Part Three

​     May 15 - May 19           Glacier National Park, MT                   (Go to Part 1)

The Ranger got off the radio and told us “Make yourself comfortable guys, the Park Superintendent is on his way up.”  Before starting our trip we had checked in with the Park Superintendent, Bob Fossen, to inform him of our plans and get a permit, which I considered to be a mere formality.  But the Park Super had been hesitant to grant us the permit.  He had sat at his desk and listened to us matter-of-factly say that we were going to walk the Continental Divide through Glacier; starting tomorrow.  After considering this proposal for a moment he got up from his desk and walked over to a map of the park and asked us to describe our intended route.

As the three of us traced down the map along the route of the Continental Divide, Fossen grew increasingly skeptical and even called in one of his wilderness Rangers to go through our equipment and make certain we had the gear to do what we were proposing.  In the end, he reluctantly approved the permit but with a firm and lengthy warning about the avalanche danger, the Grizzlies and, in particular, the slim likelihood of rescue should we get ourselves into trouble.

Click on the map for a larger image

Now he pulled up along the roadside, hopped out of his vehicle and strode over to shake our hands with a look on his face that said ‘I can’t believe you guys are still alive!’ The first thing he did was quiz us about our route then smiled and nodded knowingly when we told him that we had abandoned the ridge.  No judgement on his part just relief that we had made a survivable choice.  We chatted a bit more and finally he said “Sorry to tell you this boys but I can’t allow you to continue along the road; it’s closed.  There’s too much avalanche danger on the Red Garden Wall. But if you want, I can drive you up to Logan Pass.”  

I looked up the road. We were one hour from making the pass.  Then the thought popped into my head that a traditionalist would surely decline this ride and probably go back the way he’d come to find another route.  I looked over at Craig and kinda shrugged; he looked back at me like ’So?’  So I turned to the Park Superintendent and said “Gosh Mr. Fossen… that would be great!”  Fifteen minutes later we were at the top of Logan Pass.

The day was getting on and in the interest of ‘lightening our load’ we decided it would be best if we made camp and drank the beer; so we pitched our tent on a broad ridge near the base of Reynolds Mountain just south of the road.  Once we were settled-in with dinner on the stove we popped the suds.  

The drafts went down like liquid gold and were soon followed by an all-consuming fatigue that began to blot out all else.  We were exhausted.  Every muscle in my neck, shoulders, back, quads and calves began to rebel at the slightest movement and my feet felt like they were dying a slow and tortuous death.  I struggled to the edge of camp to take a leak and in mid-stream realized the only thing that didn’t hurt was my dick.

Yet another unstable weather pattern developed in the night and by morning we were engulfed in stormy clouds and wind driven snow.  I unzipped a crack in the tent door and peered outside. Visibility was reduced to near blindness with white consuming white.  Craig stirred in his sleeping bag and mumbled “What’s the weather?”  “Whiteout” I replied.  “Can’t see a thing.” He sat up and looked out at the nonexistent terrain “So what’s the plan… Stan?” I shrugged “I don’t know, sleep ‘till noon and reassess?” He slumped back into his bag and replied “Okay, but don’t wake me if it clears.” 

I did doze on and off until almost noon and finally woke but didn’t stir right away.  There was no wind and everything was quiet outside.  What I didn’t know was whether we were still engulfed in clouds or if there was enough visibility out there for us to hike.  I knew Craig was facing the other tent wall thinking about the same thing. I finally rolled up and zipped open the tent door.  

The clouds had lifted to about the elevation of our camp and I could see out into the valley below. The visibility was there to navigate.  Then Craig looked out and groaned.  Our bodies desperately needed some more down time to try and recover from this past week of boot camp but it was clear now that the weather was not going to take full blame for us consuming another day’s worth of food while lying shattered in the tent.

We sat at the tent door, still in our bags, and didn’t say a word for the longest time; the scene before us unicorn magical.  Just above our camp the dense, dark clouds roiled ever so slowly as if moving in suspended animation.  They were illusorily and appeared close enough to touch.  Clear views of the valley below would mystically vanish and then re-materialize.  The splintered ridge across the valley began to tear away gauzy pieces of cloud that floated almost imperceptibly into the valley.  The soft motion of the clouds was calming and mesmerizing.

After a while the sky began to brighten but in such a quiet way so as I really didn’t notice it at first.  Over time the slate skies had given way to pastels of yellow painted into the higher clouds with lower quilts of mist beginning to glow golden beneath the impending sunlight.

Then, just as it was written, the heavens opened up and the sun burst forth in a shaft of dazzling, white light that spilled enormous brightness across the mountainside.   We watched the light refract and dance through the clouds and across the forest floor below and then watched as other sunbeams began to appear.  Each ray of light displayed a stunningly unique portrait of mountain terrain; all moving with the light.  We just sat and watched while the stove melted snow for tea; we weren’t going anywhere.

The following morning daylight hit early and with urgency.  First light shot straight through the tent and right into my shuddered eyeballs like a starter’s gun going off.  We were on the hustle right out of our bags knowing that if we didn’t squeeze every mile out of this day then we’d need a better excuse than cloudy skies to account for it.  We were starting to flow into an efficient morning routine; the stove fired with a pan of water heating for oatmeal and drinks while we stuff-sacked everything inside the tent for reassembly into our glutinous packs. Then we ate, crapped, finished packing and prepared for the day ahead.

On this particular morning, we started down a deceptively benign looking snowfield which fell gently away from our camp to the upper cliff bands of the Hanging Garden below and quickly discovered we were skating on thin ice.  The previous snowfall had left several inches of ball-bearing fresh, buttered over glazed crust making our descent of the precipitous Hanging Garden down to Reynolds Creek both hazardously slick and categorically dodgy. In places we had to heel-kick our way down narrow ramps that led precariously across the top of and around cliff bands.  Once I was finally down at the creek, I looked back up at the crags we had just weaved our way through and found it hard to believe that at least one of us hadn’t taken the express off into oblivion.  

To avoid the extreme and intimidating ridges of Mt’s. Jackson and Logan, our route now had us on another sweeping end run out Reynolds Creek and along the South St. Mary’s Lake Trail.  We dropped below the snowline just short of the South Lake Trail and were able to walk off ten miles of welcome trail without the sloppy, Bear Paws snowshoes slapping at the bottom of our boots.   We pitched our tent late in the day at the confluence of Read Eagle and Hudson Bay Creeks on a carpet of pine needles beneath clear skies.

​Sunrise brought another brilliant morning.  I lumbered out of the tent and went down to the river to collect water.  The air was clean and crisp and fresh with forest aromas.  Above, white and rocky peaks stabbed into the cerulean sky and the raucous Red Eagle River flowed full to its banks. Hot Dang! Now this was the way to start a day!  In the blink of an eye, walking the Continental Divide went from “what were we thinking?” to “best idea ever!”  We ate, crapped, packed up shop and headed out on open trail up the Hudson Bay Creek valley.

The sun was warm, the scenery spectacular and the trail free of snow all the way into the upper valley.  As we broke out of the trees the trail began to cut its way across the base of a mountainside with the uphill slope rising steeply away from the trail’s edge where dense patches of Star Berry (Huckleberry) bushes grew.  The trail wound its way in and out of shallow draws creating short distances between blind corners.  Craig was out front rounding a rocky outcrop with me behind, head down, just plodding along when quite unexpectedly I butted heads with the back of his pack. I stumbled a step backward and started to ask “what’s the prob…” when Craig went “SHHH”.

I looked around his pack and saw that he was facing off with a Cinnamon Bear not ten feet away who was looking quite formidable, full-up on his hind legs - because he had been standing up eating berries when Craig and I suddenly appeared from behind the rock.  The bear’s face registered shock at this intrusion and everybody just froze. I froze, Craig froze and the Bear froze. Then, instantaneously, the flight instinct kicked-in and while Craig and I tried to levitate our way out, the bear exploded into the brush above the embankment, crashing its way through the thicket and out the other side before we could even find our legs.

It took a moment for the adrenaline to track down and I was still shock-eyed when Craig bellowed out “JJJJEEESUS!!” Yeah, no shit!  Had that been a Grizzly Bear, Craig could have had the fight of his life on his hands!  I probably would have gotten away, thou.  Well, we had to keep moving forward but now it was all ‘Lions-and-Tigers-and-Bears’ as we swung a cookpot with a stone in it for a ‘bear bell’ and proceeded gingerly around the corners until we got another mile or so into the upper basin where we had a better view around us. 

We reached a vantage point where we could survey the terrain and dumped our packs for a look about.  We had left the trail under snow a ways back so we made a quick survey of the nearby slopes for bear tracks.  Tracks did amble across a snowfield on the far side of the valley but we didn’t detect any warning signs in our vicinity. The massive, north flank of Norris Mountain rose up near vertical to our front and gummed to the face of the rock, about 800 feet up, were a ridiculously nimble herd of Mountain Goats nonchalantly hopping into the abyss from one invisible spot to another feeding on alpine sprouts.

We camped that night high in the massive cirque created by the peaks and ridges of Split Mountain, Norris Mountain and Triple Divide Peak. We lingered outside the tent after the dinner food was gone and the shadowed temperatures had fallen into the chill zone.  I looked around me and it was an awful lot to try and take in.  

The fiercely defended peaks surrounding us and the shear difficulty of passing through them; the magnitude of the our endeavor and the mere pittance we had paid thus far; the soul bearing nakedness of our human spirit in such a powerful environment and the discomforting pangs of emptiness the extreme solitude brought. Under twilight the towering peaks took on a dark and monovalent feel, projecting onto me an awareness that death and destruction were also present in the environment.  Then, bright little stars began to appear in the sky.

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Go to Part 4

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The CDTC was founded in 2012 by volunteers and recreationists hoping to provide a unified voice for the CDT. Working hand-in-hand with the U.S. Forest Service and other federal land management agencies, the CDTC is a non-profit partner supporting stewardship of the CDT. The mission of the CDTC is to complete, promote and protect the Continental Divide National Scenic Trail, a world-class national resource. For more information, please visit continentaldividetrail.org.

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