36. Highline

A bead of sweat falls down the front of my sunglasses leaving a trail behind as it falls. The breeze feels brisk and cold as I take my hat off revealing my sweat soaked hair. Even at six miles in I feel great. My feet are finding the flat spots between the bigger rocks as I cruise down the trail. To my right the hillside climbs so steeply you could stand and nearly reach out and touch the hillside. To my left is a hillside that would send you tumbling a good ways before your body would be able to stop due to the grade. And looking out are granite mountain peaks as far as the eye can see. 

My pack is too heavy, per usual. Earlier that morning, I filled my 80oz water bladder to the top before I started thinking that I might have gone a little overkill. I also packed three granola bars, a cup of trail mix, a package of tuna, an avocado, a tangerine, and some kale. Even then I had to consciously tell myself to stop putting food in my pack. I have a problem. I love packing too much gear and almost always overpack on food. Two things reign supreme when I camp or hike and those are that I will not want a piece of gear and be without and I for sure will not go hungry. This unfortunately lends itself to overpacking and when you are planning on running / hiking 14+ miles in a day, every pound counts. But alas, here I am at the chalet having averaged 4.5 miles per hour and typing this on my iPad. Yes, I even threw my iPad in my pack. But when you’re alone it’s not a bad idea to always pack your headlamp, extra layers, rain jacket, extra food and extra water. When crap hits the fan, I’d rather be prepared. 

I got some funny looks as I jogged down the two to three foot wide trail with a 300 foot drop off to my left. A kid even asked as I passed by, “Why are you running?” And the only answer I could think of was, “Some people have a little crazy in them.” I said back over my shoulder keeping my pace. Which is not far from the truth. But having jogged the first three miles of this trail with Tim Bailey five days prior, I had the drive to jog the flats and downhills and hike the uphills the 7.5 miles to the chalet. 

There are only two places that have truly taken my breath away with the sheer impressiveness of its magnitude. Driving into the valley of Yosemite with El Capitan and Half Dome rising into the sky is tied with driving the Going-To-The-Sun Road or hiking the Highline Trail in Glacier as the two most impressive mountain view’s I’ve ever witnessed. I can’t rank them which one is better than the other, they’re different. It’s like if I told you to think of the most amazing Italian meal made by a 70 year old Sicilian grandmother in her own kitchen and compare it against a Mediterranean meal made in the same fashion from a kitchen in Athens. How can you say one is better than the other? This may not resonate if you dislike one of these cuisines but plug in two that you love and you’ll have a better understanding. There is no “better”, they are top of the line in their own uniqueness. Just the sights that your eyes behold draw out a verbal response of shock and awe. I’ve never been in a car with someone in either of these locations without exclamations of wonderment. The sheer amount of rock that rises above you in both is truly unreal. 

As I sit here at the chalet a few of the mountain peaks are still holding fast to isolated sections of deep snow from the winter before. The northern faces hold the majority of what’s left having been mostly shielded from the summer sun. Elsewhere on the higher peaks the season’s first snow from a week ago is sprinkled about as if you had dusted them with powdered sugar. Following the steep grades of the mountain peaks downward, there are lines of snow drawn across the faces horizontally showing outcroppings holding snow and the sheer dark granite drop offs below much like if you were to look at a stack of Oreos. Dropping down the sides you find the tree line dark green with yellows and oranges sprinkled in with areas of cardinal red as the patches of huckleberry bushes begin to take their most vibrant colors. Their leaves will soon begin to drop in another couple weeks. It’s breathtaking. 

Between the tree line and the sheer peak drop offs there lies one snow white mountain goat carefully choosing his steps upon a surface that is surely impossible for any human to tread with just their hands and feet. Life upon the mountain is unforgiving. If there’s one thing I’ve learned from my years in the wilderness, it’s that nature is unforgiving. It doesn’t care if you’re cold, wet, hurt, or hungry it will continue with or without you. I can’t imagine what that goat has seen weather wise just in the last year. People are soft when you compare them against animals who live in the mountains. Even the chipmunks that are scurrying around my feet hoping that I drop a crumb of my granola bar are hard core. In a month they will begin their six months of living under the snow surviving on dead grass and any insects they can find. It’s truly amazing how God has designed it all. Truly amazing. 

After making a few friends at the chalet, exchanging hiking honey holes, and taking in the sites for a few hours I decided it was time to get a move on. I had eaten more than half of what I had brought food wise and was ready to kick it into high gear. It was 2:30pm and I had a long way to go. A day before I had run into a park ranger off duty hiking and we talked about summiting peaks in the park. It had ignited a need in me to go as high as I could. To stand on the top. I don’t know what God put inside of me to ignite this need but it’s there. It always has been. If there’s a piece of land higher than where I’m standing, I must go up. I must go up until I can’t go higher. It’s a draw, a tug, a voiceless magnetic pull upwards. 

Looking around I saw the highly popular trail leading to The Garden Wall overlooking Grinnell Glacier. Having hiked it four years ago the desire was less intriguing. Scanning left I saw a taller mountain peak with a trail leading away from the handful of people scattered on the Highline trail. Throwing on my pack I took off. Upwards and away from people I went. Passing a sign that said, “High bear activity area, be alert!” I felt my heart quicken with a mixture of excitement and nervousness. I started giving my “Hey Bear!” Shouts as I entered a wooded draw between the peaks. My breath quickened as I ascended the incline of the peak. And now feeling the colder air and more fierce winds strike my face I realized that time was of the essence. Like a punch to the chest it hit me, “No one else is going to climb this peak today. It’s too late in the afternoon for that. And I highly doubt anyone is still up on this peak right now. I am alone summiting this peak and coming back down. If I screw up or something happens, I will be spending the night up here. I don’t have any overnight gear or way to stay warm enough for the oncoming sub 30 degree temps that are on their way. Mason, don’t be an idiot. Hike smart, stay safe, and get down off this thing in the next two hours, on two feet. 

Climbing the last 50 feet of the 1,747 foot elevation gain up from the chalet reveals some of the most amazing views in the park standing at 8,440 feet above sea level. On one side, the cliffs fall away so steep you can’t see the wall dropping away beneath you. The other side, a 1800+ foot granite rock face dropping down to Upper Grinnell Lake welcomed me. The winds are whipping ferociously around me almost enough to lean into them to stay upright. Thank goodness there were no storm clouds close by otherwise I would not have summited due to the risk of lightning. But the temps were dropping as the sun began its downward descent and I was standing 10 miles away from my van. It was breathtaking, but it was time to get my butt in gear and get a move on. “Remember Mason, you’re alone. It’s up to you to get your butt off this mountain, safely. No one’s coming if you get in a tight spot.” I said to myself. I hadn’t done anything too risky or foolish to this point, but, as someone who enjoys pushing the limit, I have to remind myself that there are times when I have the freedom to push and the times I should not. This was a non pushing-the-limit moment. I headed down. 

Back at the chalet I rested easy knowing that the most hairy part of my trip was over and that I would be crossing paths with a few people on the Highline trail over the next 7.5 miles back. But now I was looking at a setting sun, my watch, and thinking about how my legs felt having covered 12 miles and roughly 3,000 feet of elevation gain. The decision needed to be made, hike 4 miles downhill and hitch hike back to Pearl or run / walk to beat the setting sun 7.5 miles back to Pearl. I haven’t tested myself with total number of miles covered in a day since my 14 mile hike in Yellowstone. I felt the need. The need to go the long way. The need to put my body to the test. To have a 20 mile day. That’s what I wanted to cap this hike off with, the ability to say, “I had a 20 mile day yesterday in Glacier.” So off I went jogging into mile 13 and it couldn’t have been a better decision. Sure my knees hurt, my ankle had been bothering me since mile 3, and my legs were tired. But they had more. I finished off my granola bars and everything I had except the last tablespoon of trail mix on the way back. I sure was glad I “overpacked” on food. And I noticed my pack was getting lighter and lighter telling me I was coming towards the last little bit of my 80 ounces of water. “This is why you overpack,” I told myself.

The sun was sinking lower towards its dusk finish line and I was covering ground moving my butt back towards Pearl. Rounding a corner I ran right up to a mountain goat and her kid standing square in the middle of the path. After they about scared the pee out of me by surprise I backed off and found a way around. As I backed up, momma mountain goat visibly relaxed and brought her lowered “ramming ready” head back up to a natural height. It was just a few more miles down the trail when I ran into two big horn rams blocking my path on a section of trail I couldn’t go around. So, talking to them as I pressed in on them, they turned around and began to mosey back from the way they came. 

The golden hour on the Highline trail is a magical thing. One of those, “you need to be there” moments in time. If you are reading this and trying to decide on something to chase, something to go after, a part of God’s creation that is special in time and place...this is a worthy aim, watching the golden hour from while hiking the last three miles of the Highline Trail back towards Logan Pass. Pictures can give a sense of it, but as I’ve said many times before, “Go live it.” 

Pearl never looked so beautiful as she did that evening in the waning final minutes of light after sunset. Walking up to her and just laying my forehead against the side of her in exhaustion, I was happy. Pulling my phone up it read 19.4 miles. “You’ve got to be kidding me...” I whispered within an exhale. “Mason, you can say 20 miles.” My body tried to convince my conscience. Before I knew it I had thrown my bag in Pearl and took off half limping half walking up the hill. I had to see 20 miles on my tracker, otherwise, I hadn’t done it. I couldn’t say it, not to myself nor to anyone else. So, when I made it back to the van and my phone said 20.1 miles, I smiled a smile of content exhaustion. 

“That...was...a good day...” even my thoughts were tired and processing slowly. But the next thought was loud and clear, “I’m going to go demolish the biggest bison burger I can find and ask for the coldest beer they have.” And so I did.

35. Glacier

Mile: 4,828

How do you describe Glacier National Park to someone using words? I’ve been sitting here for ten minutes trying to puzzle piece together the right sequence of adjectives to elicit a similar response that is drawn out while driving from West Glacier to Logan Pass. I can’t seem to locate even one corner piece of this puzzle. 

I don’t believe there is any combination of words that can produce the same internal feelings and external reactions that one experiences driving the Going-To-The-Sun Road. One of the things I love about writing is to be able to give someone who has never had a certain experience the ability to enter into a new world. They can experience new emotions, mindsets, understandings and so much more that they never would have known before. Language can be such a beautiful tool. How could I ever understand what it would feel like to sit behind the wheel of a $10.5 million Formula One race car exploding out 760 hp careening around hairpin turns? Or how could I feel the excitement level of holding onto a boat skipping 50 mph through waves trying to make weigh in, believing that I have the winning stringer weight to take home first place of the Bass Masters Classic? Or how could I know the amount of pain in my knees, thighs, or my entire body, that it would take to finish the Leadville 100 ultramarathon? I have two choices, to do it or if someone uses language to share such experiences. If I have a choice, I will choose to experience it every time. But when that is not realistic - language, that’s how I’ll experience it. 

But there’s something different about a response that’s derived from something that you had no part in creating. It is something so incredible that happened without a human hand involved, it brings about a sense of humility like none other. When you look up and see something so much bigger than you, your bubble, your routine, your existence, it draws you into a right sense of self. Too often I see the world revolving around me, my issues, my troubles, my joys, my successes or failures. But to turn a corner and through your front windshield you lean forward to be able to see high enough and there in a break in the clouds is a granite mountain peak rising thousands of feet above you - that is humbling. That is the most vividly sobering experience I have had that reminds me that this world does not revolve around me. This world was here millions of years before me and it will be here until the good Lord decides otherwise.

It’s impossible to drive through Glacier National Park and not verbally release exclamations of awe. The magnitude of the peaks stretching as far as the eyes can see is unlike any other. I most likely will never have the opportunity to race a Formula One race care. I will most likely will never have the experience of winning the Bass Masters Classic. I most likely will never have the experience of finishing the Leadville 100. But one thing I have lived the experience of that will forever be seared into my memory is standing alone on the Highline Trail looking out at the golden setting sun as it lays down between peaks of glory known as Glacier National Park. 

But don’t take my word for it. Go live it. 

34. Just Another Tuesday Night in Cascade

Mile: 4,038

The church building is asleep, but the bar across the street is rocking on this cool Tuesday night in Cascade, MT. The pool table sits in the center as if the main show of the evening surrounded by a mixture of old timers and youngsters alike. Laughter is the loudest music in the bar with a background of old and new country coming from the jukebox. Every lip that’s not talking or laughing is singing along. Between a couple trout mounts and white tail racks on the wall are slot machines, with one lonely soul trying her chances. A mixture of cedar planks and wood paneling make up the walls with a couple of small TVs playing the NFL game hung in the corners. Front and center behind the bar hangs a medium sized longhorn with the horns tilted way off to one side. The two old men to my right are hopelessly sending pick up line after pickup line to the young lady behind the bar. It’s easy to tell she appreciates it smiling, laughing, and shaking her head at them. A lady coming out of the back pulled a chair over to shoot the bull with the old men giving their attitude right back to them with a smile. It’s easy to tell these are locals who know each other well, almost like they are a cast of a show titled, “Just Another Tuesday Night in Cascade” playing their roles to perfection. 

You can see hard work in the eyes of every soul in here. “Hey Sherry, I need a pack of smokes!” Yells one of the youngsters who might be a day over twenty. It’s obvious the twenty-one drinking age doesn’t apply to locals. “PLEASE!” Shouts the lady who walked out from the kitchen correcting the youngster. “Please...” he says over his shoulder as he lines up the cue ball for a corner pocket shot. The girl behind the counter in one fluid motion while walking towards the kitchen grabs a pack of Marlboros and throws it over the bar towards the pool table. The young gun has to make a quick move to not let the package of cigarettes fly past him. And as if a dinner bell went off that only certain people could hear half the people in the bar walked outside including every person who was actually working the bar that night. I found myself sitting in a quiet bar with Aerosmith’s Dream On now coming loudly from the jukebox with no laughter to contend with. One more song passes and the eight who left reinter the bar bringing with them a cloud of cigarette smoke. 

It seems like a new song selector, maybe with a few more grey hairs, has taken control of the jukebox with Knockin’ On Heavens Door by Bob Dylan being the third classic rock song in row. This carries on for the next hour. I lean over the bar and ask the girl, “If a hundred people walked through that door today, how many would you know?” I can tell she’s trying to figure out how I’m going to turn this into a pick up line so I repeat myself, “I’m serious, I’m just curious, if a hundred people walked in here how many would you know?” “Mmmm at least ninety, it’s a small town.” She said walking away grabbing another beer for a guy who still had a fourth of a beer left and hadn’t said a word about getting another. He is one of the ninety I believe. The lady from the kitchen came over to the corner of the bar near me and started counting the day’s tips. “How many non-locals are in the bar right now?” I asked trying to prove my theory of the two men at the end of the bar being the only non-locals, besides me that is. She looked around, “the boy in the red sweatshirt is from the next town up and the man at the end of the bar in the glasses used to live here but he moved just outside of town earlier in the year. The boy in the blue is mine, and yeah, everybody else is from here.” I realized real quick that I blended in about as smoothly as a wet foot would slide into a leather glove. As the only true non-local in the bar, there’s no flying under the radar for me. This here, is truly a small town bar. It is just a bunch of friends and family kicking back on a Tuesday night. Good work small town Montana. Keep on keepin’ on. 

33. Look For The River Within The River

Mile: 3,825

“THHHHPP!” My fly line in a fraction of a second ripped out of the water and into the air as my rod tip flew high into the sky. Simultaneously my left hand having gone from relaxed to instantaneously pinching the fly line with full force between thumb and finger, pulled the line down and away from the rod. This caused the fly line to go from loosely riding on the surface of the current to be pulled straight as an arrow at full tension, quivering lightly like a plucked bass string. From high at the end of my nearly “candy-caned” rod, my line descended down into the clear surface water and downward into the deep blue beneath it. Somewhere down there attached to the end of my line is a fly no larger than the cuticle on your pointer finger. Within that fly is a size 20 hook, roughly 5.5 mm in length. All the tension of the line, the rod tip, my hand, and forearm is relying upon the bend of a hook smaller than Abraham’s head on a penny. Pulling against that little bend is the force of a Missouri River 17” cutthroat trout. 

Standing in water up to my knees I am fishing a little side shoot that an island has quarantined away from the main section of the river. Only 45 feet across, I fished this run walking from the top to the bottom, maybe 30 yards in total where it met back up with the main current of the river, with no action. Not even a bite. Having faith in my double nymph rig I believed that it wasn’t my flies that were the issue. Which, so much of fishing relies on belief. There are many factors when it comes to successfully fly fishing for trout. I mean, most anyone can catch one or two fish but I’m talking about figuring them out, catching the big boys, really dialing in on them. Of those factors, the first is to be knowledgeable of what to fish with. You must consider the river you are fishing, time of year, time of day, what the sun is doing, the depth, speed, and color of the water. The second factor is knowing where to fish. Do you choose to fish structure, drop offs, swells, flats, holes, riffle water, eddy’s, above the run, below the run? The third is knowing how to fish the fly that you choose. Do you choose to drift it, swing it, strip it, float it, or a combination thereof? But sometimes the hardest part of fly fishing well, is having belief. I had just fished a double nymph rig that I believed would catch fish down a stretch of water that included drop offs, swells, a hole, an eddy, above the run and below the run. Additionally, I had fished it in a way I believed should have caught fish. But yet, I didn’t receive one bite down this 30 yard stretch of mixture of water that I just knew had to hold fish somewhere in it. Something like that makes you second guess your belief. Am I fishing the right flies? Am I fishing in the right spots? Am I fishing them the right way? Am I wasting my time or do I believe in what I’m doing and how I’m doing it enough to stick with it? 

Then it hit me. The words of Josh Hampton rang in my ear, “Look for the river within the river.” I took a few steps back to where only the bottom of my fly fishing boots were under the water, crossed my arms, and examined this stretch of 30 yards. I studied the top of the water and assessed what the underwater hydraulics must be doing. Where the water changed color due to depth changes. Where the smallest change of a ripple on the surface meant a large rock or some underwater structure displacing water. I began to see the river within the river. Walking back into the river I visually drew an oval 3 feet wide and 6 feet long where I believed that a fish, at least one, would have to be holding in the current. I drifted my double nymph rig ten times through this section and still nothing. “The river within the river.” His words came to mind again. I mentally drew the oval smaller, 1 foot by 4 feet using the change of the water color to help draw my imaginary lines. 

“THHHHHP!” For the next 20 out of 30 minutes big cutthroat trout were trying to pull my fly rod out of my hands. I pulled 5 cutthroat between 15 and 18 inches in length out of this 1 foot wide by 4 foot long run of water. Afterward, I took a step back and laughed as I rested, worn out by twenty minutes of combatting some of the hardest fighting fresh water river fish there are. I looked at this section of the Missouri. It must have been 60 yards wide and I could see a couple hundred yards of it looking up and down the river. The little section segmented by the island that I was fishing was 15 yards wide and 30 yards long. And yet, it wasn’t until I honed in on less than one square yard of it that I caught 5 of my 6 fish that afternoon. As I walked the half mile of railroad tracks back to Pearl parked at Mid Canyon Access I laugh and said to myself softly, “Look for the river within the river.”

32. Madison River

Mile: 3,135

To my left was Hebgen Lake, the far bank was illuminated by the morning sun feeling it’s warmth. Passing Happy Hour Bar and Grill drew a smile from my face remembering how I, along with four locals, closed that bar down just a week earlier. The bartender treated us more like fellow employees than customers, having us taking the trash out, sweeping, and the like. She finally kicked us out a little after 11pm, an hour after she locked the front door because they technically close at 10pm. While I was walking out to the Pearl to end the evening, one of the locals spoke up, “Hey, you want to join us? We’re going to my house to hang out for bit longer.” Laughing to myself, I changed course and walked on with them. Thankful for the new friends and the laughter we shared from that evening kept my smile rockin’ well after the bar disappeared in my rear view mirror. 

To my right was a little gas station with a small selection of groceries I had stopped at the week before. While I was there, the bottom dropped out and let loose a torrential downpour. It gave me an excuse to make friends with the owner of the place, an extremely nice lady who was no more than 4’11” named Kim Anne. Turns out she had purchased the place a year before with group of investors and had grown it to encompass twelve cabins there just north of the lake. She ended up showing me pictures of a massive snow storm that had hit last year this time and halted all their construction. We chatted for a bit and finally when the down pour stopped I gave her one last “goodbye” and headed onward. I ran into her at a breakfast spot down the road the next morning and she gave me firm instructions to stop back in next time I was traveling through. I promised her I would. 

In front of me several miles down the road was the launch ramp on the Madison River where we were meeting Josh Hampton to rip some lips and catch some big trout. Josh is one of the nicest people I’ve met on this trip. It was only because of a random run in back just outside Jackson, WY with a guy who went to Harding that I ever met Josh. But since we met we have been fishing three times already in less than ten days. He has outfitted an incredible flyfishing raft, a sort of zombie apocalypse style drift raft with a custom internal frame to hold three seats, ice chest, dry storage box, yeti mugs, oars, and I could keep going on for days. It’s truly a thing of beauty. You could take this down class four rapids or down a calm stream catching big lunkers. He does a combination and uses it to get to big trout.

Behind me was a conked out man snoring away. My old roommate and good buddy Zach Newman was sawing logs stretched out on my bed in Pearl and had been for the last 60 miles. When we were getting ready to go he asked, “Hey, would you mind if I slept in the bed while you drove?” I laughed and gave my approval. I didn’t know how much sleep he’d actually get with me turning left and right, stopping and going. But shockingly, he was out like a light and from the sound of it probably got better sleep than he has in a long time. Part of that might be due to him and his wife having added a baby girl to their family in the last year. In fact, it looked so amazing that we swapped places on the way back after the fishing trip and I took a little hour long coma. I mean, I was gone! That is the best way to travel hands down! Sign me up for a self driving car if they come with a bed in the back!

The fishing was phenomenal. Josh is a selfless stud of a dude. He manned those oars the entire trip and let Zach and I cast the whole day. The hopper was hot! Catching trout on foam body grasshoppers is one of the most addictive drugs in the line up. I can’t say from experience about other drugs but to put this in the category of dopamine dropping drugs is a correct assessment. I can’t get enough of it! And thankfully, the trout couldn’t either. 

 

31. Big Sky

What a week! New and old friends coming together to create a symphony of laughter, banter, and adventure. We had many “Young Sons” and even a father and mother in our midst and still the adventures raged on. 

Downhill mountain biking left many bruised, battered, and bleeding. In fact, I think I’ll have a few scars for years to come from this trip. Sometimes fun involves getting a little bloody. The perfect place to be while mountain biking is right between being a downhill out-of-control missile and taking a safe pace guaranteeing a nice pleasant ride down. It’s right between those two when you come alive. When you use your speed to crank into turns leaning more horizontal than vertical. When you take a jump and everything freezes in time for a moment between take off and landing. When you drop in on a down hill so steep that to keep from going over your handlebars you move your butt back overtop your back tire. Just don’t sit down like that, it would be a rough awakening. Those are the moments you come alive. But, when you ride that line long enough, there are times that you don’t keep the wise advice I overheard a father giving his sons. “Keep the rubber side down!!!” he yelled as his boys took off down the mountain. Looking over at me, he smiled “Never hurts to remind them,” and followed suite disappearing down the hill. 

The week was filled with hikes, bikes, grilling, driveway basketball, black bear visits, and conversations that ranged from life philosophies to most embarrassing moments. You name it and it was on the table to be dissected, digested, and dialogued. 

I’ll take a second dose of that week please with a side of sweet potato fries and a blueberry frozen delight.