Rising Sun (Glacier NP)
After a breaksfast of canned (in plastic) fruit and granola, I headed for St Mary Lake across the road from the campground to think about whether to stay another day or not. The wind really picked up as I left the confines of the campground and I was glad to have one of those snazzy hats with the drawstring around my neck to keep it on. On the walk down to the lake Curly Bear Mountain grabbed my attention. I had noticed it the night before also. It is just a huge massive mountain whose foothills go right down to the lake. I was transfixed. I could not keep my eyes off of it. Later I decided it is because it is so large and so close that no matter if I walk towards it, away from it or side to side my perspective of it does not change. I wish I could explain it better, but as far as meditation goes, Curly Bear Mountain is my focal point. It is like 1000 Picacho Peaks rolled into one.
After examining the trails in the area, meditating on Curly Bear Mountain, and my feelings of being at home, I decided to stay. It turned out to be one of the best decisions I had made on the trip so far. I paid the fee for the day and was suited up and ready to hike to Lake Otomoki.
The trail was supposed to be about 5.5 miles and climb about 1900 feet, so I figured about 6 hours round trip should do it. The trailhead was near the campground so I was able to leave my car at home. The trail started out next to a very violent creek with the clearest water you can imagine and different colored smooth river rock for a bed. There was a slight drizzle and it was a little cold as I headed up the trail, but I was not worried. I had on long pants, a shirt, a sweatshirt and my trusty camping hat. In my fanny pack I had water, trail mix bars, gloves, a rain poncho, a sweater and my trusty red, white, and blue snow hat I have had for years that everyone loves so much.
I started the hike around 9:30 am and by 10 am (according to my notes) I was sweating profusely. Someday I will master the art of taking clothes off and on so I don't sweat so much. Around that time I came upon a man with his son each with a video camera deeply engrossed in their work. The man spoke loudly and had some small tinkerbells tied to his pack to ward off bears. He was apparently attempting to map the whole trail with his video camera for his and his families own personal enjoyment. He saw my journal and asked if I was writing a story. I said, "No, just personal notes." He insisted, "Are you writing a trail guide?" No. I was not.
The trail meandered in and out of a pine forests and there were several medium sized waterfalls along the way to take pictures. Too many, I would find out later. I was dark and cold, but I was still sweating.
Around 11:30am I heard a voice up ahead. "Hey bear don't come get me," it said in a loud but sweet tone. Then "Hey, ho," again sweet and loud but a little pensive almost a question. I recognized this as one of the techniques suggested for hikers to let bears know they were around. The options were, talk loudly, sing, or clap. I chose to clap my hand against my journal every so often.
A few minutes later I found the source of the voice. It was an attractive little female Ranger about 5 foot 4 weighing 90 pounds at the most. She wore an exquisitely pressed short sleeve Ranger uniform shirt with a Ranger ball cap and Ranger pants. I wish I would have taken a picture because I know some people won't believe me. She carried on her back one of those overnight camping packs with the aluminum frames with (believe it or not) a snowboard attached to the side. I believe that pack weighed as much as she did. She had in her hand a 3 foot long hand saw and was cutting up a tree that had fallen across the trail. She seemed a little embarrassed when she asked if I heard her calling. I guess I should have told her she had a nice voice (that would have caused further embarrassment I'm sure).
I asked if the trail was clear all the way to the lake because the videographers had said it was blocked by snow three miles up. She said it was blocked by snow after another mile. I said I probably would not go much farther and carried on. I wondered about all the warnings I had read about hiking alone, yet hear was a ranger all by herself in a remote part of the forest. I was a little curious about the snowboard and wished I had asked about it.
By 11:45 I started to see some snow along the trail. By noon it was lightly snowing. A few minutes later the trail was made up of alternating patches of 50 foot long unmelted snow and normal trail dirt. Around 12:20 pm I came upon a husband and wife and teenage son crossing a large snow patch in the opposite direction. They had just turned around but thought they were within a half a mile of the lake. They could not see over the next ridge, but one of them was too tired to continue so they turned around. I wished them luck and told them I probably would not go much further.
I don't know what the proper term is but I started crossing what I would call ravines of hard-packed snow on a steep mountainside. There were a lot of ridges with a deep depression in between each filled with unmelted winter snow. As I reached each snow patch I said to myself that I would just make it to the next ridge, then if I could not see the lake I would turn around. I did this at least a dozen times. The snow patches were very steep so I improvised a walking stick out of the top of a fir tree that had been broken off by the slowly descending snow pack and forced myself to look straight ahead at the trail of old footprints ahead of me rather than at the tons of snow and rocks above and below the trail. I hope my pictures do them justice because the ravines really were treacherous. One was at least 200 feet wide with at least a 60% grade incline dropping at least 300 feet to jagged rocks below. Fortunaltely the snow was soft enough to dig into with my feet and hard enough to hold.
At 1 pm I found it. A gorgeous pristine winter wonderland of a lake half frozen over. The water was as clear as one can imagine with a little hint of turqoiuise color where it met the snow and ice on top. But that was not all. The mountains still towering above my head (I was at approximately 7000 feet altitude) had formed a kind of funnel top that led directly to the lake at the bottom. There were waterfalls hundreds of feet high disperesd evenly around the circle of mountains dumping their load of clear water into the lake below. I took a few pictures and left. But seriously it was more mesmerizing than Curly Bear Mountain or the Grand Canyon or Yellowstone (all put together), but you can only stare at the sun so long before you have to look away.
I had run out space in my camera a few ridges before I got to the lake. I had taken a lot of video of waterfalls and deleted them, then deleted other redundant pictures. I know my pictures won't do the sight justice and if I were to visit it on a different day, it would look different. It was snowing a powdery snow really hard the whole time I was at the lake.
I knew I had been the first one to make it to the lake that day because the footprints I used to guide me in the snow where there was no trail were obviously at least a day old. The trail leading up to the lake was very treacherous. It was a fir forest in which only the top three or four feet of the trees were sticking up above the snow. I saw how much damage that much snow could do to a large tree and was very careful with my steps.
As I neared the end of the snow on the return trip I ran into the Ranger, who I will subsequently refer to as the "Ranger in Tennis Shoes" because that is what she had on her feet as she tried to negotiate 50 feet of ice to the other side of a snow patch. I only noticed because as she was concentrating on negotiating the snow I asked her about her snowboard and she waved my question off as she focused her attention on her shoes so she would not slip with her heavy pack and hand saw. She said that the snowboard was for personal use because she was going to camp out overnight at the lake. I was a little taken aback and had a lot of questions I did not ask like, "Are you interested in some company?" and "Are you seeking solitude too?" and "Doesn't the park service issue you hiking boots?"
I wished her luck and moved on. A little while later I ran into the videographer and son. He asked how far it was to the snow and when I brought out my GPS unit to have it calculate the distance, he was fascinated. He had to get a shot of my GPS with his video camera. His narration went something like "OK. We've found a guy here with a GPS unit. john we have got to get one of these next year." in a very hurried voice. As I looked up the Waypoint in my journal he looked over my shoulder and said no one could read my chicken scratches. Earlier he had suggested I get a microcassette recorder and showed me his. I thinked him for the advice. I just can't imagine talking that much especially in situations where it is not apprpriate. I'll stick to pen and paper for now.
I arrived back at camp around 3:30 pm thinking as much about the Ranger in Tennis shoes as Lake Otokomi. I thought "now here is someone to be admired." She was doing some good by clearing a trail and working for the park service as well as enjoying life without having to invade the space of others. Now why am I not out there doing that. I could just as easily gotten a backwoods camping permit and be out there by myself rather than with the dregs of society I have been camping with. Aside from my previously revealed fear of camping alone, I don't have the right equipment for that (not that I could not get it), I am on a longer journey than just a one night stand so certain amenities are nice to have on a longer journey, and I should not have to. I should be able to camp among others without having my space invaded.
It has been suggested to me before that I should go to work for the park service or forest service, but here is another "community" that has a certain level of expectations of its members to socialize with each other and to enforce rules and regulations on the general public. Until I throw off my shield of being anti-social I am not sure I want to go through the struggle required to be a loner in a large organization and I have don't have the sympathy required to deal adequately with rule-breakers.
I spent the rest of the night downloading pictures, typing up journal entries, eating peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and crackers, reading PKD, burning my finger on some firewood, and meditating on Curly Bear Mountain by the lake. I was really shocked at how late it stayed light. I was in bed by 10pm but it was still daylight out. I must be near the land of the midnight sun. I fell asleep to the sound of an audio book in my neighbor's tent and wondered if I should stay another night. I felt comfortable.