A Dream of the West Fulfilled

We stopped in at the park headquarters this morning to find out what road conditions lay to the east. The ranger, a dapper older gentleman who held court for all the tourists, said, "You're in Montana. You're on your own up here." I was looking for something a bit more reassuring than that, so when we stopped for gas I saw a bakery goods delivery man and asked him if he had come from the East. He said no, but he said that travelling in that direction, "you might run into a squiff but the county's been out so it should be all right." I kept wondering what a "squiff" was but since it didn't sound serious we headed East again. There was snow on the road but the sky was clear so we sailed through to East Glacier about 56 miles away.

We had talked with a woman back in West Glacier who claimed she had been in East Glacier and had seen five bears and some long horn rams. Vivian was chaffing about this and said she seen one bear five times, or had seen a picture of five bears. Still, as we stepped out of the car in East Glacier the old fear of grizzlies set in. We were amazed by the view at the Two Medicine Lake where a spire of stone stood in front of us, across the lake, cloaked in clouds. When the view cleared the mountain looked draped in frost like some huge chocolate cake with white icing. Vivian said it looked surreal, like something from the Lord of the Rings movies.

We took a short hike to Paradise Point (through grizzly country) and stood on the shore admiring the view. We met two young women from Michigan who were on a cross country trip. They said that while hiking the previous day they had heard an ear-piercing scream which they were later told was a mountain lion. We hiked back and felt frozen in the 30-degree temperature. Since we had skipped lunch we had pie and coffee in a small diner in West Glacier which was run by two young guys who seemed like they didn't have enough to do. One was quite talkative and told me he had dropped out of University of Montana at Missoula (Go Grizz!) after discovering hiking and climbing. He said he had climbed 60-70 peaks in Glacier National Park and had seen all the wildlife that people like to talk about including a wolverine. Mostly, though, he spent most of his time, "trying not to fall on my head."

On the drive home we stopped by a stream to photograph the mountains which kept appearing unexpectedly above closer ridges. It was a sunny afternoon, very still, and I scrambled down to a riverbed of smooth stones. The river wandered away toward the mountains and a type of duck I didn't recognize was bathing in a pool of water. Across the river was a stand of golden aspen and a sunlit meadow. The scene in the still afternoon fit my childhood dream of the north woods which I had pictured so long ago, lying in my bed on Everett Street, staring up at a map of the United States on my bedroom wall.