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.