but I've got all my favorite hats.  These warm days will continue to be filled with wildflowers covering rocky outcroppings in a proliferation of color.  Life holding on by the roots, showing us that beauty is constant and tenacious. 

Life clings and thrives on a rocky outcropping

These wildflowers are hardy.  They are able to handle the cold nights, the snow within days of blooming, the heat, the short season, the high alpine meadow winds and storms.  They release clouds of seeds and fuzzy things my friend calls, puhk, I think, which makes you sneeze and your eyes water.  All so that they can assure the new will arrive next year and the year after in an endless cycle of enduring beauty.  They are ache-ingly stunning, cascading over the rock faces towards the open air, open water, open sky....all of them last many weeks until they start to fade with the approaching winter.  Two to three short months is all these tough plants have to complete this process.  It seems to me that the mountains laugh as all this life bursts forth from every crevice that can hold dirt. They exalt at the eagles who raise their young from perches on their heights and the sky stretches above is all like a canopy that fills with sunshine and pollen.  What a summer display.

Sometimes death

But my housemates wish in vain for what they have known.  I, instead, am trying to embrace the fullness of what is and in this hug, find all the joy that is reflected around me as this place fulfills the natural cycle we are all part of...nature renewing itself as best it can.  

Blanket Flowers beginning to bloom

Thus, standing on the edge of a high mountain lake, eyes drinking in the greens, blues, purples, whites and yellows of a Monet canvas on a beautiful day, wind blowing briskly through my hair, I laugh into the wind and think....dang do I love this country.

 

St Mary's Lake - View of Citadel Mountain?

Confusion

View of the Izaak Walton Inn from the trestle bridge over tracks

I have been in Montana now for several weeks and have yet to set pen to paper to write about my journey west or what it is like here.  Life has been a whirlwind of learning, lack of sleep, excitement and wonder over the beauty that now surrounds me.  Aside from the fact my internal compass no longer works due to crossing the Great Divide; there should really be no reason for my lack of creativity.  There are abundant sources of inspiration from the continuous serenade of the birds which sing from the tall, tall pine-y tree tops to the mist which rises from the feet of the mountains each morning as the cold air turns warmer. 

Misty, mountain morning greets eastbound AmTrak train

I have decided that it is this sensory overload which is the cause of my fumble fingered photography these last weeks and my lack of words.  At first almost every picture I took was awful, words came to my head yet would not cross the great divide from mind to paper.  Ideas would start then wander away down some greening trail and then up the hillside to stand at the crest breathless and unable to come fully formed to the pad.  I found myself open-mouthed and crying more often then not stupefied by how long it had taken me to find this place.  For now this feels like an end to a long journey, like home almost and overwhelms me often.

The view as you walk on Essex Rd.  Rt 2 and the Middle fork of the Flathead River are below

The difference between east of the Divide and west are numerous.  Snow in May, Grizzly Bears up on the mountain about 3 miles away, Mule deer much less eating plants outside my front door, no need for air conditioning or TV and it's OK to wear fleece year round.

First May snow (yes there was another one mostly up on the mountains)

Supposedly, the Mulies will go up the mountain when the Grizzlies decide to come down the mountain and wander around in the parking lot.  We know there is at least one up near Almeda Lake but now scat has been sighted up on Dickey Creek Road.  Again not much more than 4 miles away.  At this time the Mulies are gone but no bears have decided to visit...I carry bear spray with me on the 100 foot walk to the Inn each day. 

Mule Deer - Can you count them?

I want to bring everyone here....to see this wondrous place before it is gone, melted, fracked, greeded into oblivion and I feel so lucky to have come here to see it even as it stands in the balance.  Pictures do not do this land justice. I have come to believe that there are those who do and those who don't and those who don't never know what they have missed but those that do will always understand the value of wilderness.  It is our job to try to translate what a thrill it is to live in this place.  I will paraphrase a friend who said that essentially for some there is a primal need to be somewhere where you are challenged in ways you never dreamed you would be and the fact that you are not at the top of the food chain is one of the thrills.  

Man-eating Snowshoe Rabbit....my that looks tasty

  So, I will continue to attempt to share with you all my thoughts about my life here and to do my very best to encourage you to challenge yourself no matter where you are. It is, after all, the adrenaline flowing through your veins which reminds that you are alive. 

Sunset over the train yard

Westward HO!

 *First written on April 23, 2013 as I was leaving Ohio for Montana. Sorry for the long delay. 

 It seems fitting to me that as I pack the car to move from Ohio to Montana, leaving on what has become an epic adventure, that spring in all its glory is bursting out all over.  For all endings are actually just new beginnings and spring is just that...evidence that all is not lost but actually just dormant and waiting for a little sun.  My home in Ohio is 2 acres of natural loveliness, me being the fine horticulturist that I am, flowers run together with wildflowers and weeds in a combination of color and confusion.  I love it.

As most of you know, I've not found a full-time job in Ohio in 5 years of looking,  Lately, I've applied nationwide which produced some positive results in that I did make it to the top of 6 job searches.  Meaning, that I was 1 of 20ish or so to get a phone call or two in a selection process that started with 200 to 300 people.  Ok, so I'm flattered but still am without a job.

In March, I had decided I might move to Florida.  My friend, Cathy, spoke to me of how HOT the summers are and stated that, "You really have to feel called to move to Florida!"  So, I reconsidered.  I've been to Florida in the summer, its more than hot.  In stating to her, several times, that we should find a cool summer place to go to, I had a head-slapping moment when I realized that I knew someone who worked in such a place. 

I sent my resume, to a cool summer place, I waited over the weekend for Monday to come thinking all the while about seasonal jobs and what I might do after it ended if I was not asked to stay.  At 10 AM Monday, the phone rang, it was the owner of the Izaak Walton Inn calling to talk.  His manner was easy, he was exited about the possibilities and at the end of an hour long call, it was on me to read the Employee Handbook and decide if this non-smoker could adhere to the "no Crack smoking" rule.  I giggled and in an email later that night told him I thought I could live with this. 

Then the next day another call came, an offer, a virtual handshake over the phone occurred and the next thing I new I had agreed to spend at least the summer in Montana.  Not just normal Montana, but Glacier National Park area, Montana!  Compared to all the other job searches had been a piece of cake.  

So, that chain of events is why I'm leaving Ohio and moving to Montana.  I'm moving for a job, seasonal at the least.  I'm moving into spring, a new beginning.  I'm moving into the unknown towards the sun.  I'm moving because my heart says maybe I"m going home.  Stay tuned everyone.  I'll post more later about the journey.