With Montana it is love. . .

If I ever forget why I love Montana (God forbid), haul me up and take me on a backpacking trip. There is something about traveling country by foot, and nothing else seems to be able to replace it. It is looking down at a dizzying drop, knowing it was your feet and legs, attached to your rapidly beating heart, that took you up there and nothing else.

Red Gap Pass, Glacier Nat'l Park

I try not to romanticize the outdoors in my own mind too much (though it is probably inevitable). The mountain does not give a shit that we are walking on it. The cold stream doesn't care. We can certainly impact these places, whether positively or negatively, but the earth does not care about our little ant scurries.

What we take away from it, however, is invaluable. I'm not really sure why, but as much as the mountains and rivers and lakes do not need people, people need them.

Preferably as grueling as possible.

 I probably could have stayed home all weekend and worked on chores, homework, and other life demands, and still not have finished everything. Instead I fled responsibility and escaped into the mountains--the Mission Mountains Wilderness, where I took a short backpack trip with friends. After spending an enjoyable night by a high alpine lake I still hadn't escaped my restlessness. That need had not been quite fulfilled.

Behold, Daughter of the Sun

The peak featured in the center of this photo sits solidly at 8,777 feet--not enormous, but an impressive mountain with a lovely name. The sight of it had teased us all the way up on our hike. Myself and an intrepid partner (or leader, more accurately. . . ) parted from the rest of the group to tackle the summit (see previous photo of ridiculous scree scramble).

Without a map or knowledge of a good route, we eyed a possible line up to the ridge and headed up. We hiked over a boulder field, which turned into near-vertical loose talus, and finally hit giant stacked boulders to scramble up and over all the way to the top. The route required Class 3/4 scrambling, according to the people at summitpost.org, but I wasn't expecting quite that much sheer vertical climbing. *After some research, turns out I accidentally did Class 5 (roped climbing) free solo on this trip. Don't try it at home, kids. . . *

I wish I had taken more photos to prove how epic the climb was, but on the other hand, I was pretty focused on not dying. The climbing was easy compared to the rock climbing I've done before-- except I was wearing hiking boots, a pack, and had absolutely no rope protection. Even Intrepid Partner, not known for his cautiousness, advised me to make sure every hand and foothold was 100% before I tried it.

"Looks solid."

Several times we attained false summits only to throw our hands up frustrated, realizing we had yet another ledge with hundreds of feet of exposure to climb. Returning the way we came seemed impossible (and in fact probably was). We had gone too far to turn back now. Somehow, inching across ledges and climbing up narrow slots, we made our way upward. Stepping onto the summit was a ridiculously joyous, heady moment.

At the summit, the rest of the world seems to stop. Human things look very small and inconsequential from up there. They look the way they ought to, maybe.

I was concerned about coming back down, knowing that downclimbing is much more dangerous. I took my time edging carefully back down the mountain, taking a slightly different route with looser rock but less exposure. I hopped down from solid hold to solid hold, sending showers of loose rock plummeting hundreds of feet to the ground. Intrepid Partner sailed down with a grin on his face, skiing (skreeing?) over the rocks in his boots. 

There wasn't much time for celebration at arriving on solid ground again. At the bottom, we shouldered our suddenly heavy overnight packs and continued on 6 miles down to the trailhead. Tired, but totally content (and in my case, happy to have some solid earth under my feet).

Why do humans seek adventure, and inherent with it, risk?

Sometimes, just because we can.

Just too good to pass up.

Arctic Summer

I remember how the walrus sunned

Himself, how geese rose oft with a purpose,

How the lemmings disappeared,

Imperceptibly as the summer,

Or the flower I had pressed in a book.

--Celia Brown

On Solo Backpacking

My first steps up the trail were uncertain. I looked back over my shoulder at the car, and then it vanished from sight. Oh well--I tugged at the straps of my heavy pack and hiked on up the creek.

It hadn't seemed like a big deal on the drive up to East Rosebud Trailhead. I have camped out, traveled to the Arctic, and hiked many long miles solo. But somehow, hiking out miles beyond any other human being to face the night alone, depending entirely on myself, seemed different.

It was an experiment of sorts. I'm a pretty social person and lived pretty closely with other people all summer, so I wondered how it would go.

During the hike, I was distracted by being extremely sweaty and out of breath (elevation is a killer). Eventually I got to choose exactly when and where I wanted to bed down for the night.

Time: a couple seconds before nightfall. Place: mountaintop

I was sweatier than I'd ever been in my life, but I stripped down without worries to cool off and dry out my clothes. I stretched out diagonally across my tent. I brought no food with me (due to lack of a method to store it bear-safely), so I contented myself with snacking on the numerous growing wild berries.

Sooo many raspberries

I barely slept that night. Less because of any fear or discomfort (though those were certainly factors) but because it was so novel. After the summer of daylight and being around people, this was the exact opposite. Loud hoof steps crunched around outside my tent, but besides that, it was absolutely silent. No birds or even insects chirped, and the wind was still.

By morning light, before the sun had come up, I packed up my camp and moved on. There was a lake with my name on it somewhere up ahead--I didn't know how far, but I was determined to make it somewhere, or else it seemed almost like a waste of effort.

I hiked on and on. I almost turned back several times, exhausted by lack of sleep and the thought of the long drive I had yet to do that day. No one was with me; no one would know.

But I kept hiking anyway. And finally that moment, standing by the lakeside in the 6:30 AM light, was pure magic. It took me that experience to finally understand.

You can hike at your own speed, stop to eat berries when you want. You can ignore certain comforts, like food, without worry of causing someone else misery. You can cuss like a sailor every step of the way, or be in a bad mood without affecting someone else. Everything is your decision, which also means if you fuck up, there's no one to take up your slack. If there is a monster outside your tent, only you can wrestle it.

I was alone, but I wasn't lonely. I'm not sure what this says for my future, but I do feel a bit freed. Company is appreciated but not necessary. We're all going through life alone anyway--it's just an illusion that we are doing anything else.

Grouse aaall alooone

The Wild Life

The world is an awfully big place. But you don't realize this, really, until you start to study its components. Specifically, until you're paying thousands of dollars to study them. (Welcome to wildlife biology).

There's only one life to live that we know of, so at some point you are going to have to make a choice. There isn't enough time to study them all.

Z

The fishes. . .

The birdies. . .

Or the beasts, and that's just to start. There are further divisions from there, of course.

Do you want to spend much of your time on foot, sweatily hiking through the undergrowth and waiting for a mountain lion to rip your throat out? Would you prefer spending your time on the rivers? Or staring at blurry bird-shapes through binoculars for hours on end?

These are questions that college doesn't really teach you to raise. Nor will your classes teach you the answer. The only answer is in getting your feet on the ground, sweating in the underbrush, and squinting at bird shapes for hours on end. If you hate it, awesome, you can cross that off your list. But if you love it so much that you are hooked forever. . .

Then you're pretty much fucked. Sorry.

Forget about it!!

Because you love the fish, and the birds, and those little green things that you're trampling on. Everything has its own beauty and logic to it, all pieces to that gigantic incredible puzzle that is the world.

You have absolutely no chance of understanding even a tiny corner of it in your lifetime. But it's alright. . . you can die trying.

And this gull will sneer at you for your efforts.

Alaska Season

When I first came to Barrow, everything around me seemed alien. From the moment I walked off the plane and inhaled the crisp 20 degree air, I didn't know what to expect.

I definitely thought the plane was going to touch down on the Arctic Ocean.

My new crewmates were immediately calling out names of birds I didn't know. On the first night, we surveyed birds from the vehicle until 1 AM (3 AM for my time zone). I was exhausted, eyes blurred from looking at tiny dots in the distance that were supposedly birds, and most of all freezing my ass off. I wondered if I was really prepared for this. At first the tundra seemed dead and cold. As the days passed, I was forced to open my eyes and really look.

It started with one tiny little buttercup blooming amongst the brown dead matter. I earned the nickname Princess Buttercup because of my excitement over this one little flower. But it meant the world to me.

When I started working up here in Alaska, birds flying overhead were just birds. The tundra was just a thick mat of brown sludge to tread over. But if I have learned anything here, it is that everything is something. By which I mean, that bird flying overhead has a name, and it matters. It might be a loon winging past, or a jaeger or a duck--maybe even a snowy owl if you're lucky. And the nameless husks of plants I walked over? I made it my goal to know them all, and fairly well succeeded.

Photo taken on the "desolate" tundra

The eider crew members became like a family, each of us with our unique quirks. On memorable occasions we cut off our own hair to fashion ourselves mustaches just to prank someone, or baked and decorated a cake just to eat it in front of the Cake Eater Road sign.

But mostly, we hiked. We walked--or more appropriately at times, slogged--through miles and miles of the tundra each day. I caught the eider bug, and came to adore the creatures (and identify them from quite a distance).

Seeing double male Steller's eiders

Another incredible part of this adventure has been experiencing a different culture and living very close to it. The Inupiat people give us permission to conduct these studies on their land, and everyone I have met has been very welcoming. We were invited to their gatherings, such as their Fourth of July games where everyone takes part in competitions. I joined in on the annual marathon (two laps around town, or 6 miles), my longest race yet.

In two short months, I have learned a considerable amount. Above all, I think I have begun to think like a scientist. It doesn't come naturally to me. But I was curious about everything I saw here. What appeals to me about science is that it all starts with that--just plain old curiosity. Without it, you have nothing.

You wouldn't have these adorable goslings!

Tomorrow is my last day in Barrow. My last day to soak up this experience. It seems like I just got here but it is already time to move on to new ventures--namely, my junior year of college. Life has to keep moving, as always. But this place is unforgettable. And I have no regrets.

I do not regret doing my required polar plunge shortly after this photo was taken.

For the Birds

A day in the Arctic: wake up, stumble into the kitchen and grab some sort of breakfast. Pump myself up with enough coffee to wake an elephant. Then it's wader time. I grimace as I pull on my boots over my blisters, knowing I'll be feeling those later. I double check that I'm carrying the three precious items: GPS, radio, and binoculars. Pack a lunch and it's go time.

Where me and 11 other people live.

Tundra walking is in a category all its own. The elevation is absolutely nil--the words "ridge" and "hill" can only be used in quotation marks here. But the ground is so soggy and mucky, it's comparable to walking on a sandy beach all day long. The mud sucks your feet down, and if you pause to glass a bird for a few seconds, you might just find yourself stuck in place.

It's too late for this goose, who is tragically stuck to the ground.

It's a treasure hunt, and you never know what you'll find when you step off the road into the tundra. A caribou carcass, a fox den, a tiny adorable shorebird nest, a shotgun, maybe a random porn DVD. You never know.

Yes, that is a pinky finger.

But what we are really here for is the ducks. Specifically the eider ducks. I came here to Barrow knowing very little about them, but over the last three weeks I have fallen in love.

Love.

I have been swept off my feet by these animals. It has been a lot of fun hanging out with my crew--playing card games, bombing around the beach on ATVs, polar plunging into the Arctic and otherwise enjoying ourselves. But it's all for these guys, and we wouldn't be here without them.

And they are so worth it.


From the top of the world,

Ellen Marie

Head'em up, move'em out!

Things don't always go as planned. Since I seem to be some kind of watery magnet, and fall into every body of water within range, I ought to know this.

Despite that, most of my adventures seem to go pretty well, but sometimes I do have to admit failure. Caving Round Three was one of these examples--or should I say, it was a dark and stormy night.

It was, in fact, a dark and stormy night. I was driving through heavy rain in the dark to find a remote campsite on the shores of the romantically named Bean Lake. My usual partner in adventures, the slightly older and considerably wiser Ben, accompanied me . We planned to get an early start in finding Bean Hole cave in the morning.

As soon as we turned off the main highway, the road turned into a mud slick. We couldn't see where we were going, but it felt like the middle of nowhere.

Middle of nowhere: check. (Photo by Ben)

Due to our lack of road map/good directions, we were not entirely sure where we were going. I slowed to a creep at a narrow wooden bridge that spanned fifty feet above the Dearborn River. "Are cars even supposed to go over this?" I demanded.

Apparently, yes. At the campground there were no designated sites, only a grassy field, so it was pick-your-own-cow-patty. The wind was blowing so hard, Ben and I took turns lying spread-eagled on the tent floor to keep it from flying away.

Sexy Bean Lake

The rain, darkness, and solitude of the campground convinced us we were starring in somebody's horror movie. And tomorrow, we planned to lower ourselves into a giant hole in the ground, completely at the mercy of mythical cave creatures.

We slept to the melodic sounds of cows being disemboweled all night long. Surprisingly, I didn't see their corpses piled up everywhere in the morning. El chupacabra must have hidden the bodies.

I had nothing to fear from cave creatures, though--we were not destined to find the cave, this time. It wasn't for lack of trying.

Nope, no cave here. (Photo by Ben)

 We hiked up and down enormous ridges and climbed carefully around rocky spires. We gained beautiful views and even better amplification of cows bellowing, but no cave.

And we found this!

We descended from the ridge disappointed. On our way out we checked in with some local ranchers, who pointed out the real location of the cave. We were on the right track, but had chosen a near impossible approach. Our time was running out, and we lacked permission to cross some private property, so we called it quits.

Neither of us liked quitting. And I have to say, Bean Hole Cave is going to nettle me until I return. But Ben and I agreed that you could do worse than hike around some beautiful country with a good companion. Not so bad at all.

Ben the Rock Ninja

And I got my last taste of mountains and some rugged elevation gain. Tomorrow is my last day in Montana before I head up to the Arctic. Internet access might be a little fishy there, if you'll excuse the pun, but I'll update the blog with adventures if I can. I'm a little nervous but a lot excited--who needs nice weather when there's Arctic winds to be had?? So bring it on.

Wherever you find yourself, enjoy the summertime. . . and adventure on!