Montana

Avalanche Lake — An Early Glimpse

One of my earliest Montana memories was hiking to Avalanche Lake in Glacier National Park during my 1981 honeymoon trip with Marty. We were young, traveling west for weeks, and still just beginning to discover how much the mountains would shape the rest of my life.

Looking back, Avalanche Lake feels like one of those early hints. At the time, it was simply a beautiful hike in a spectacular national park. But years later, after backpacking, climbing, mountaineering, and spending so much of my life outdoors, I can see it as one of the first little openings into the life I was slowly moving toward.

Granite Park Chalet, Fifty Mountain, and Grizzly Country

The Highline Trail in Glacier National Park is still one of my favorite trails of all time. I backpacked through that country, past Granite Park Chalet and on toward Fifty Mountain, in some of the most spectacular alpine country I had ever seen.

Glacier is also where the grizzly stories begin. I saw grizzlies during that trip, including around the Granite Park area, and I remember the feeling of being alone in country where I was definitely not at the top of the food chain. There is a big difference between seeing a bear from a safe distance and sleeping in a thin little tent or bivy sack in the same mountains where those bears live.

At Fifty Mountain, I met a guy named Dave while cooking at a little cook site about a quarter mile from the campsite. We shared some of his brandy, talked for a while, and exchanged names and phone numbers the next morning. He lived near Sacramento, California, and told me to look him up when I got out that way.

That kind of thing happened more often on those trips than people might expect. When you are traveling alone, living cheap, and open to talking with people, strangers can suddenly become part of the adventure.

The Red Bus Ride Back to Logan Pass

After that hike, I caught a ride back toward Logan Pass on one of Glacier's famous red buses. It was a chilly day at the bus stop, and normally they would not just pick up a random backpacker. But this particular bus had only one passenger. He had hired the whole bus for himself, or at least had paid some kind of minimum, and he told the driver to stop and pick me up.

So I climbed aboard, and we had a great chat on the ride back. It was one of those strange little road moments that could never have been planned. One minute I was just a cold backpacker waiting by the road, and the next minute I was riding through Glacier in a classic red bus because a stranger decided there was room for one more.

Missing-Hiker Posters and a Bivy Above the Snow

Back at Logan Pass, there were missing-hiker posters around the visitor center. One was for a park employee who had been missing for about six weeks. Later, while I was at my van unloading old gear and packing new food and clothing for another hike, I heard on National Public Radio that remains believed to be the missing hiker had been found in Glacier the day before.

I went into the visitor center and asked about it. They told me that part of his leg or foot, still in a shoe, had been found toward the Many Glacier area, and that the shoe was how they identified him. They did not have much more information at the time, but it certainly added to the feeling that Glacier was not just scenery. It was real wilderness.

That evening, since I was already up high at Logan Pass and needed a place to sleep, I headed up toward Mount Clements with a big backpack. I had a permit for a campsite several miles away, but while I was crossing a steep snowfield, a ranger motioned me over. He looked at my permit, looked at his watch, and said there was no way I would get there before dark.

I told him I loved hiking in the dark, especially above treeline, and that I had flashlights. He probably knew perfectly well that I was not going to make that designated campsite, but there was not much he could say. He just kind of watched me continue across the steep snow.

I remember that snow slope very clearly. I had my ice axe ready, because at that point in my life I was getting deeply into mountaineering. I crossed steep snow slopes by myself, without a rope, knowing that if I slipped I had to be able to self-arrest immediately or I could slide down into rocks or cliffs.

That night I climbed up onto some hard-to-reach rock ledges above the snow and slept in my bivy sack. After the grizzly activity near Granite Park, and after hearing about the missing hiker, I wanted to be somewhere a bear was not likely to get me. I hung my food and cooked about a quarter mile away, then returned to my little ledge.

Once I was settled in, I suddenly realized I still had cherry-flavored lip balm in the pocket of my jacket. Since I traveled light, I was wearing nearly every piece of clothing I had. I knew I should get rid of that lip balm because it had a scent, but I also knew I would badly need it the next day. Above treeline, especially with snow reflecting the sun, the light can be brutal.

But I made my choice. I crawled halfway out of my bivy sack and threw that cherry lip balm as far as I could down the cliff. I figured if a bear found it, at least he would not find me with it.

Dave, Sacramento, and the Sonoma Wineries

The story of Dave from Fifty Mountain continued later in California. Before I got near Sacramento, I gave him a call. It happened to be a holiday weekend, maybe Memorial Day, and he had the weekend free. So I went to visit him and his wife at their beautiful place near Sacramento. They had a ranch, horses, and a very different life than the one I was living out of my van.

The next day, we toured wineries around Sonoma. Dave was a serious wine guy and knew all the best places. When he asked for tastings, people would go down into the cellar and bring up fancy bottles for him. He bought a bunch of excellent wine. I, of course, was more of a beer guy and did not really know the difference, but by the end of the day we were all pretty lit. Luckily, his wife was driving.

I left the next morning and headed for San Francisco, where I stayed at hostels near the Golden Gate Bridge and wandered all over the city. That whole chain of events began with sharing brandy at a backcountry cook site at Fifty Mountain.

Billings, the Beartooth Highway, and a Powwow

On another Montana trip, Ricky and I stayed for several days in Billings with his friend Sarah and her husband Billy. They both worked at a museum, so they knew all kinds of interesting places to go and little detours that we never would have found on our own.

One day we drove the Beartooth Highway, which was absolutely wild. It was a very steep mountain road, and we made a huge loop, probably a couple hundred miles, over the course of a long Saturday.

Late that afternoon, we ended up at a Native American powwow. Billy had Native American ancestry and knew some of the language and customs. I remember dancing with Native people there, and I do not remember seeing any other Anglos around. It was one of my early introductions to Native American people and culture, and it stayed with me.

Flathead Lake and the People You Meet on the Road

Another time, when I was heading north toward Glacier, I stopped near Flathead Lake to buy some beer at a grocery store. In the parking lot, I met a Native American family. They were sitting in their car, smoking some pot, and we started chatting about where I was coming from and where I was headed.

They invited me to follow them to their camp on the lake and go for a swim. So, of course, I did. We went up the road, swam in the lake for a while, and they smoked a few more joints. They invited me to stay and party that night, but I wanted to keep moving toward Glacier, so I thanked them and headed on.

I ended up camping just outside the park at a beautiful little lake in the national forest. It was another one of those wonderful memories of meeting people on the road, making quick friends, and being offered a chance to share a little piece of someone else's life.

Photos to Add Later

I have tons of Montana photos that I will add later as I find them. This page is meant to be a starting narrative, with room for Glacier photos, Avalanche Lake, Granite Park Chalet, Fifty Mountain, Logan Pass, Mount Clements, the Beartooth Highway, Flathead Lake, Billings, and any road-trip photos from those years.