What did YOU do this weekend?

This weekend my family took a 12 mile hike called the Highline, along the Garden Wall of Glacier National Park. We started at the top of Logan Pass and trekked high above Going to the Sun road toward a place called Granite Park Chalet. That's the trail, to the left. It's a pretty intense cliff ledge. I unfortunately don't have my pictures ready to post so I had to borrow some from the internets. However, these should give you a pretty good idea of a) how goddamn high we were b) how goddamn narrow the ledge was and c) how goddamn beautiful the entire 6 hour trip was.

It took us about four hours to reach Granite Park Chalet and it took another 2 hours to finish the hike from that point. When we could first catch a glimpse of the roof of the Chalet, we had no idea it would take us two hours to actually reach the campground. That was a bad time for us all, I think. We had just finished a two/three hour stretch of mountain vistas, snowfields, and thin, invigorating mountain air. The following two hours included increasingly warmer temperatures, avalanche debris, and shalefields--piles of sedimentary rock, everywhere. However, the valleys below us were so green and alive; the peaks around us were closer and and more awesome than anything we had seen before. I felt at one with the Garden Wall and with the Sun Road and with Birdwoman Falls and with every new valley we looked out on.


Unfortunately, we ran out of water with about 4 miles left to go. This led to a lot bitching, moaning, and ill-restrained panic. At some point, AC and I said to hell with sanitation and started cupping water from creek beds, Bear Grylls style. Although we never had to drink our own pee, I think we both would have relished the challenge.

When we came across a particularly refreshing creek and mini-waterfall, my family lost all decorum and climbed up to the falls in order to shove our heads into the cascading water. Several families passed us and ogled, probably because yours truly was moaning rather explicitly and inappropriately as the water rushed over my head and down my bosom. It occurred to me that I will never take drinking-water for granted again.

The 7 hour GNP venture is partly the reason for my absence from this blog. I also travelled to Spokompton, WA for a shopping trip. Nothing says NEW WARDROBE like studying abroad in a Third-World country, riiight?

The four hour drive takes you through some of the most beautiful parts of Big Sky Country. Sometimes I feel as though we aren't good enough to live here and I don't understand why we're allowed to at all.

As we drove around Flathead Lake (silver and looking like a long-lost body of water from Rivendell) I realized that Montana has quietly crept into my bones. I know I have to leave it because I'm not ready to be committed but...I know I'll be back here someday, for good. And that was an exhilarating and alien realization to come to.

My song today is Gold in the Air of Summer by Kings of Convenience. This is a track from an old album, Riot on an Empty Street. The whole album is full of a certain longing, a homesickness. That's even the name of track 2--Homesick. Even though this song is about a person and not a place, the piano at the end reminds me of here. It reminds me of home. I can remember where I was when I bought this album. I was driving home from Spokane, from Hayden Lake actually, and I bought this album at a Barnes & Noble with my friend, Kami. She listened to Keane while I listened to Kings of Convenience and stared out the car window. And I knew this place was blessed--there was gold in the air, and it shimmered across the lake.

Ny Batteri is from Sigur Ros' album Agaetis Byrjun which I've been told is Fat Cat in Icelandic. I like this song because of the Build-Up, because unlike other Sigur Ros songs, this build-up is unexpected. I'm not prepared for it for seven minutes--suddenly the drums drop in and the sound is all around you. It's like the hike this weekend: I knew something unearthly would be around the next bend, over the next crest, but I was never prepared for exactly how beautiful it was until it was all around me and in me.