On the Hunt

This is a mission that i am doing for friend of life….we all stand together, lets never forget that.

Goose

A brother,

from another mother

is just starting a new blog

about his nutty slog.

I am interested to see what he has to say,

cause he gets crazy every other day!
Tous Migrations

Good luck buddy, many the journey be endless! Even though you ripped my name off! LOVE IT. As far as i can tell we are all migrating mind anyway.

-Goose

http://www.outdoors.org/publications/outdoors/2011/fieldnotes/eating-local-food.cfm

I sit her looking out the window

Watching the rain come down

Thinking soon it will be time to sow

But still I have a frown

The nights dance

Drawing ever closer

I wonder if there is a chance

It wont be a togo sir

My mind is off in a distant place

Thinking of you and your way

Filled with that great style and grace

I end up speechless not knowing what to say

But the words utter from my finger tips

Cause with here there are no lips

To get in the way of these strong feelings

That I have been hiding with my dealings

My focus is lost

Cause I feel alone

Cold as jack frost

My heart can only grown

My heart still cries

For all those hellos

And even those goodbye’s

When in this pit

There is nothing to do but get out

For I must have true grit

Cause I may lull about

I want to move and sway

With with you by my side

I hope you don’t drift away

For then I might hide

When I get out of here

scream and dance

Cause i have no fear

Willing to take a chance

I will dance for you

It will keep me strong through and true

Life moves to a beat

No time to take a seat

I have no idea if you will show

But I am reggie to go

And i wonder if this week I will glow…….

A dedication to the women that has filled me with mystery and chance

in the hopes that she might show up for a dance.

The first part of my trip

Glacier National Park

_________________________

This is now the 3rd time that I have driven back and forth the country. This time was more of a journey of exploration then any thing else. All the other trips where shooting across to get some where by a certain time. It is a nice change of pace to travel across this great country with little to no rush of time. The only thing that would hold us up was the flow of cash to the car.

photo: matt

We ended up leaving Big sky montana with the intention of heading to South Dakota, where my unsuspecting girl friend was flying back to. She grew up in the great metropolis of Pierre. Course I had never made it out there and since we were in the general area it was going to be my christmas gift to her, to show up on here door step. Matt and I headed out with the first intension of going from Bozeman to Pierre all in one shot. So we drove and drove, after about 10 hours of driving we made it as far as Rapid City and matt spoke out about going to check out Mount Rushmore. Having blasted out here from the east I was all for slowing down the pace and trying to see some land marks. So we darted off the highway and headed into the black hills in search of the carved faces.

By this time it was well under the cover of darkness and we found the site of the faces and pulled into the gate. It soon became clear that they were going to charge us to park. But as we pulled up to gate we realized that everybody had gone home and the gate was left open to whom every wanted to enter. We pulled up and around the gate parked at the top of the ramp and got out. Now I do not know what I was expecting to see when we got there, but we were greeted with what appeared to be an entrance to a plaice. The flags of all the states and provinces were hung high all illuminated. Walking through this gate way felt a little awkward and bizarre. We walked up to the deck were one was to see the faces and expecting them to be lit up as well as the flag were, disappointedly we looked at a dark wall. We headed back to the car, and drove down the road looking for a camp site. We stumbled upon a forest service camp site a couple of miles down the road from the faces. There was some cool pillars in the camp site that I climbed up and down. We ran around like fools for a little organized the truck and then laid out all our sleeping stuff. Cause we are super lazy sometimes we just slapped our sleeping rolls under some trees, with no tent and called it good. We could see stars so there was little to no worries about weather hitting us. Peace and quiet create peaceful dreams.

We awoke to the rise of the sun, cooked some good old cream of wheat,yum yum, and headed back to the faces. This time when we pulled up to the gate there was a nice gentlemen there asking us for 10 dollars. We asked him if there was an way we could see it for free. He directed us to a parking area that was a 1/4 mile down the road. We parked there and walked up the road through the security entrance and found our selves at the deck to look at the carvings. They were pretty cool, defiantly glad that I did not have to pay the stupid parking fee.

Photo:goose

We headed out of the black hills, 10 dollars still in our pocket. From there we drove east on highway 90. Looking for signs for Pierre. As we drove we saw what seemed like five thousand signs for this place called Wall Drug. They had advertisements from 5 cent coffee to fresh ice cream and a bunch of other random stuff. A couple were even themed. stop at wall drug its awesome. Not that direct but more or less the same point. We stopped here and found an little interesting town that was very much still in the western era. We continued on and made our way to Pierre. We met up with Ana’s parents and plotted how we were going to surprise here at the airport.  The surprise was super fun. Bold face lying for the enjoyment to all parties is a whole lot of excitement!

The following day Ana showed us the Missouri River dam, witch till recently was the largest in the world of its kind. This dam was just a bunch of fill that was placed in the river bed in order to make the power for all the state of South Dakota and then some. After that little venture we met up with Ana’s mom for lunch. For the afternoon, we played with her dads tractors. Drove them around her yard like little kids playing in a sand box, only better! We made a fire in the snow filled pit and used the fire to cook a bunch of antelope sausage and other kinds of meat. It was yum yum in the tum. I always find it interesting that i can see to the horizon, in new england, we got them trees.

The following day matt and I headed out and started the trek to Colorado. Our destination was the town of Silverthorn, my Aunt and uncle have a condo in that area. We left around 10 am in and started due south. We drove through the barren lands of a Nebraska and the eastern side of colorado, witch is all rancher country. Very barren land to say the least.  Along this road there is a very unfortunate site. There is a factory farm along this road that you can smell for many miles before you even come close to it. When you finally do see it, is just a site for soar eyes, cows packed into tiny little pens, thousands of them. In the space that should be given for just one cow. Its a nasty site and all morals are broken for those who eat and support this type of treatment to animals.

Anyways, we continued to drive to and through denver area, as we approached the  front range of the rockies we started to see the flakes fly. We had been in contact with my family and they had relayed to us that the main tunnel that gets you through the mountains and to the town of Sliverthorn was closed due to a hazardous waste spill. We found out later that it was some sort of explosive chemical truck that a car had rear ended into on the highway. In order to bypass this mess we had to go over rout 6, loveland pass. Its a nice and windy road that takes us up to about eleven thousand feet. With this snow and all the traffic it was going to be an awesomely annoying ride. The traffic was bumper to bumper most of the way. It was even at a stand still for a good while. As we crept our way forward we realized that a truck had not payed attention to the chain law that was in effect and had tried to get over the road with no chains, he was stuck. Another trucker had stopped because he was stuck behind this dimwit. He was angrily helping this guy put on his chains when we had passed. After we got passed this mess we finally were able to make up some time. We ended up getting to families house about an hour and a half later then we had expected. Welcomed with warm arms and warm food we unpacked and prepared for the snow play days to fallow.

The next day we as a family headed to Arapaho Basin ski area. My family and I all skied the lift access runs that were there for our use, while Matt hiked. He was hiking to see if he could get up high enough and see some sweet views. The sun was shinning and the people were smiling. This was the first day where I had a whole hard core day of tele skiing. After all of us had grown tired and week we grabbed a beer at the base and then started to make the trek back to the cars. Tim jumped on the back of my skis in hope of getting a ride all the way down to the truck. But when we hit the parking lot, who knows what happened, we skidded around and crashed hard into the ice. It was a site worth seeing I am sure. We all piled into the car and headed back to the house, ate a great meal of elk and salad and coos coos. All fat and happy we slowed trickled into our food coma for the evening. The next day we spent the day at Breckenridge, skiing again until we could not stand, at least I was barely on the verge of standing that is. Thighs again burning with the journey into the land of thousand lunges.

Photo:goose

The next day my family was headed back to Tennessee and matt and I were going to head somewhere in the colorado backcountry to camp. We decided to head to a spot where I had been with my outward bound program many years ago. Mayflower Gulch is the name of the place. It is a location of some old mining operations. There are a couple sweet cabins and a bunch of old mining shafts. We set up our camp off in the distance on the other side of the bowel from the trail. This was a sweet campsite, were we could over look anything that was happening in the bowel area.  The sun was shinning giving us nice warmth upon the skin on our face. Over the next couple of days we explored this area as much as we could.

Photo:matt

On one of these days matt was walking access a slop where earlier he had made a trail below. All of a sudden I head matt “Foo”ing a whole bunch I skied over to where he is. White faced and paled matt explained to me that as he had been walking all of a sudden the snow under neither he feet had started to move and crack. At the beginning of this trip, I was very hesitant to go out into the avalanche terrain. The risk was rated at considerable for all sides and altitudes, I kept on trying to relay the severity in that scale. Matt was sorta listening to me but sometimes I was not really sure. But after this little incident  matt gained little more respect for the snow pack. We had done a bunch of snowpack test and learned about how the snow was playing with it self. We identified a higher weak layer and a deep instability that existed within the snow pack. And now all parties of the trip understood the danger that actually existed with in the snow. The next day we ended up headed out out the woods, spooked and running away with our tails between our legs. But we are still breathing so still smiling.

photo:matt

We continued on highway 70 all the way to utah, headed to the Mohab area. Our destination is Arches National Park. We drove some sweet old back roads and found some really cool land features that were carved with the hand of rain. We made into big bend area and camped in a national forest somewhere out side of Mohab.

Ok time to write honestly, cause I feel as though my writing gets boring less I am actually writing about something that I want to be writing about, makes sense. I cant go one with this play by play of my trip, to drawn out for all those who read these things and boring as sin for me to write. Onward.  Let me pass the torch to and let my good friend matt, tell you about some desert times to remember.

Photo:matt

“By the time we where crossing the Colorado Utah border I am dancing in my seat with excitement and anticipation. The landscape has made some dramatic and sudden changes as if just turning a bend on the interstate was all it took to hold back winter. Up until now the norm was snow ice and cold but recently the snow vanished and the soil went from a dark black and pebbly brown to a red and light brown sandy and soft. The desert is throwing its charm my way as we drive threw are first canyon only building on my enthusiasm for arches national park. The walls of this canyon are steep barley even room for the road way that we are on in fact the road workers had to make several tunnels to even pass there this canyon carved by the great Colorado river. Soon after the road plains off and the cliffs and platos are off in the distance allowing us to gain a broader understanding of how this magical land was formed.

The book case shelf was the next major fixture in are journey, vivid layers of colors dissected the cliff into unique time zones twisted and bent showing us the forces of the tectonic plates in a way that one cant help but enjoy learning. But we must keep going for the park is calling are names. We went by so dose many different land features including hollowed out bowls and small spires and drainages or washes. Fisher canyons suddenly appeared in front of us and like a magnet we where drown t there mystique and beauty. I never thought something as grand and fragile as fisher canyons could exist they tower 300-600 feet over us but cant be more than 30-60 thick at the base and they are everywhere we get as close as the road will let us and start on foot. The trail is sandy and smooth sand stone weaving twisting and switch backing in out up and down the canyon but ultimately around the fishers themselves. We are exploring all around the canyon admiring the trail work and laughing about the experience we are gaining, soon, almost to soon we come to a point where we must turn back, we only brought day gear and it is rapidly becoming dark.

Photo:matt

We decided to push on in the truck for a more financially understanding camp site then the one next to fisher canyons. Next thing I know we are parked down a wash and i am asleep in the bed of the pick up. The next morning we drive into Moab to get water and other provisions and we take the short drive to the park entrance after the park ranger / gate keeper hit us for the fee we went to the visitor station to enquire about a back country permit. Are dear friend Mr. ranger tells us all about how we don’t want to camp in the back country and that there is nothing back there and its so limited and ultimately that he had never been there before at that we where really antsy to get out into the desert or at least I was I think gooses mind was on climbing somewhere els but I just had to feel these rock formations for myself. So we obtained the much-needed permit and parked once again at the end of the road and set off. At first it was a very popular trail in the park passing many tourists with DSLRs and almost as many natural rock arches we came to the dark angle the spot where we must leave the trail and venture at least mile into the desert per order of the park regulations before we can camp. We end up going 2 or more and find a fantastic fin to set up my bag and the cooking area and goose goses about 300 feet off to the side where he feels he is a bit more protected (he was right).

Photo:goose

That night we decide that the raw chicken must be eaten so we boil it up add it to pasta and choke it down unfortunately for me I dropped a large portion of mine into the sand so I was forced to pack it out. Luckily we also had some ground venison so we cooked and ate that with out adding a thing to it I really liked that. In no time we started to play and talk and explore until the sun dropped down low and we retreated to are respected sleeping arrangements. Gooses had thought to bring a biv sack and I chose to not bring a thing seeing as though we where in the desert. Well that was my mistake because before I even got in the bag the evening dew was soaking the outside of the bag and before long right to my skin so I yelled out the goose that it was raining and he responded with, in a laugh, “I can see the stars”. So I boiled up several bottles of water and put them with me in the bag to warn and dry me off o man that did the trick except for the humidity I was sleeping soundly until early the next morning when the bottles lost some of there potency and I began to freeze. So I just put on some cloths and toughed it for the next couple houers until the sun made a much-appreciated appearance. I can still remember as soon as the rays from the sun made it over the horizon, spontaneously is was 30 degrees warmer and in 2 hours it was 65-70 in the sun. I was happy. So after some tasty breakfast I hinted at going into the heart of the fins that where just east of us.

Now the best way I can describe the fins are by saying imagine your finger print is 1 by 2 miles large and the ridges of the print are 100-300 feet tall but still just as close to one another that’s the maze that goose with out telling me wanted to play hide and seek in. so I looked and looked and searched for him with no luck just after I gave up and started taking pictures I was heading the way I had come I saw goose looking around perplexed playing with some rocks like a small child would. I fooed he looked and we started exploring together he showed me the places he had gone and then I showed him some caves I found together we came upon a series of pictogliffs from native American Indians and stone carvings (in the rock) dating back as far as 1844, way cool right.

photo:goose

As we went back to are camp we traveled threw more fins and canyons and some unstable soil till we came over the backside of where are cooking area was luckily to because I was starving. After we ate it didn’t take long for us to realize that we explored this particular area and even though are permit was for two nights we decided to head back. This decision was also encouraged by the encroaching storm that was forecasted. so we packed up and started heading for the truck. When we reached the point where we had left the trail we traveled a short ways, to the first junction on that trail and decided that we would take the difficult primitive trail back, oh joy, I was happy. I would say that the trail was easy except for three small exposed and slick spots do to the sand on the rock.

photo:matt

At one of these places goose and I had to get around this infamous puddle (we herd the ranger describing it to another guest who was complaining about it). So I took the low and apparently more challenging route and goose went high but still dangerous route. Now that we where across I started encouraging a group of three visitors on how they could accomplish the feature and goose helped them up the fist hard part of it. The people where thankful and we went are separate ways the rest of the hike out was uneventful except for the picture of me at the truck holding my poop bag close to my face with a huge smile to go with it priceless. A short time in the park told me I must go back so I know some day ill return until then ill just dream about it.”

photo:matt

Thanks matt, times to remember for sure. After Mohab we started our sprint around the southwest, were we ended up running away from blizzards, pricey entrance fees and crappy food. Did you know to just go and see the grand canyon, gods creation, its $25, crazy! Anyway we made our way through arizona. We saw on the map, Petrified forest national park, drove to it, $10, lame. We headed into new mexico and started fallowing highway 40, back east. We camped in new mexico at some trail head with the snow dancing its way onto the truck. By the time we woke up the truck was covered in at least 8 inches of fresh stuff. Matt was making claims that he was seeing red, witch means we boxed our selves in so well and with the snow, he was rather oxygen deprived. We packed our stuff and started to run again from the snow. Sprinting on the highway, after about 4 hours we managed to get ahead of the storm.

Photo:goose

Darting into Texas, we finally found some sun shine and warmth. We kept on heading toward memphis, driving through texas and oklahoma and into Arkansas. In Oklahoma city we found a super large display of christmas lights, many different displays for the public to enjoy. Right before we got to Arkansas there was a very intense thunder storm that we had to drive though, heavy rain and tons of lightning. We drove out of the rain and headed to a national forest property that was in the boston mountains. Sweet name, not much to the mountains, barley even a hill or two. With the flashes of lightning and the rumble of thunder we drifted off into a peaceful sleep. The next morning we jetted to my aunts and uncles house in memphis.

When we got there, they asked us about are trip and told us that 30 miles away from were we had been camping 3 people died in a tornado. Crazy weather everywhere! We spent the day with them playing with nice cars and doing some real red neck things. Well sorta, tried to build a fort in the woods before the rain came. We were here when it was time to ring in the new years. Thought about going to beal street, party capital of memphis, but being in the woods makes it hard to just get up and run and get silly drunk. We ended up just hanging out at the house chilled and rang in the new year.

The next day matt and I headed to north carolina to attack Mt Mitchell. Camped around the base of the mountain that night. The next day we went looking for a trail head to go the summit of the mountain. What we ended up finding was just a road that took you to with in stones throw of the summit. This place was built up more then the whites, ewe! Thats right think about that lama. We stood on the summit and got sick with the bullshit of humanities mat over the land. We peaced out of there and then headed north into Virginia and got ready to make our way into Washington D.C.

The fallowing day we headed into the capital. This is the weirdest city that I have ever seen, filled with federal buildings and no houses, at least by the fed. First stop on this city tour was the capital building. We had to walk around the whole building to just find the entrance were we could get the free tour. We signed up for the tour and preceded to walk around the building and see a bunch of random rooms. I was actually very disappointed in the tour.  They talked about god almost just as much as the building it self. We did not even get to the meeting rooms of the Senate and the house. It was probable the lamest tour of an epic building I have ever been on. After the tour we went to the library of congress and got our readers card, because we could. This library had exhibits all about gods and different bibles and religions. What ever happened to separation of church and state?

After this we headed to the air and space smithsonian. I guess I had been here as a kid before, but I do not really remember much. But walking through this building I felt like a kid again. We ran around looking at all sorts of wicked sweet plane things, from engines to wings and really old plans. We also participated in a flight simulator witch allowed us to flip up and around wile pretending to shoot down bad guys. We spent about 4 hours in this building acting like little kids. I think the exhibit that caught my eye the most was an exhibit about how the air traffic controller system works.   There was a TV that had a little dot move around the country to represent a plan and showed all the plan fights through-out the day. Thousand and thousands of flights every day, pumping their fumes out in the megatons. A rather tough exhibit to look at in the eyes of this goose.  They also had an exhibit that is near one of the airports, it is a hanger filled to brim with tons and tons of airplanes, WICKED COOL! We saw the Blackhalk and a space shuttle, planes packed in like sardines.

photo:goose

From here we headed out, back to the northeast, matt dropped me off in New York City so I could visit my friend Celeste. Her and I romped around the city, went to a climbing gym, some bars and such. It had been snowing there a ton before hand, and there was crazy piles of trash every where to be found, cause all the trash trucks where delayed. While I was there I walked from middle of manhattan to the Museum of Nature Science, pretty cool exhibits, all the way past the empire state, down 5th Ave. To world trade center I walked, by the plaques of those who had passed in 9/11, the feeling that was in the air around this part of the city was rather ere compared the spots that had a more booming effect to them. I tried to see if I could see ground Zero. That plan was foiled but I was standing less the 40 yards away from where the towers were once. But a fence now surrounds the whole place as they build the memorial.

It was not until I arrived in the city that I came to a huge realization. I had never been to new york before and seeing it, in all its dirty glory really showed me something. Over the course of the trip I had been reading the book “Unsettling America” by Wendell Berry, this book is about how we have set our selves up for some major failure if we do act soon in the fields of agriculture and Business. What started as a trip into the wild turned into a slow transformation. From the wildest of wilds to the city of all cities, while reading about the pain we are putting our selves and planet thorough. Incredibly eye opening.

When I go back and look on this trip it will sting in my brain as the trip that really set my mind apart from the normal ideas of society. It really make me understand that if there was ever a time to act, it is now! I mean I literally saw the world get run over by man. From a place of peace and tranquility, to a monolithic cesspool. We have greatly under estimated our capacity to fill and over run this planet. We think that we world is so big, but really its not. We are all the same we have friends everywhere, and there are a shit load of us. We are blind to the fact that we are destroying the planet, due largely I believe, to the fact that even though we feel connected to the world,with internet, we cannot see far beyond our own yard. No person can really grasp what is happening in any other place then where we choose to put our selves.

It was great to be able to talk with people from all around the country, everyone seems to want to end in the same goal. Not much government intervention with the locals, curb the giants, do not remove rights, stop fucking the planet. We all just need to come together and revolutionize how we go about our lives. Work together not against. Great trip, I recommend to anyone, drive around the country, cause there is an adventure around every corner. Peace, be good all!

photo:matt

The time that glacier blew my mind

So when I find my self with no job and have worked for 7 months strait, what does one do with their self. I find that I get board really quickly when I am not working, wicked stir crazy in fact. So what did I do, I got a buddy of mine and we headed west. First stop montana, Bozeman in fact, where matt and I’s friend, Beau, lives. We hiked with him for a day and he was kind enough to let us use his house a base launching site.  We packed gear food and anything else one might ever want in the backcountry in the winter and headed to within spitting distance of the canadian boarder.

This part of the trip was Matt’s choice so all our destinations were picked by him. The start of the trip was on the western side of the park. We arrived at the park at like eight o’clock at night, we ended emptying the back of the truck and sleeping in the bed of it. Once morning came around, we headed off for the ranger station. One would think with more then half the roads closed in the park and there only being four roads to begin with it would be easy to find the ranger station. However, being groggy and not familiar with the area, we ended up having to drive around for like a half an hour before we found our way. This of course gave us high hopes for being able to fid our way in the woods. Our original plan was to ski tour the “Going to the Sun Road” but with recent freezing rain and snow the avalanche danger was extremely high. The road it self apparently crosses 70 plus avalanche slopes. We were talked out of that plan. We decided to change our plan to camping at the base of mount brown and trying to climb that instead. It is a relatively sheltered mountain with lots of potential for good views and very low avalanche danger.

By the time we got all our various things together, permit, gear and wits it was late morning. Matt had never been out past ohio, so when hitting the trail he was anticipating  a steep trail that takes you right where one would want to go. However, trails out west were all built with thought and design,  unlike anything out east. Switch backs where the trail is steep and trails that fallow the easiest path possible appose to the hardest. We were packing most of our gear on sleds the trail design made the pack in really easy except for when we had a blow down in our way, then it was a pain. There were not to many of the blow downs so it was easy enough to manage.

Our first camp site was almost 3 miles in from the trail head, matt was on snow shoes and I was on some tele skis. It took us about 2 hours to reach our site. We got there just after lunch and started to set up camp. We had to dig a flat spot in the 14 inches of snow for our tent and kitchen area. We also had to hang a rope for our food, animals would otherwise try to take it from us. By the time we managed to do all these things dark had almost come upon us. Time for DINNER!@$@

Our food supply for this mostly was provided by the AMC. At the end of the year they have foodthat they cannot sell back to the public, so they give it to their employes.  Matt and I managed to score a ton of food for this trip, from pasta to beans to rice to all other kinds of staples.

We cooked some good old pasta an veggies, and ran around in the dark. It was much warmer they we had originally anticipated so when we actually headed for the tent at full darkness witch was at like 6 I think, we were hotter then hell.

The next day we planed to attacked mount brown. All 8200 feet or something around there, about 6000 feet of vertical gain and this is one of the small mountains in the park. We set out for the summit around 9:30. Being from the east when we climb mountains in the winter there is most often a nice hard pack to walk on, not so much floundering through deep deep snow. However that is not the case out here. As we started our hike up, the snow pack got deeper and deeper. I was on Tele Skis witch made it easier for me push through some of the deep stuff, but matt with his snow shoes had some times he was just step and sink, step and sink. We hiked for over three hours and got what we thought was a far distance but soon realized that we were making very bad time and needed to turn back if we wanted to make it down before darkness struck. We realized in about the time that it would take usto hike Mt Washington in the summer we got almost half way up Brown. But with more snow made my ski down ever that much more epic!

With all the time it took us to get up it took all of 35 minuets to get down. What silly business. When we got back down made a bunch a food, explored around the camp site and fallowed some cool animal tracks.

The next day we hiked out/ skied out since it was all down hill. I was skiing with my sled of gear fallowing me and Matt was riding his sled like a sled. Let me tell you once you get going pretty quick a heavy sled is rather hard to stop. There were a couple of instances were I would be flying down the trial, try to stop, and the sled would come up behind be and take me down! Ouch! We got the car eventually and headed back to the ranger station in search of anther permit.

At the ranger station we met a man by the name of Ranger Dug who was in his 70s and had been working at the park for the last 50 year! Epic long time. We ended up chatting with him for a while and got a permit for the Eastern side. Dug kept on telling us that that was the arctic side of the park and we need to be extra prepared for super super cold conditions! We listened, but both matt and I were well aware of what the cold can do and we had lots of confidence that we could battle any weather that the park would throw at us. We left there with the snow dumping on our heads and made our way east. We had to drive in-between the park and a large chunk of national forest, so it was quite the scenic route. A little dicey at time with all the snow, but my truck did just great with it!

We ended up getting to the other side around the time that dark began to fall, night seems to fall really really quickly around these parts. Neither of us wanted to deal with packing our stuff in the morning so we used the nice toilet house as our pack house. One in the mens side one in the women’s side and packed all our sleds and ate a bunch of food, slept in the back of the truck again and waited for morning to arrive.

When morning came we packed all out stuff, chatted with a ranger who stopped by and headed out into the great east glacier. We headed down the Red Eagle trail, our goal was the Red Eagle lake self. At the lake there was a privy and a tent site. But yet again we over estimated how far we can really travel in the winter. When we talked to the ranger he informed us that we were going to have to do a little cross country or bushwhack if we wanted to avoid two river crossings. We managed to make it just past the bushwhack section before we had to stop and make camp. We set up our tent, made our kitchen area and set up the bear bag and of course it was dark. Ranger Dug had told us that this was the arctic, and it was raining….great.

We woke the fallowing day with a plan of going to lakes that we originally set out for, but it was still raining and hiking in the snow while its raining is really not all that fun. Matt and I ended up hanging out in the tent for a good while before we were too sire crazy to stay put. So we gathered our gear and set out for a short day hike to the lake. Still raining and cool we ventured around for about an hour or so. Got cold and headed back to the site. This day kinda ended up being dedicated to hiding from the weather.

The next day since we were well rested we got up early and ate a bunch a food and started in the direction of Curly bear mountain. We could see it way off in the distance, all it looked like was a giant mass or rock towering a couple thousand feet above our heads. We knew that we would in no way or form be able to get up to the summit of the mountain, but we had some points that we were going to head for so we could at least go up and kiss the mountain. Bushwhacking out here is so much less of a hassle then in the whites. When you are in the whites you have to fallow a compass bearing and keep looking for it time and time agin. Out here you can see where you want to go for miles, so you just walk it. We ended up hiking up and up for about 4 hours I think, and got to the point where there was more snow fields then tress. We kept on climbing, our goal was to get on top of this little bump that was next to the mountain. We climbed and climbed, up and up, till we got to this slop that would have required ice axes and crampons, witch we conveniently had left in the truck. We ended up having to turn back but we ended up being at the base of the mountain, and looking up at this awesome mass of rock made ones stomach churn.

We ended up heading back down the mountain fallowing our tracks for a while till the snow fields were the wind had blown all the tracks away. We could see the general area where are site was and just started to head that way, every now and again we would adjust our direction. And after a while being the experts that we are, we found our tracks agin and fallowed them all the way back to our site. Epic wind, Epic Snow, Epic times.

We came back to the site ate some more food and fell asleep for a good long while. After we woke up it was close to dark and we decided to do the smartest thing we have done all trip, decided to walk back to the truck in the middle of the night.

Are plan was to pack up camp and do a short bushwhack and fallow the trail all the way back to the truck. As we packed up the camp we noticed a new fresh set of tracks that were no more then a couple minutes old. We soon realized that it was a mountain lion that had been checking out out cooking area and gave a look down at us in the tent. We started to shine the light into the woods and Matt saw the glow of his eyes right before he darted into the woods. That spooked us nice and good. So we hastily packed up the rest of camp and started on our midnight trek back the the truck. We did the short bushwhack to the trail and started in on the 5 mile trek back. We fallowed the trail till we hit a field. At this point we lost the trail and in stead of looking at the map to figure out where the trail could be, we ended up bushwhacking the rest of the way to the truck, about 4 miles or so. With the last mile plus being this awesome lake side shore walk where we could see all the mountains lit up with the light of the moon. We got back the the truck at 2 30 in the morning wicked tired and very hungry. Ate little and crashed very hard.

We both had a blast and now its time to move on to colorado.

The one downer of the trip, I had over 45 minutes of video of the trip and when we got back to Beau’s, me being the tech-no geek that I am, managed to delete all the footage before I could successfully copy them to my computer……..oh well. Honk!

More pictures to come, once i get back to cape code and get some of matt’s photos.

Deer Creek Movie

So before heading to glacier national park, matt and i stayed in big sky with our friend Baue to do a day hiking trip. We went up this trail called Deer Creek, lots of snow, lots of fun. Baue friend Jess also came along with a couple of dogs. It was a great way to enjoy the first day of adventuring.

The start of the Trip!

In 38 hours, matt and i touched, Massachusetts, New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Wisconsin, Minnesota, South Dakota, Wyoming, and last but not least MONTANA. Notable moments on the drive, we left cape cod at 8 pm, crazy blizzards in New york and Indiana and we stopped to help some people who had flipped car. A nasty head wound, but all were ok. In the end we made it, now its time to get serious.!!!!