Witnesses

Where do they come from?
A flash of white as I speed past.
Or a sprinkling of three or four in the tall grass beyond the guard rail.
Some with faded wreaths or ragged flags.
A note attached, now rain-washed, words running away forever.
I never stop to look for names,
Or asked who had loved them.
Instead, they pass, like someone walking on my grave,
Bringing images of the aftermath,
Of smoking heaps of twisted steel,
Blood and oil flowing on the asphalt.
A gasp of mortal pain.
A final breath.
But now, all's quiet again.
The wind moves the grass as the road bends gracefully.
Only the white crosses remember who was suddenly torn from life,
And watch patiently as you hurtle toward your death.

Saying Good Bye to Our Friends

Phil here.

Yesterday, late in the afternoon, we drove into the park to the edge of Lake McDonald for the last time. The gate to the park was unmanned (usually there is a person that greets you by saying "Welcome back!") and no one was at the lake shore. It wasn't windy for the first time since we had been there. In the distance, the mountains had a new dusting of snow and, although clouds pressed down, the sun was shining on white rock faces. I had told Vivian we should refer to the mountains as "our friends" and so we were here to say good bye to them.

It was still, very quiet, there were no crowds, I could hear the water lapping on the rocks. The feeling of cold was coming out of the trees. And I felt a wonderful sense of peace. It was like getting something unexpected and extra -- a bonus for our visit.

Of course I had to take lots of photographs hoping somehow the photo could not only show what I saw but convey what I felt at this moment.


Back in our cabin I took a late afternoon walk down the hill, across the highway and down the slope to the railroad tracks. While I stood there I heard a train coming and took this picture. It was frightening standing beside the rails as this train approached at 60 mph, the diesel engines roaring. As the cars passed they created a windy that nearly froze me.


This morning we woke up at 6 a.m. and hit the road early. It was 19 degrees and it took 10 miles for our windshield to completely clear. As we drove down a narrow wooded road we saw two black shapes run across the road: bears! At last! We also saw a pheasant and a field full of wild turkeys.


I'm in the Missoula Airport now, waiting for our jet to Denver which is delayed. I'm sad to leave but looking forward to returning to the warm land, our busy and noisy home.

A Bend in the Road

Vivian here.

We woke up to a gentle snow shower. Phil had the stove fired up and the coffee brewed before I got dressed, reminding me of so long ago in Denver when he was called the "Breakfast King." He outdid himself for the last big breakfast with bacon, eggs, and gargantuan pancakes with trail mix and bananas for topping plus orange juice and coffee. I'm happy to say we're finishing up things in our larder pretty well.

I had an encounter with Phil's Blackberry trying to email my friend Ruth about the Dudamel concert at Disney Hall that she has tickets too. Downtown L.A. seems more than a million miles from here. Anyway, after many false starts and interrupting Phil from his writing once or twice, I finally managed to get the message to her that I couldn't make it. The manager of the place stopped by to say he had to "clear the sprinklers" and we went down to general store while he did his work. Turns out he had to plow through our pile of dirty clothes to get to the crawl space. Oops!

We did a circuit of the towns on the outskirts of Glacier National Park under a gray sky that occasionally sputtered out a little snow. At last, we glimpsed the much touted Flathead Lake and it is every bit as big as everyone promised us it would be. Bigfork is very self consciously prettified and clustered around a bay. We also happened by Eagle Rest, the premiere golf destination of Montana. Coincidence? You be the judge.

We cruised through Kalispell again and got a better sense of the layout. The old downtown has its charms but it's surrounded by a sprawl of franchises. Then we headed up to Whitefish and had a slice of pizza at Downtown Pizzeria and some coffee at Montana Coffee Traders. Whitefish is certainly not as developed at Kalispell, but it has enough business not to seem depressed.

I can feel myself pulling away from this place, wondering if I'll ever pass this way again. Its beauty is compelling but also remote and well sad. It makes our little human plans and schemes seem so petty.

Montana = Coffee + Booze

Phil here.

We're down to one computer and we both want to post today. So this will be short.

I'm really liking Montana and it's fun to see what the state's identity is. Whereas Texas is so proud of itself, and shouts about who it is, and how great it is, Montana is kind of understated. Let me revise that; there just aren't all that many people here, so they don't waste a lot of time telling you what's so great about this place. But it is clear that Montanans spend a lot of time in two places: coffee houses and bars. So they spend the first part of the day getting jacked up on joe, the second half mellowing out on local brews.

We're in a coffee shop now in Whitefish sipping some local roasted java that is quite good. Vivian patiently reads as I type.

We have made a tour of the cities in the Flathead Valley near Glacier Natnl Park. Kalispell is the biggest but it hasn't grown gracefully. Many chain stores line wide streets outside the city and the downtown looks like it's seen better times. Thift stores and pawn shops. Big Fork, on the Flathead Lake, is touristy and overrun. Columbia Falls is, as noted in an earlier post, depressing. But Whitefish is my pick. It has a nice downtown area, not too precious, and kind of rustic too. It's always fun to think, "Where would I live?" My secret desire is to be one of those writers whose biography on the bookflap reads "he divides his time between…" and then name two exotic places. Mine would be "he divides his time between Long Beach, California, and Whitefish, Montana." How does that sound?

Today is our last full day here and we're both savoring every moment of our time together and our time here in the north woods. We woke up to snow which has tapered off. But a gray sky hangs low. We've had a great trip, so I have no regrets, but I will feel a pang of sadness as the wheels of our plane lift off the tarmac of Montana.

Sorry, I'm Experiencing Technical Difficulties

Vivian here. After a perfectly serene day traveling along good old Highway 2 to East Glacier and then into new territory -- the town of Browning on the Blackfeet Nation and mesmerizing Highway 464, then back into the park at St. Mary Lake -- and low and behold my computer went kablooie. So Phil is giving me a little time on his laptop to do a post. The real problem is that my computer has an internal card reader for the camera we've been using, so the photos may be few and far between until we get back to Long Beach.
Ah, Long Beach! It's only two days until we'll be walking through the door at 723 Terraine and getting ready for a weekend visit from Cousin Steve. Back in the land of washer/dryers and computer repair shops within walking distance.
Anyway, the tip of the day for anyone who stays on West Glacier and visits sites on the other side of the park is to drive up Highway 464 on a clear day. It runs parallel to the park but about 25 miles away from the park boundaries. The distance allows you to take in the scope and breadth of the mountains and also gives you an idea of why the Plains Indians consider the place hallowed ground. Looking west from the plains, these soaring jagged peaks rise up out of nowhere scraping the clouds and sometimes hiding the sun.
We stopped at the Visitor Center at St. Mary Lake and studied the three dimensional map to find out the names of the mountains we'd been oohing and awing over for the last 45 minutes in the car. A ranger had lots to say about encountering wildlife in the park. The more I hear about bears the scareder I get. She mentioned that in a week, she would climb a mountain and count bald eagles as they flew by on their annual migration. Talk about an all-American assignment.
The wind was blowing like a hurricane, but we drove up the Going to the Sun Road as far as they allowed, which was the Jackson Glacier Overlook. On the way back down, we ate our sandwiches in the car parked with a million dollar view and did a mile and a half walk in a sheltered canyon to see St. Mary Falls. A bridge crossed the 15 foot cascade of water into a very deep emerald pool. On the way back up to the car, several people passed us, which of course brightened my spirits. Phil stopped several times to take pictures and scan the horizon with binoculars, but so far no woodland creatures.

Stalked by a Mountain Lion

By Phil (So you don't have to read to the end)

We're getting to know Montana State Highway 2 which goes from our front door to East Glacier. It is 56 miles and goes from our current altitude (about 3,000 ft) over Marias Pass (about 5,600 ft)and down into East Glacier. It is 56 miles of gently winding road on which you can go 60-80 mph. Each curve reveals another mountain slope, another view of the river, another distant peak, another stand of golden aspen. And the railroad is beside you the whole way. It is subtle, but I've grown to love it. Today I even thought I'd like to write a poem called "Getting to Know a Road." What I've done is come to know a very small corner of Montana.

We wound up in East Glacier for the second time. This time, we more closely investigated a sign we saw yesterday which loudly proclaimed, "Grizzly Attack Machine!" It flew by me yesterday but lodged somewhere in my mind where I subconsciously asked, What the hell was that all about? Today I read the sign more closely and saw that the machine simulated a grizzly attack and asked "Grizzlies attack at 25 mph. Could you survive? Fun for the whole family." Yes, seeing if you could escape from being mauled to death by a grizzly is wholesome fun for most families.

Speaking of grizzly attacks, I've been embarrassing Vivian by asking everyone I meet if they have seen bears. Today, we sought shelter in a Parks Headquarters at St. Mary Lake entrance to the park. There we met a ranger who Vivian said reminded her of Kristin. She was extremely knowledgeable but very humble about her own accomplishments including the fact that next week she would hike into an observation town to count migrating eagles. Anyway, she said that when she hikes the park she has seen grizzlies many times but has never had an encounter with one. Once, when hiking in the snow with her husband, they dropped something and backtracked for a half mile. She was chilled to see that a mountain lion had been stalking them by reading its paw prints in the snow. The only grizzly attack in this park this year, she said, was a man who was jogging alone early in the morning. The bear charged, bit his legs and he claimed -- the ranger rolled her eyes at this -- that he fought off the grizzly with a stick. "When a grizzly attacks we always lose," she said.

We drove up the Going to the Sun Road to the closure and then ate our sandwiches in the car because the wind was so strong. We took a short hike to St. Mary Falls and then drove back home. After I got home I took a short walk down the hill and across the road where I took a picture of these railroad tracks. As Vivian mentioned in her post we are having computer problems so the sterling photos that have distinguished this blog are temporarily unavailable.

Vivian and I have agreed that we need to come again, during the summer, so we can see all the sights we missed. Still, I've loved being here in the off season and having the roads and the views to ourselves. But, come on, can't we see one darned grizzly from the car?

Big (Beautiful Blue) Sky Country

Locals have been telling us since we landed in Missoula that we just missed Indian summer, that it was 85 degrees only a few days ago. The weather has been less than perfect and I was beginning to despair that I’d never get a clear view of any of the magnificent peaks in Glacier.

Monday morning started out cloudbound and we decided to hibernate a little. Phil fixed pancakes and I patiently waited for local reports on the Weather Channel. Guess what, folks, as far as the Weather Channel is concerned Glacier National Park doesn’t have weather. Phil and I did a little writing and then headed down to the ranger station at Apgar Village to see about road conditions and such.

The ranger at the Visitor Center was such a loveable old coot he could have been made in a lab. He dished out advice and warnings with a heaping helping of quaint phrases that charmed the pants off of all us out-of-towners. He listened patiently as a woman reported she had seen mountain sheep (“The rollover kind?” the ranger asked, making “C” shapes around his temples to indicate horns. “They must be about ready to bump heads this time of year.”), elk, moose, and five bears. “I’ve been here many a summer and I’ve never seen elk around Two Medicine,” the ranger said, tarnishing the woman’s report just a smidge. “They say they’re there, but I’ve never seen them.”

Phil and I joined the convoy of wildlife peepers and headed over to Two Medicine. The difference between Route 2 yesterday with blustering snow and rain and today was as big as the Montana sky. No wind and white clouds dreamily drifting across the rocky peaks, revealing tantalizing glimpses now and then. I read some poems by Richard Hugo to Phil as we retraced yesterday’s route, passing a controlled brush fire on the way.

East Glacier is pretty hardscrabble and like West Glacier, everything is closed for the season. I insisted on stopping by Glacier Lodge, because I’d seen the lobby on a PBS show and wanted to see the huge atrium with gigantic lodgepole pines used as pillars. I never did get a good look at the inside, but the outside was impressive enough to make me want to take the train trip just to stay there. There was an inch or two of snow on the ground but things were warming up and icicles kept making ominous thumps as they slid from the green tin roof.

The parking lot at Two Medicine Lake had a few cars in it, which reassured me a little. If I’m going to get attacked by a bear, I at least want to have some witnesses. (Just joking, in case any bears are reading this.) A few patches of blue were showing through as we set off for Paradise Point, an easy half-mile walk. Seeing people tracks instead of animal tracks gave me the confidence to keep going even though we crossed a few meadows that had “bear habitat” written all over them.

The bite of winter in the air, the crunch of snow under my feet, and the smell of evergreens made a perfect buildup to the view from shore of Two Medicine Lake. Sinopah Mountain, a behemoth pyramid whose granite face was made more rugged with a dusting of snow, looked like a mystical wizard’s castle surrounded by a ring of other jagged peaks. We talked to two young women from Michigan on a cross country trip who had heard a mountain lion (“like a blood curdling scream”) on a nearby trail just the day before.

Once I was back in the car, I was as eager as Phil to see anything animate on four legs, but no luck. There were some lovely views of Lower Two Medicine Lake on the way out. When we stopped for some photos, we could see that the clouds were moving away.

We stopped at a café (East Glacier Café?) for pie and coffee, and talked to the two young men behind the counter. The matchmaker in me thought they would make perfect double date material for the women we’d met earlier. One young man said we’d seen black bears and grizzly bears, elk, moose, mountain sheep and even a wolverine, but never close up.

By the time we started back to West Glacier, there was hardly a cloud in the sky. Vista after vista of jagged rocky peaks would come into view, and finally I got a feel for why some people are so crazy about Glacier National Park. The peaks seem to align themselves like a three-dimensional fan creating a variety of breath-taking arrangements depending on what angle you’re viewing them from. Right now, I’m going to have another look out of the front window of the cabin to take in the awesome panorama one more time before the sun goes down, and then a ham omelette for supper.