Bear Tracks!

Tuesday, June 9^th, 2009

Hooray! Our rain/ground tarp contraption held through the night and worked wonders! There had been a lot of rain, but feeling around on the ground and the sides revealed very little wet spots. With no big plans for the day and enjoying the warmth of our sleeping bags and each other, we lingered until around 9 am. Once outside the tent, we could see the sky looked much better than it had for the last four. It was still very cold though and we decided to have our breakfast while sitting in the car.

So far, the weather pattern has stayed consistent in bringing rain and clouds through the night and into the late morning followed by a clearing in the afternoon. We hoped this would continue so our plan was to drive to a town for some wifi and relaxation and then possibly canoe or hike in the afternoon. We ended up at the Jackson Lake Lodge on the north end of The Grand Tetons park. It pained both of us not a little to walk through the giant glass doors and up the stone staircase with brass railings to recline surrounded by stuffed animals, pricey restaurants and old people with money. I enjoyed the respite though, not to mention the Cinnamon Buns. The guy working the little coffee stand gave me a free Cherry Pastry. I think he knew I didn’t belong and guessed that Johanna and I were in accommodations a bit more “rustic”. I was so excited for my bounty, I nearly dropped everything on the floor.

The view from the main lounge at the lodge was incredible. Our couch faced windows 30 feet high and 50 feet wide through which you could look, reclined with your feet up, at the entire Teton Range.

If you ever find yourself in the area and need some free wifi and a break, I highly recommend it. First, we just sat on the couch together looking through the great pictures Johanna’s sister, Jenny, had posted of us from the wedding. It really made me feel good to see Johanna so happy to be looking at these pictures. We were also amazed by a few more of Tory’s pictures from our wedding – a favorite of mine being the “beard-rub” with Dave Olson and I. Johanna posted our most recent blog entries and I read a few pages of The Hobbitt. Soon, we both had enough listening to cowboy drawls and catty women talk about the gift shops. We needed to get out.

The weather today was absolutely a blessing. It was sunny and warm enough to let our skin breath a bit with few clouds except high on the mountain range. Out here, the mountains seem to coral most of the clouds and storms like a fence on the horizon. Our hike started near the Jackson Lake Lodge and climbed several hundred feet immediately to the appropriately named Grand Viewpoint. On the way up, we watched the tracks of people and horses that had been made in the mud of the day before. Nearer the top, we found what we thought were probably black bear prints. At the peak, you can look in almost 360 degrees and see meadows, forests, moraines left by the glaciers and the entire Teton Mountains from top to bottom. I love letting places like this soak into me.

On the way down, we took to the back side of the mound where dozens of switchbacks led us straight down to a narrow valley where the trails forked. The trail to the right would have been an additional 7 or 8 miles while the trail to the left would have looped around the bottom of the mound for another 2 miles. Feeling content with the view we had already seen, we chose the shortcut. At the start of our hike, I wanted to try out a new idea for a noisemaker. Johanna had bought me another tin cup when we were back in Bozeman so we looped the two together and let them dangle and clang to their hearts content from my backpack. As we turned left, I quickly realized that this trail was not often traveled. I was thankful for my tin cups and I purposely let my backpack wag back and forth a bit more. In the narrow valley, it must have sounded like a circus was coming to town.

The trail was narrow and enough grass and plants were growing over it to prove that humans to not come this way often. It followed a steep ravine with a marshy bottom full of fallen trees, moss and other delicious morsels for a bear. We walked on clanging as loudly and as often as we could adding the occasional exclamations “Bear here! Ice cold bear here!” or “Ho Bear! We’re skinny and we smell! You don’t want to eat us!” About one mile in, the stream was running more swiftly and we the path was slightly softer. There, to the right of the trail, was the unmistakable paw print with a point dotting each toe menacingly. We couldn’t tell, though, how old it was and since it wasn’t the first we had seen, we continued. Only for another 15 feet though. There, just before a wooden bridge crossing the stream, in mud soft from last night’s rain was a paw print that belonged to no measly black bear. It equaled the size of two of my hands side by side and about 8 inches from heel to those same menacing points pressed two inches into the soft mud. There was no doubt it had been made sometime during the last 10 hours.

We knew instantly, we would go no further on this trail. The feeling that it was up the ravine looking over some fallen log down upon us was all too real. I stooped to snap the picture and we made our way, Johanna requesting to take the lead. Our circus turned into an all out Carnival as I clanged and clanged like Paul Revere through the valley looking behind expecting to see the giant stalking us. Already out of breath, we made it back to the fork and returned up the endless switchbacks as fast as our legs would take us to the Grand Viewpoint. We made it to the top and stopped to rest and share our photo with some of the other hikers at the top. All the while, I was thinking – the whole trail we were hiking was just going in a circle around this one large mountain. The bear could easily go round the other side and meet us as we came back down to the car. It didn’t and we made it back safe laughing and excited we had a story to tell.

We had our adventure for the day so we went back to our camp and enjoyed our campfire and chili slowly until the embers burned out.

-Jason

Where the Buffalo Roam

My morning actually began sometime in the wee hours before dawn. Something woke me up out of a warm, comfortable sleep in my down sleeping bag. It wasn’t the rain or sleet hitting the tent, it wasn’t the sound of loons laughing eerily to themselves across the meadow from our campsite. It was a growl. A deep, guttural sound not too far from my head. The first time I heard it was enough to jolt me wide awake; the second time was enough to prompt me to wake Jason up as well. My first thought was, “Bear. Oh crap, it’s a bear”. We’d locked up all the food and been very good about washing ourselves off so we didn’t smell too tempting, but still. As Jason’s eyes opened and he looked at me in the darkness, we heard something else: hooves hitting the ground and coming closer. They weren’t running, but more like loping along at a steady pace. The growling continued.

 I remembered my last drive through Yellowstone, just before the sun rose as Jason and I struggled to stay awake while the Olson’s slept on the air mattress in the backseat. We’d come across a herd of buffalo not too far off the road, and stopped to watch and listen to them. I happen to think that buffalo are pretty much the most amazing animal on four legs, and I remembered every detail of that first encounter. Including the growling, grunting sound they made while they grazed.

 As Jason tried to get me to calm down and shut my eyes, I realized that I wasn’t hearing a bear growl near our tent. I was hearing a buffalo grunt. This was only slightly reassuring; bears are aggressive, but for some reason more people are killed by buffalos than bears in National Parks. I kept imaging that big head goring its way through our tent as we lay there. Being jolted out of a sound sleep by a 2000 pound mass of muscle and fur grazing twenty feet away was a rush. Eventually, when my mind woke up a little more, I realized that buffalo do not crave people or people food. They don’t scavenge the way a bear does, either. The problem with buffalo is that they really do look tame and approachable, and I’m sure that has a lot to do with why they kill more people than bears do. Two people lying in a tent sleeping posed no threat to the fuzzy giant, as long as we stayed there and went about our nighttime routine quietly. I managed to fall asleep again, but woke up later because I heard something splashing in the river below the ridge we were camping on. I think our buffalo friend was taking a bath. In a way, having them that close was reassuring; I don’t think bears want to be where buffalo are because they’d be pretty closely matched in a fight. 

The morning greeted us with more sleet and cloudy skies. I crawled out of my warm nest and looked around the tent. A pile of fresh buffalo chips was all that I could see as evidence of our nightly visitor. Later on, we could see them grazing far across the meadow. I love buffalos, even after my close encounter. Maybe Jason and I will have a buffalo ranch someday.

We huddled in his car eating instant oatmeal and trying to figure out what to do. The weather was pretty darn crappy. We had wanted to hike today, but knew it was probably out of the question as the trails would be muddy and slippery. We decided the best course of action was to leave Yellowstone; the high elevation made the weather even more unpredictable than other area, not to mention it’s colder the higher you are. We would continue on to Grand Teton National Park, which is at a lower elevation. We packed up and drove away just as the rain stopped and the sun came through a break in the clouds. Figures. In a way, it’s kind of sad that we didn’t get to see much of Yellowstone. Hopefully we’ll be back out here in a few years and get some nicer weather.

 

Our entrance to Grand Teton was met with a good ten miles of road construction. Jason and I crawled along silently in the car, feeling pretty bleak. We had no guarantee that the weather would be better for camping, and neither of us had much of a desire to spend the rest of our honeymoon driving or sitting in lodges trying to steal wireless internet. The rain did stop as we approached our destination: Jenny Lake, a campground near the foot of the Grand Teton Mountains. Our original plan had been to take a backcountry trip up into Cascade Canyon and spend three days “roughing it”, but a conversation with the weathered ranger at the Jenny Lake station revealed what we had feared: the canyon was covered in snow, and a hike up there may set off a wet slide. Polishing his leather boots briskly and peering at us over his gray moustache, the ranger spoke of being caught in a slide a few years back and still feeling nervous at the thought of it. We would have to stay out of the mountains for the rest of our time here. Another disappointment, but we moved on and found a nice campsite beneath the shelter of Lodgepole pines. Jason managed to rig up a tarp-shelter over our tent, and tied down every possible loop and curve of the rainfly to keep us cozy that night. It looked more like a blue space pod than a tent, but it did a pretty good job.

 

By the time we finished setting up, the sky looked more promising. The Teton Mountain range, towering straight up from a flat plain with very few foothills, seemed to be holding the rain clouds at bay. We hiked up around Jenny Lake, hoping to reach Hidden Falls and maybe see some less-common wildlife. All we saw was little gopher-like animals that the ranger said were marmots, who scuttled around so close to the trail that Jason almost stepped on one. The hike up was pretty nice, I’ll admit. However, not too far from the falls, it began to rain. Jason graciously lent me his rain coat in place of my plastic apparatus from Target (try finding a woman’s rain coat in a pinch for under $20.00. You can’t), which kept most of me dry as it was several sizes too big and fell almost to my knees. However, the higher we got the fiercer the storm. Being in the mountains creates such a quandary, especially for someone who isn’t used to the weather and its effects. Nothing sounds as powerful and majestic as thunder ricocheting off of the mountains around your head, and yet nothing is quite as nerve-wracking.

Jason snapped a quick photo of us standing in the rain, and we began the hike back down.

Now, in reality it was only about a three-mile hike; however, with wet jeans, muddy trails, and sweat piling under my layers and Jason’s raincoat, I was feeling pretty miserable. I tromped behind him in angry silence and probably thought some nasty thoughts towards my new husband’s staunch sense of adventure. I was too tired to voice any of my thoughts until we reached the car. Well, I guess arguments are bound to happen, even when you love someone. We resolved it after a few frustrated words and tears. I have to kind of laugh about it now, and respect our resolve to keep trying to have fun even in the worst of conditions.

 We went back to camp, where I shivered miserably while Jason cooked chili, taking breaks to put his arms around me and warm me up. Note to self: Change out of wet clothes when it’s cold, no matter how miserable the thought of it is. Dry clothes will make a world of difference. The chili was great, for throwing a few cans of beans and tomatoes in a pot with leftover chicken. We washed up with the icy water in the camp sinks, and fell asleep warm and happy in our space-pod tent.

Now, I know some of you are asking, “Why are you still out there in this weather? Why not give up and stay in a hotel for the rest of the time?” I hate being cold, I really do. I know that nobody enjoys it, but I think that cold tends to pick on me more than anyone else. Rainstorms and mountain temperatures are not the best combination for someone who hates being cold. But…well, it’s my honeymoon for one thing. We’ll only do this once (hopefully), and I’d honestly rather be wet and cold than cooped up the entire time. Another thing that I’m starting to realize is that there’s really only pockets of misery, and they last for maybe an hour, if not less. I’m surrounded by some of the most beautiful land in the country; catching glimpses of the mountains through storm clouds is sort of thrilling and mysterious, in a way. It feels good to breathe so much fresh air and see so many growing things around me. Not having hot showers all the time kind of doesn’t even matter when you’re so out in the open. It feels adventurous, and I think that’s what’s important to me. The nicest part is that I have one of the most laid-back, sweet, funny people that I know with me all the time. Sure, we don’t always feel the same way about a situation but he always wants to talk about it and hear my side. It’s like doing something crazy and insane with your best friend, only he’s better than that. It sort of feels like we’re in a story; something like “The Hobbit”, where it’s just two little adventurers doing their thing and playing out in the wild. That part of this whole trip makes it worthwhile. I love my husband.

The Empire Stikes Back

Sunday, June 7^th, 2009

I guess we should have expected that our luck with the weather wouldn’t hold out forever.  Last year, we spent two weeks traversing the country and only ran into rain drops one time for about 10 hours on the way home through South Dakota and Minnesota.  Then after a prediction of cold, rainy skies for our wedding, we were surprised by two of the most beautiful days we could have asked for.  Still, waking up at the Lewis and Clark Motel in Bozeman to large, heavy white flakes blanketing the sky dropped our spirits considerably. 

For a few hours, we tried to avoid it by partaking in a continental breakfast complete with hard boiled eggs, individually wrapped slices of banana bread, an assortment of bagels and fruit and delicious tea!  I have to say, The Lewis and Clark Motel in downtown Bozeman is not bad at all for $57/night. 

After our breakfast, we had to face the decision of what we were actually going to do amidst the horrendous weather.  I turned on The Weather Channel in our room to see a map of the western US completely covered in clouds with a swath of rain and snow that covered the entire states of Idaho, Montana and Wyoming.  Johanna was willing to at least head down to Yellowstone in hopes that possibly the mountains would block some of the worst of it and simply to give it a try.  After replenishing our food, Johanna picked up some fleece fabric at Wal-Mart she was going to use to make mittens.

The drive to Yellowstone is incredible – the drive basically anywhere in Montana is incredible – but befuddled by rain which eventually turned into snow when we reached the higher elevations of Yellowstone itself. 

Upon entering, we discovered that the campsite and entire region we had hoped to visit was closed after receiving 5 inches of snow the night before.  Our alternate route took us to The Norris Geyser Basin where we set up camp in the snow.  In spite of the conditions, I was really excited about the campsite.  Our tent sat upon a mound overlooking a large meadow with a meandering stream already being visited by Elk and Bison within several hundred feet of our campsite.  The evidence (huge piles of poop) suggested that, at some point, they would be coming even closer to our tent.

After setting up the tent, we hoped to find some hiking, but it was already 3:00 and the snow and rain were coming harder and more frequently.  Instead, we went to the Canyon Village where we visited the Visitor Information center.  We were both surprised to discover that the majority of Yellowstone lies within the blown out crater of a giant volcano.  The combination of such intense volcanic activity with the altitude and the glaciers throughout history have sculpted Yellowstone into what it is today. 

Unfortunately, we weren’t able to experience much of its majesty.  Throughout today and yesterday, I was feeling more and more caged.  Being out in this country seems like it stirs up the part of me that wants wind and water and dirt all around me.  Instead, I have felt caged in Laundromats, motel rooms, restaurants and my car. 

I decided I was going to walk around, even if it meant in the parking lot of the Canyon Village.  I had hoped to find Inspiration Point, but was unsuccessful and, in the process, managed to frustrate Johanna.  Her misery with the cold and wet weather and my misery with being stuck in a car was making us easily irritated with each other.  Thankfully, we quickly resolved things and settled in at a small cafeteria to write our blog entries and eat some ice cream.  We stayed there until there was about an hour of sunlight remaining and headed back to the campsite.  Not hungry and too cold or wet for a campfire, we crawled directly into our sleeping bags feeling pretty miserable and unsure what the next days would be like.

-Jason

Bozeman Bound

Waking up surrounded by stout log walls, stoic pictures of Tom and Joan’s ancestors, and Grandma Olson’s corduroy blanket keeping me warm is probably one of the best feelings in the world. We ignored the sound of rain pattering outside the windows as we showered and re-packed our bags. I joined everyone out in the living room in time for a very interesting discussion on religion and compassion. I love talking to Tom and Joan; they have different perspectives than I do and it makes me really think about what I believe. Our conversation was followed by a delicious breakfast of biscuits and gravy, compliments of Uncle Tom. He made us this breakfast last year, and it was so good I remembered it and was more than happy to eat it again. We finished up the meal with some fresh grapes and more conversation.

 Auntie Joan checked the weather for us before we left, and the results were rather sobering. It appeared that every stop along the next week of our trip was blanketed in a nasty storm system of rain/snow and cold weather. We said our goodbyes and headed back into Bozeman to do some blog updating and figure out what to do with ourselves for the week.

 We stopped at the Bozeman library first, because libraries almost always have great wifi and it’s free. Before I go on, please understand that I don’t hold anything against anyone who lives in Bozeman and chooses this lifestyle; but I feel like I have to say what I have to say. Besides, no one ever takes me very seriously, and that’s a good thing. Anyway, last year when we visited Bozeman, I was so impressed with the town that I really wanted to move myself out there and join the ranks of college-quisi-hippies. However, this year when we visited, I found myself noticing that Bozeman is a really great town, but everyone that I saw there was beautiful. Everyone wore the best performance clothing, everyone was thin and trendy, and they all ride bikes and care about the environment. Now, I am and I do all of the things above, but there was a part of me that missed the dirt and grit of Milwaukee. My city, where people huddle at bus stops in the wintertime in all of the wrong clothing, where there’s need and hunger, and where not everyone is beautiful (outwardly, that is). Bozeman is alright, but Milwaukee will be my home for some time now.

 After studying the weather a little more and finding out that, well, nothing had changed from when Joan checked it for us. We decided to get a cheap motel room for the night and continue on as best we could with the rest of our plans. Jason found us a room at the Lewis and Clark Motel, right on the edge of downtown Bozeman and across from a laundromat (we love Laundromats). For a $57.00 room, it wasn’t too bad. The plumbing was a little nutty but we got free internet and a great continental breakfast. We checked into our room and hauled our stuff up the stairs in the rain, with every intention of doing laundry across the street. However, all the stress and effort of doing…nothing but worrying about the weather? … made us tired, and we took a nap. We woke up to huge snowflakes falling outside of our window. That was pretty discouraging. I guess it’s pretty common mountain weather, but when you’ve planned the majority of your honeymoon outside this isn’t very reassuring. We commenced with the clotheswashing and then headed downtown for some gift shopping and pizza eating.

 With the laundry finished and the blog partially updated, we went back to our honeymoon suite for the evening. I had cranked the heat up to 70 degrees, which I loved but Jason couldn’t stand. I never quite know why he’s always so much warmer than I am. I’m jealous sometimes, especially when the weather is cold. I fell asleep before he did, which isn’t unusual; however, apparently, he was trying to add pictures to a blog entry and couldn’t figure it out, so he asked me. My groggy reply was simply, “You have to be connected to the internet”. Which is obvious. He gave up until morning.

-Johanna

Spirit and Storms

Friday, June 5^th, 2009

Our last day in Glacier National Park cracked open with the pounding of my alarm clock – the first such occurrence since my wedding day.  We fought well for almost an hour before excitement for our day overcame the slumber of our night. 

While I made coffee and took down the tent, Johanna “bathed” using the icy faucet waters and a washcloth.  When she came back, she was all bounces and smiles saying how invigorating the cold water was.  Foo-Foo women of the world – take heed!  While the coffee was brewing in our press pot, I was off for my own washcloth shower and wake-up call.  Our plan was to drive to the road closure from the west end of the The Going to the Sun Road and hike to Avalanche Lake, then turn around and take the long road south through Montana to Bozeman and Auntie Joan and Uncle Tom Graham’s haven at the foot of The Absoraka Mountains. 

Sixteen years ago, I had visited Glacier National Park with my parents as a stop on our endlessly long Amtrak trip.  I had two days in the park and we did two hikes.  One was into fog and unfulfilled hopes of seeing a glacier.  The other was to Avalanche Lake.  For all the years that have passed since that hike, I have held the vision of Avalanche Lake in my mind whenever I thought of Glacier.  I remembered the hike that ended with a curve through a final strand of Cedars and an abrupt vista that opened above, in front and on all sides of you as out of nowhere.  I remembered the feeling of such magnitude that I literally sat down almost immediately on the pebbled shore and silently felt the power and purity fill my spirit.

The hike follows the Avalanche Stream up a narrow valley through an incredible forest of Cedars.  The stream itself has carved deep groves and smoothed the rocks like a potter making curved bowls bubbling with whitewater and overflowing to the next.

Further up, it is wider and rushing against and over the eldest Cedars that fell to last year’s winter.  The mountainside is beautiful and ghastly.  The canopy above tightly grasps the sunlight letting precious little through its fingers.  The ground below has almost no undergrowth except for the occasional emerald green fern or the moss that performs the duties of undertaker to the thousands of fallen trees strewn about.  In this forest, you understand clearly that the battle for survival is not unique to the animal kingdom.  The survivors are mighty and fierce Cedars with deep fiery red bark.  The vanquished far outnumber the living and lay in piles across each other waiting for the slow process of decay.

Thankfully, there are more hikers on this trail so Johanna and I do not have to bother the wildlife with our storytelling and clapping quite as much.  Still, we both secretly desire to see a bear.  Finally, we reach the top and we begin walking the curved trail that welcomes me with anticipation.  We step through the last wall of vegetation onto the pebbled beach and find the same awe and overpowering beauty that met me the first time. 

On a log bench, we sit together silently for 20 minutes watching the waterfalls on three sides pour down into the lake and the snowy peaks above. 

As we leave, I find it nearly impossible to hold back my tears and one or two sneak away.  Honestly, I feel as if I’m leaving my womb or heaven itself – a place where a piece of my spirit resides quietly on a pebbled beach waiting the ten, twenty or more years until either my body or my spirit finds its way back.  When I can finally speak without betraying my tears, I tell Johanna that, if I die before she does, I would ask that she return here to spread a handful of my ashes.  She asks me the same.

On the way down, we talk about the spirit of adventure and the differences between men and women, and she and I.  I’m full of bravado from the wildness around me and I make ridiculous comments and insinuations that hurt her and within 2 miles of Avalanche Lake, we find ourselves in our first fight as husband and wife.  Quickly it spreads into silence.  Silence that winds its way back down the mountain roads and around Lake McDonald.  Silence that looms like a cloud over our car as we pass down Highway 93 through the amazing Mission Valley of Montana and around the shores of Flathead Lake.  Silence that breaks only in the 92 degree heat of a dusty Indian Reservation town when I apologize, we hug and she buys me a Nestle Crunch ice-cream bar.  Ironically enough, after the silent cloud lifted, a real one appeared and our luck with weather shifted dramatically. 

The rest of the 3 hour drive to Bozeman was through torrential downpours and dropping temperatures. 

Finally, though, we reached our oasis – Tom and Joan Graham’s house.  Better known as Uncle Tom and Auntie Joan from our road trip with the Olsons last year.  Immediately, we were greeted with laughter an excitement, stories and the kind of hospitality the weariest of travelers crave.  The two people are simply the very salt of our earth.  Johanna and I crawl into bed happy and at peace once again, already weathered the first brief storm of our marriage.

-Jason

Re-living the Summer of ’76

Thursday morning greeted us with more blue skies and warm temperatures. Being a mountain woman makes waking up difficult. Now I understand why animals hibernate. Jason and I sat on the porch, enjoying the early sun and our coffee. We packed up and left our cozy cabin behind, heading west on Highway 2. It’s strange how one side of a mountain range can be so different from the other. East Glacier is rugged and majestic, but as we crossed over the Continental Divide, the landscape gave way to smaller mountains covered in green blankets of pine and cedar trees. Train tracks ran parallel to the highway, tacked up along the side of steep banks and winding with the mountain curves. I’ve never enjoyed watching a train go down the tracks so much; it looked like what I imagined it had been a hundred years ago when they first built the tracks.

 A drive along Highway 2 is not quite complete without a stop at the Goat Lick: an overlook above a canyon where two rivers meet, producing minerals on the rocks that mountain goats descend from higher elevations to, well, lick. At first, it was kind of cute. There was one lonely goat down there, and we got to see him jump gleefully over the stream. And then, a pack of Harley Davidson-riding bikers rumbled into the parking lot, meandering over to the edge to look at the goat. For some reason, Jason and I thought it was humorous; big burly men with their leather-wearing blonde ladies all pulling off to watch a goat lick a rock. We were trying to imagine the whole scene from the goat’s perspective… “Geez, I guess I’ll lick this dumb rock for the humans. How degrading. Maybe I can just pretend to lick it and they’ll never know the difference.” 

Continuing Westward, we made some phone calls and found a canoe rental place near West Glacier. A view from their webcam showed a glassy Lake MacDonald awaiting our paddles, so we strapped the canoe on top of Yoshimi and went to secure a campsite for the evening. Little known to me, our campground of choosing, Fish Creek, was the same campground my dad stayed at in ’76. This was after hiking halfway up the Going-to-the-Sun Road, and then scoring a ride the rest of the way over the mountains in a green VW Micro Bus with nine other people, one of which sat in the back playing a dulcimer. My dad’s adventures always top mine. 

Jason and I labored over what campsite to choose, only to discover he had already pre-registered for one along the lake. It’s funny how many things tend to slip your mind when you’re planning a wedding; I’m hoping we’re not missing our reservation at some other place we already paid for. The view of Lake MacDonald from our campsite was definitely not the glassy picture we had seen only a couple of hours earlier. Lake MacDonald is a very big lake, so we chanced going around to the East side of it to see if the water was any calmer closer to the mountains. Luckily, we found much smoother waters on the other side, and shoved off from the rocky shore.

 I’ve canoed a bit in the past couple of years, but nothing has or will compare to canoeing Lake MacDonald. The water was indeed glassy in the shadow of the mountains, and the entire lake looked as though it had been dyed turquoise. The water was frigid but the sun was hot as we paddled around the shore. We passed quite a few empty cabins and campgrounds; I wonder if somebody owns them or if they just haven’t been opened for the summer? We stopped at one of them, on the far side of the lake, and set off to explore the last signs of civilization on Lake MacDonald. Clearly, the place wasn’t abandoned, but there was no sign of anybody having stayed there yet this year. We took pictures of the empty buildings and overgrown gardens, enjoying the spookiness of it all and hoping we wouldn’t encounter some old hillbilly with a rifle and a bottle of moonshine.

 

On our paddle back across the lake, we saw two elk and their baby drinking from the edge. Jason paddled as quietly as possible so I could attempt to get some pictures. None of them turned out as well as I had hoped, but one of the advantages of a photographic memory is that I likely won’t forget what they looked like; stepping silently across an empty yard, looking like they belonged more than any of the outbuildings or houses built around them.

 After strapping the canoe back on Yoshimi, we drove into West Glacier to attempt to find some firewood and wireless internet. Firewood was found, but apparently wireless internet is a rarity in these parts. We had to drive back up the highway to the canoe rental place, which was closed by that time but had a free wifi connection that we made use of for awhile. We made phonecalls to our families to let them know we hadn’t been eaten by bears, and then headed back to the campsite for hot chocolate, burritos, and a darn good fire in our fire pit. The mosquitoes in Montana as just as big as everything else, and soon drove us into the tent for another blissful night of sleep under the pine trees.

-Johanna

Bear Country

Wednesday, June 3^rd, 2009

 Growling and groaning like a big fuzzy grizzly bear, I woke from my hibernation in our beautiful Montana cabin.  There was frost on the hood of my car and the inside of our cabin wasn’t much warmer, but I was a happy bear.  The mountains directly in front of our porch were crystal clear and the day had already broke profoundly beautiful.  There was not a cloud to be seen. 

 

After jumping up to turn on a simple space heater, I climbed back into bed with Johanna.  This has been one of the most delightful surprises of my honeymoon.  Waking up next to my wife, annoying her and kissing her until the fog finally lifts from her eyes and we’re awake together.  I guess that’s not much of a grizzly bear thing to do, but I like to pretend. 

Once awake, I went out to our porch to make the press pot coffee.  Johanna was showering so I had a moment to sit, sip and soak in the air, the sound of the stream and the morning sun.  I do believe God may have made me for a place like Montana. 

 

We then enjoyed another breakfast with our squishy bowls and headed off for our first taste of Glacier National Park.  Oh, what a taste.  Within 2 miles of the park’s entrance, we were greeted by a baby elk swimming across a frigid mirror lake and a canopy of towering rock, ice and bold, fearless pine trees. 

 

We hoped to canoe in the Many Glacier region on the east side of the park, but we discovered that most of the east side had not yet come alive for the year.  Instead, we settled for a 4 mile hike to Red Rock Lake.

The moment when you strap the bear spray onto your belt is a funny one.  I thought of Base Camp in Billings, MT and the picture of the mangled face of its inventor.  I thought, well…I’m glad I bought this, but wait…the only time you’re supposed to use this is when a bear is charging you.  I imagined flipping back the safety mechanism, gripping the bottle in terror and shooting myself in the face or worse, Johanna and I sprayed like a flamethrower anywhere I looked.  I definitely didn’t imagine the nice, clean way the folded instructions describe its use.  Oh well…off we go.  East Glacier is amazing in early June and I would recommend everyone visit early in the season like this.  There are no crowds, everything is waking up and you have trails all to yourself.  That’s right…all to yourself.  We were prepared though, from the videos we watched in preparation for our adventure in bear country back in January to the clerk at Base Camp who winked and said “I like to keep up a steady banter while hiking” to the park ranger at the gate who also winked and said “just try to make noise, ok?”  Johanna saved us, I think, by asking me to tell her (in a loud voice) everything I did from the moment I left her on the night before our wedding to when Chris Johnson presented us as husband and wife.  I managed to do so in a mile and a half.  Picture us, walking along, describing every detail and clapping occasionally like this.  “And then…I woke up and thought about how windy it was.    And then…I took a shower.”  (Clapping loudly)  “YEA SHOWER!!!”  We laughed and imagined lazy bears lounging in the sun somewhere up the valley moaning and holding their ears wishing for the idiot humans to shut up!  We didn’t see a bear (though we did see bear poop!) and we will now remember forever our pre-wedding hours because they are firmly tied into our subconscious along with the memory of our hike through bear country.

Our hike ended at a mountain lake and a waterfall well worth the terror and humor of our hike.

There, we met a group of guys from South Carolina who had just graduated from college and were all riding in a Toyota Camry all the way to Seattle.  After our road trip with the Olson’s last year, we had great admiration for these brave boys.  On the way out, we ran into a jolly old uncle and his nephew from Indiana who called Johanna “Twiggy” and laughed after he found out we were on our Honeymoon and said (in front of his 12 year-old nephew) “So that wasn’t coyotes we heard last night after all!”  He told us the Going to the Sun road through the middle of Glacier National Park was closed 12 though and we were disappointed.  We then decided to drive what we could of it and head back to our cozy little cabins to make burritos for the next few days and enjoy our porch.

My beautiful lizard wife was soaking up the afternoon sun and playing guitar while I read The Hobbitt and enjoyed a bottle of Moose Drool (beer).  While making burritos, Johanna managed to spray lettuce shreds all over the floor of our cabin,

but we recovered and crawled in for some deep slumber in another cold Montana night. 

~Jason

Frontierspersons

Montana. The state that God stopped measuring and being precise about when He made it. All the meticulous care spent on states east of this one is reflected by the orderly way that everything seems to fit where it should. Not Montana. Everything is so big.

 

I woke up in Jason’s old tent, surprisingly warm and comfortable.

Warmth wasn’t something I expected while sleeping in a tent, especially based off of last year’s horrific night spent shivering in Yosemite. However, with the sun coming in on my face and the world’s puffiest sleeping bags shared between Jason and I, I could not have been toastier. I love mornings like this. Jason braved the cold wind outside of the tent to make our first press pot of coffee on the trip. Much to our dismay, we had realized the day before that we’d forgotten two of the most important items for camping: A press pot, and a pound of my dad’s coffee. We did end up finding a fantastic camping press pot, and tried to think of ways we could have my dad ship us a pound of coffee. We finally bit the bullet and bought some at a coffee shop in Billings.

While it’s definitely not Cup’o’Joe coffee, it tasted pretty good drank black out of a shiny tin cup under a blue Montana sky. Breakfast consisted of last night’s not-so-Supreme Chicken pizza, which tasted much better cold than warm. Well, we wanted to get rid of it.

 Back on the road, we left Lewistown and continued to head towards our next destination: a town tacked onto the eastern side of Glacier National Park called St. Mary. Giant plains, patterned with golden wheat fields and lush green pastures, came into view as we crested every hill. Some twenty miles later, we’d climb another green mountain and the process would repeat. It’s strange how you can see so far here; The sky seems higher and wider, and there’s so much more open space than I’m used to. Everything in Montana is bigger than it is in Wisconsin: The bugs, the fields, the cows, the sky, the trucks…even the trailers. The items being pulled behind a semi got to be quite humorous. Small houses, giant sewer pipes, farm equipment, heck, they could probably even put a mountain on one of those trailers and get away with it. 

As we passed through the tiny town of Cut Bank, we beheld what was probably the weirdest big item we’d seen thus far: a fifty foot statue of a penguin, with a sign at the bottom reading, “Cut Bank, MT. Coldest Spot in the Nation”. Jason lost it at this point. We had been listening to Sigur Ros, and a particularly magnificent crescendo somehow connected with the absurdity of the oversized penguin. Jason had me drive back up the road so he could film the approach of the penguin timed with the song. The first time, I have to admit I thought it was pretty funny. However, I apparently did not get close enough to the flightless monstrosity for my husband’s liking; we had to drive back up the road a second time. It may have been perfect, but Jason’s camera malfunctioned. There was no option in his head; a third attempt must be made. I was so exasperated by this point that I made him drive. We did get it on camera timed with the crescendo of the music, and it is pretty funny when I think about it now. For the record, you could probably haul that penguin on an oversized trailer…. 

We continued on. As we approached St. Mary, I saw the deep blue ridges rising ahead of us. It was just as good as approaching Denver for the first time. We’d seen some mountains already; mostly foothills but a few snowy peaks. However, they paled in comparison to the Rocky Mountains looming in our line of vision. There is no good way to describe how it feels to see mountains after my eyes adjusting to cornfields and prairies. They are so large and jagged and ferocious. They dominate and rule over the plateaus and grain fields. For mile and miles around, their presence is known. Nobody has settled them or made them tame or built cities on their summits, and nobody is likely to do so anytime soon. 

Our eyes burning from the overwhelming site and the altitude, we located the Glacier Trailhead Cabins, our home for the next two days. After checking in with the owner’s wife at up at her house, we were pleasantly surprised by the little log cabin she assigned us to. It was small and simple; just a bed, a table, and a shower, but it was set back on a quiet corner of the property with a fantastic view of the mountains right off of the porch.

We went over to the cooking area and made our first supper together as a married couple: Grilled chicken with jasmine rice and avocado slices. It was pretty tasty, and we had fun using our new camping pots and dishes.

We brought the food back to the cabin and ate it at the table in happy solitude, interrupted only by the owner’s wife knocking on our door and asking if our hot water was working alright. We found this to be absurdly funny, in light of our wedding night insanity with Ann Miller. For the record, we took quite a few nice hot showers at those cabins, and washed our dishes in the sink. I will never take hot water for granted again, even if I’m paying to stay somewhere.

 

So far, Montana and married life has been pretty great. Both have taken a little adjusting; I had to get used to mountain altitude, and I also have to get used to having a husband and not a fiancé/boyfriend. 

-Johanna

Airport Camping

As the sun rose behind us on I-90 in Eastern Montana, Johanna drove, alternating between checking Flickr on my iPhone to see if Tory (our amazing photographer) had posted more pictures (she’s been doing this every couple hours since the trip began) and holding the camera up to take backwards pictures of the sunrise. 

With the coming of the sun, our struggle to stay awake improved and we soon found ourselves in Billings, MT.  In Billings, we tried to buy gear and discovered something about Cabelas.  Cabelas is for people who take ATV’s, trucks or horses camping and we are not those people.  The one great assistance we received there was a recommendation to check out an outdoor store called Base Camp downtown.  Off we went and discovered the wonderful local version of REI.  Immediately, I struck up a conversation with a great associate from Ohio who had just recently been in Yellowstone and took 10 minutes just to show me some cool places on a map.  Back on track, we picked up inflatable sleeping pads, a butane stove that fits in a pouch the size of two decks of cards, some plates, a saw and 2 freeze-dried dinners for our Grand Teton adventure.  We also picked up a canister of bear spray from a rack that prominently displayed a picture of it’s inventor – after having his face mangled by a bear attack – complete with blood and gore.  I think this is probably a good selling technique for bear spray.  “Hey…since you’re looking over here, you should probably pick up a canister.  Oh…don’t mind the price.  You wouldn’t want to end up like this guy would you?”  Finally, we picked up an insulated coffee press pot – an essential for the newest Smith Family.  I think there should be a picture above the coffee press that shows the face of someone drinking “hot dog” coffee.  I’m sure it would be gruesome enough to make a few sales. 

The best part of our stop to Base Camp was the final bill.  Just before bidding my parents farewell and thanking them for all their incredible generosity and help with the wedding, my dad handed me an envelope.  He had taken his entire change drawer (that he has been accumulating for years) to the bank and asked that they simply cash it and put it in an envelope.  He didn’t want to know how much was in it and simply said that it was for Johanna and I to enjoy and do something fun with on the honeymoon.  Once again, I was overwhelmed by my parent’s generosity.   Somewhere back in Minnesota, we had stopped at a US Bank to deposit all the cash burning holes in our pockets and our legs – all except the money my dad gave us.  I wanted to save that for something special.  Well…I decided that the most fun I could have with the money was to buy gear for camping (which we both love) that we could enjoy over and over again.  Totaling up our bill, it came out to $342.70.  I started counting the money my dad gave me and, to our amazement, came up with $343.00.  Exactly $.30 more than the bill.  Honestly, I came very close to crying.  I couldn’t believe the bill for all the remaining gear we needed came out to $.30 less than the money we had from my dad. 

 

After Billings, we headed off to our stop for the night in Lewistown, MT.  I had hoped we could find some BLM land (Bureau of Land Management – camp for free anywhere), but we got to town a bit too late to go off searching for a place to camp.  We heard about a Kiwanas campground on the north side of town so we went there to check it out.  The campground was about 200 feet of grass with picnic tables and a bathroom squished between the Lewistown airport (mostly single-engine hobby planes) and the highway. 

It probably won’t be remembered for the most scenic or romantic stop on our honeymoon, but it was easy and cheap – we donated $5.  We put up our tent and headed off to town for dinner and laundry.  

Laughing and exhausted from our long drive through the plains, we settled for a romantic dinner at Pizza Hut. 

 The laundromat proved to be a great stop for the night with free wifi, a covered parking garage for some re-packing, and a bathroom we could use for some hippie showers. 

 

Throughout the trip, I have wondered if I’m the world’s worst husband camping cold nights in the wild and taking hippie showers with my new wife.  I’ve even asked Johanna on occasion what she thinks of this as her honeymoon and whether she wants to kill me.  Of course, she doesn’t and I don’t know why I even had to ask.  Many men have said this through the years, but for me, I really truly found the perfect woman.  She’s soft and sensitive at times and others, the most easy-going woman, up for adventure and seemingly unconcerned about the comforts many wives demand.  In the midst of it, I think she even revels in the wild life.  She speaks with laughter and nostalgia of our road trip last year when she and Jonna took topless baths in a cold Utah mountain stream.  I love my wife.  

After laundry, we inflated our brand new sleeping mats, zipped our sleeping bags together for the first time, and slept beautifully. 

- Jason

Memorable Beginnings

 If we said our wedding was perfect, and it was, then it surely must have some mishap – something that sticks in your mind as much as the beautiful memories and gives you a story to tell and something to laugh about for the long years ahead.  Ours came on our first morning of marriage and involves crazy innkeepers on golf carts, a sheriff and the absolutely endless arm of the Brookfield police department.  You ready? 

So we wake up on Sunday morning to our very first lazy day in easily more than 2 months and it feels good – not to mention the fact that we finally get to share a bed and hold each other as the sun comes streaming in through the skylight above our bed.  Oh, but there’s presents to open and journeys to begin so up I jump and scurry down the stairs of Gustav’s Getaway do a nice long, warm shower.  The rude greeting to our first day of marriage begins about 60 seconds into my shower when the hot water runs out.  Luckily, I had enough to clean the soap off me and get a start on filling up the tub for Johanna.  As soon as I get out of the shower, I call Ann Miller, our innkeeper and start using all the available pots in the cabin to fill the bathtub for Johanna.  I’m thinking to myself what a great husband I’m being.  Ann pulls up in her golf cart and after flipping the circuit breaker and calling it good, offers to let us shower up at her house, just a bit up the dusty gravel road.  “No thank you,” I say.  After spending over $400 for the cabin, I wasn’t going to make by bride shower at some stranger’s place.  So I continue warming pot after pot, until I realize – the tub isn’t filling up.  In fact, it’s emptying.  Putting my ear close to the water, I hear the unmistakable sound of water seeping through the bathtub drain and I realize – it’s hopeless.  Now I’m upset so I call up our friend Ann again to let her know her bathtub drain leaks.  In a very calm, but serious tone, I also tell her that I’m a bit upset with how things are going.  Immediately, she expresses that she, too, is upset because I had an extra person stay with me on Friday night and I have committed a crime in Door County for “defrauding and innkeeper”.  This is true.  One of my groomsmen, Brian, was to have camped in Penninsula State Park with a couple flying in from Denver, but their plane was over 2 hours late and he was homeless for the night and I had an extra bed.  I didn’t think to tell our innkeeper, but surely she would understand the situation, right?  I mean – what was he to do?  Sleep in a ditch somewhere?  But no, she becomes more upset and threatens to call the Sheriff.  “Go ahead and call him then!”  I say, and guess what?  She does.  Just as we’re leaving, she says that the Sheriff “has some interesting things to say to me.”  Up the road he drives and sure enough – he says some interesting things.  Mostly (to paraphrase), he doesn’t know why he’s here, there’s no crime that has been committed and we should all just move on with our lives and I’m all for that.  Driving down the road, Ann passes us in her golf cart and says “I don’t want any hard feelings you know.  I can play hardball at times when I know I have to, but I don’t want there to be any hard feelings.  I just want to reiterate my offer that you can come back another time and I will give you 50% off the 2^nd night you stay here”.  Shocked with the absurdity of what she’s offering, I decline and say that we would simply like to leave and away we go, already trying to laugh about it.  

We arrive at the O’Boyle cabin and just as Johanna is showering and I’m starting to break down the tent, our master fish boiler, Brian Stillwater walks back and says there is someone up front asking to see me.  Peaking around the corner of the cabin, I see the back of the Sheriff’s car.  “Oh Lord!  Will this never end?”  The kindly Door County Sheriff greets me to say that he needs “to talk to me for a minute”.  Good news never starts off this way. “Sure”, I say and he proceeds to tell me that my license is suspended and he can’t let me drive away. “Sure, officer.  It’s not as if we’re about to embark on a 3,000 mile road trip for our honeymoon!”  Apparently, a very infamous Seatbelt Ticket and the Brookfield Municipal Court has come back to haunt me (many of you know of this incident involving handcuffs, but that is another story).  As it turns out, yet another ticket that I paid, was not registered in “the system” and I’ve been driving with a suspended license for the last 2 months.  The friendly officer (who really was friendly, but oh so anal about doing his job) gives me a ticket, but assures me that I have a comfortable 45 days to prove that there was no justifiable reason for the ticket – we’ll see. 

 Ok…so whatever.  So on the morning after I marry Johanna, I take a cold shower and our crazy innkeeper calls the Sheriff, and I have to explain to everyone in her family why I was handcuffed innocently 3 months ago and why I’m going to break the damn law again by taking my honeymoon anyway and driving with a suspended license to Montana.  It’s all good and we all have a good chuckle about it.  I love her family.  And just so you know, I’m now in Montana – 1 hour from Glacier National Park.  Johanna is driving 100 miles per hour down steep Montana roads and I fixed the whole license debacle. 

-Jason