It is the unexpected, close encounters that have the greatest odds for an attack. In Glacier, almost everywhere is an opportunity for an unexpected, close encounter.
In the wild, there is no time to fight battles that don’t help you survive, reproduce, and raise your young.
Anything not focused on those three is likely to take you down.
Animal instinct knows this.
Survival of the fittest.
Revenge is such a human-condition.
Not saying there are not exceptions in the wild. Just saying the wilderness is called the wild for a reason. Food chain and all that.
• • • • •
This website is about our HOME. This is the fifth of five daily, differently-themed blog posts about: (1) mind, (2) body, (3) spirit, (4) work, (5) home. To return to Mid Life Celebration, the site about MIND, click here.
Still up on Swiftcurrent Mountain at the Fire Tower. This photo is looking Southeast towards Logan Pass. Mt Gould dominates the skyline. Swiftcurrent Glacier in foreground. It would be 2018 before i summited here. Once you summit you never see Glacier the same way again. It is still a wish to bring Chapin and Cheryl here and to Mt Oberlin – both peaks sit at 8,200′.
Saved Glacier from flopping?
Yes.
Here’s what happened with Glacier…
First Summer, great.
Drove rental car along the 50-mile Sun Road and stopped at all the overlooks. Stopped at Lodges, had a meal, browsed the shops, sat in the lobby. Great adult activities. For a new teenager, iffy at best.
Chapin agreed to return a second Summer. Can’t recall why. Probably him feeling he had no choice.
He did not want to return a third Summer.
Asked him why and his honest answer, “It’s boring.”
This was the defining moment in the Glacier love story.
Made him a promise, if he’d return a third year, we would not drive around and do all the boring stuff.
He agreed (probably still thinking he had no choice).
In 2015, we began parking the car, getting out and staying out, and hiking a trail.
This changed everything.
• • • • •
This website is about our HOME. This is the fifth of five daily, differently-themed blog posts about: (1) mind, (2) body, (3) spirit, (4) work, (5) home. To return to Mid Life Celebration, the site about MIND, click here.
Notes while Jody Maberry and i had lunch at Two Dog Flats restaurant at Rising Sun Motor Inn. Was explaining my disdain for pontificators. Used the war historian versus soldier analogy. A war historian has never fought in a war, yet positions themself as an expert. To which Jody added…
Quoting Jody as he gets settled in for his first hour (in 2019) inside Glacier National Park.
There’s something about Glacier.
Perhaps it was the stunning and surprising imprint that Summer-of-1973 morning. Awakening and walking out the Swiftcurrent Motor Inn door and having my 14-year old mind blown by the sunrise igniting The Many Glacier Valley in a natural grandeur never seen before.
Final answer.
But wait, that was the just the catalyst.
There’s more to it.
Perhaps tomorrow.
• • • • •
This website is about our HOME. This is the fifth of five daily, differently-themed blog posts about: (1) mind, (2) body, (3) spirit, (4) work, (5) home. To return to Mid Life Celebration, the site about MIND, click here.
Sensing a need to modify plans and cut the Logan Pass visit distinctly short.
Sunny going up. Decent at reading the mountain clouds (the ones you can see anyway) and something told me to descend now, not later.
Read my clouds.
Kinda like read my lips.
What part of you better get off the mountain or the weather may trap you there and make your descent wet, freezing, and absolutely miserable.
Wet, cold, and wind chill from the weather and the bike’s descent.
• • • • •
This website is about our HOME. This is the fifth of five daily, differently-themed blog posts about: (1) mind, (2) body, (3) spirit, (4) work, (5) home. To return to Mid Life Celebration, the site about MIND, click here.
Two work computers. One is a backup. Two tiny audio speakers.
Carry the lightest tools.
Every day.
At home.
While traveling for work.
And while hiking in Grizzly Bear Country.
• • • • •
This website is about our HOME. This is the fifth of five daily, differently-themed blog posts about: (1) mind, (2) body, (3) spirit, (4) work, (5) home. To return to Mid Life Celebration, the site about MIND, click here.