08/04/2004

It’s barely been a week since we returned from Montana and already I’m feeling like I’ve lost my best friend. I long for the smell of the pine’s and the distinct sound of scree under my boots as I trudge along the saddle between Dawson and Pitamakan Passes. I can’t get the mountains out of my mind. I need a fix badly.

I’m tempted to go along with Mark (GlacierHiker) Frantz back to Montana in august. I have a week of vacation left. We could meet in LaCrosse and drive out together. I could take Amtrak back to LaCrosse and pick up my truck when we finished exploring the Bob Marshall Wilderness. Very tempting. I think Yumi would understand, but my place is with her right now. Still...very tempting. Very tempting.

Have you ever been torn between two loves and can’t decide who you love more?

“Are you going to stay with the one who loves you, or are you going back to the one you love”---Glen Frey

“The Sailors say Brandi, you’re a fine girl, what a good wife you would be, but my life, my lover, my lady is the sea”--Looking Glass

Trail on the saddle between Dawson and Pitamakan Passes

Yumi agreed that we should go back to Glacier and compared my “grieving” with her’s of Hawaii more than 20 years ago. She thought that going back would help me get over my feelings of loss. Time will tell. One more fix. Then another. And another. There always has to be one more.

Yeah. I started counting down the days until we could go back. 340. Practically a year. Too long.

Yumi talks about moving to the mountains when the kids are out of the house. She can get a job anywhere. I’d wash dishes just to be able to see those peaks every day. I figure out the mileage between Missoula and Glacier, between Missoula and Yellowstone. Boise, Bozeman, Great Falls, Salt Lake City, any city with a hospital and a poplulation of more than 10,000 within the Mountain Time Zone is looked at. I’m not that picky.

I managed to make it through the rest of the summer and Fall. Many nights were spent on the internet checking the Glacier Trail Status Reports and Back country Campground Availability on the Glacier web site. It was a sad day when suspension bridges started coming down for the winter. I was clinging to a distant, unreasonable hope that I could get back to Glacier sometime before the snow started to fly.

November. Yumi asks me about Glacier in the winter and decides we can go skiing at Big Mountain and maybe see some of the park for Christmas. That or a photo printer. Though I’m sure Glacier in the Wintertime is spectacular, I’d rather see it when it’s green and we can hike and camp and smell the pine needles and hear the sound scree under our boots. I reluctantly took the printer and printed out 8 x 10’s of yumi and myself at Glacier.

December. The days are slowly counting down as I spend my spare time at work plotting out our next trip. I want to go to the North Fork area and climb Boulder Pass over to Goat Haunt and down to Many Glacier via the Highline Trail. Or from kintla back down to Bowman Lake. Can’t reserve a site for these routes until August 1 and we’re going the 3rd week of July. Damn. Or Bowman Lake to Chief Mountain---that one we can do in July

I start to look at the snow pack. Way below normal. Good for me, but not necessarily for the park. Maybe they’ll open Stoney Indian or Hole-in-the-Wall or Fifty Mountain campgrounds early and I can get a walk-in permit for a route that in normal years is only doable in August? Yeah, that would be sweet.

I start to think how I can make our packs lighter and begin building soda can stoves in the basement. The recycling center will have to do without my cans for afew weeks. I decide that my Kelty Redcloud is too big and heavy. I can make do with less room and weight. Less room means I have to carry less weight. Yumi gets me a Gregory Forester for an early birthday gift---along with a MSR Pocket Rocket. The soda can stove can be a backup or used for breakfast. Do I leave my long-sleeved shirt at home this trip? didn’t really use or need it last time. Or should I forget the fleece and use my rain Jacket for another layer?

Food. We carried a bit too much. too much cheese and salami. too many Marathon bars. Gotta lose that excess weight. Get rid of the Nalgene bottle and go with used Gatorade bottles instead. Yeah, that’s gotta be a couple of ounces. Trim, trim, trim.

I load everything into my new pack...food, water, everything. hey it fits. Might as well do yumi’s too. Yeah, that’s nice. We can do 15 miles days with these light loads. Gotta see as much as we can because I don’t know if i can convince Yumi to make this an annual trip. Man, that would be sweet though.

April. the snow is almost all gone at home and in the lower elevations at Glacier. I’m getting the fever. Time to send in our application. Will we get lucky again this year? Don’t know. Question: How can any trip possibly surpass what we did last year? Two weeks in the park, just Yumi and I. Maybe the best two weeks of my life. How can the second time be better?

April 15th comes around. tomorrow the back county office god’s will determine our fate. Will we be going back to Glacier or are we going somewhere else...a sure thing. I immerse myself into everything Cloud Peak Wilderness. I’ve got two routes ready to go and convince myself this is really a better way to go. Only 17 hours versus 23 to get there. But it’s not Glacier.

I’m checking snow pack levels again, hoping the abnormally dry winter carries over to spring. Damn...9” of snow on April 14th. Melt already. I need those August campsites open by July 14. I need ‘em. But first I need for us to get our hike as applied for. I’ve got it memorized: In at Chief Mountain Customs...hike down to the Belly River Valley past Gos Ventre Falls which Mr. Griz wouldn’t let us see last summer...back to Cosley Lake for our first night. Day two past Cosley and Glenns Lake and on to Mokowanis Lake. Didn’t see that one last year either---too tired. Second chances rule. Day three up and over Stoney Indian Pass...so tough, so rugged and so beautiful. Any chance the campground at Stoney Indian Lake will be open? Yeah I’ll trade Kootenai for this one in a hearbeat. Come on snow...melt already. Going to Lake Francis today and hitting new trail for us. Sweet. I want to hike all the major trails before I get too old to do so. This begins my quest. Day 5over to Brown Pass. Only 3 miles but once we get there we’re setting up camp and hiking to Hole-in-the-Wall. I hope this site is open--I’d take it in a heartbeat. snow...melt. Day 6 to Bowman Lake. I can feel the depression setting in already as this is our last night in the backcountry. I could spend the summer hiking in this beautiful place. Day 7 and we follow Bowman Lake back to the Ranger Station. Another week in the park gone. Fifty miles. I’m 42 years old and feel like I’ve finally found a place where I belong

I could quit my job, leave Yumi and the kids behind for 3 months. Yeah, I could do that. Some guys have affairs. Some guys buy sport cars while others have hair transplants. This is my middle age crisis.