Points of Light

Looking back over Willow Lake on the way to Lake Angeline 

This is the first installment in my adventure to the summit of Mather Peak in the Big Horn Mountains of northern Wyoming

  Through the pre-evening dimness and far, far below, the city of Buffalo twinkles like a lonesome outpost amidst the miles of semi-desert plains.

  Are you having a nice Saturday night down there?

  I see your lights clustered together, drawn to one another much as the lights in the darkening sky are part of their own galactic cliques. 

  And you twinkle in those rows of orange halogen street lamps, lighting the way to bars and whatever other amusements the evening has to offer.

  Do not mistake these words for condescension. I like your town plenty. You’ve got some pretty good beer on tap and some nice bluegrass musicians that I wish we had where I live 70 miles east of you in Gillette.

  But on this stony ridge thousands of feet above you, I can see how small you really are compared to the darkness that surrounds — the dim grazing land, the strange buttes, the latticework of canyons. The darkness stretches up to these proud mountains that had exulted in the last rays of the sinking sun as they put you in their shadow.

  Now I see that you are not entirely alone down there. Amidst the empty plain, I can make out the blip of a radio tower, the odd natural gas rig or a ranch. A pair of headlights crawls out from your outskirts, climbing the Powder River Pass toward Tensleep and Worland on the western side

  For myself, I have a cheap LED flashlight that I bought earlier in the day, but I won’t turn it on until I absolutely need it. The orange glow in the west still affords me enough illumination to pick my way around the loose boulders. A glance at my compass indicates that I am still heading in more or less the same trajectory that I had set for myself when I left Willow Lake two hours ago. The way that I have been winding around the boulders, and through the trees earlier, it wouldn’t surprise me if I were off by a few degrees. As for the distance I have left to travel, your guess is as good as mine. It couldn’t have been more than three miles on the map, but I’ll be the first to admit that it’s been slow going over these boulders.

  And even though I have my flashlight, even though I’m heading for Lake Angeline, which is pretty big and should be hard to miss, the fact that it is getting dark now is starting to worry me just a bit.

  Maybe I should have stayed at Willow Lake after all. The sun was still up when I cooked dinner there, and that’s when I decided that I would rather push on then camp there for the night.

  Obviously, I reasoned, what I really wanted to do was hike up another 1,000 feet and get to Lake Angeline so that I could climb the distant Mather Peak the next day.

  The distance I would need to cover  hadn’t seemed so long when I was looking at it on the map. Now the darkness is closing in, and I find myself looking for a place to lay up for the night. My eye scans the boulders for a patch of meadow, at least a flat rock where I could pitch the tent. 

  I put these thoughts aside. First, let me get to the top of this ridge and maybe I’ll be able to see the lake. In 15 more minutes of scrambling I’m at the top.

Here's how I cooked up some tasty pasta at Willow Lake

  There it is! Way beneath my feet in the valley, maybe 500 feet down that steep, rocky slope. I can see the wind pushing waves across the dark waters.

  An almost-vertical glacier plunges down from the mountains to the western shore. Where there are glaciers, boulders invariably follow, meaning that it will be tough finding a spot to pitch tent — if there is anywhere to pitch a tent. I’ll be damned if I can tell by looking down at the dark landscape from up here.

  It will take at least another half an hour for me to reach the water and then I will have to find a tent-spot by flashlight.

   I guess I kind of fucked up with this whole navigation thing. If I had paid more attention to the topo lines, I would have known to hike the distance in a big L shape instead of a straight line. That way I could have steered around the ridge. That way I wouldn’t have needed to climb way the hell up here, and then climb way the hell back down there.

  The first stars have come out now. Like the lights of Buffalo, they are far away. Comparing those distances is just a matter of scale really.

  And for whatever small progress I’ve made, this may be about as close as I will get to those far-flung worlds above. Get too close and there will be no turning back.

Even as I think this, the city lights disappear behind the ridge and I begin the descent into the glacier-carved bowl.

  “Ow! Goddamnit!”

   I just twisted my ankle on a boulder. It must be time to turn that light on. I’ll need it to get down without killing myself.

  I unclip the light from my pack and swing the beam through the dark to scramble Gollum-like after it.   

  The illumination is only bright enough to show me one part of the jumbled chaos at a time. There’s enough light for me to guess where I should plant my foot, but to make the next step, I must swing the light away again; and so I move forward only by surrendering the path behind me back to the mystery.

The last light of the day cuts over Darton Peak. I had originally planned to climb Darton and possibly Bighorn Peak, but ultimately decided to go for Mather, which is a farther-flung summit.

  At last I have reached bottom.

  It takes a while, but eventually I find a patch of grass that is free of boulders. It’s a little tilted, but it’s good enough to sleep on. I disembowel my backpack and start to snap the tent-poles together to make my shelter. It is already cold, probably down in the forties. A chill breeze blows down off the glacier as I fumble with the different components.

  These stars…you may never have seen stars like the ones I see as I stand here 10,500 feet up in the dry Wyoming air. They overwhelm everything, filling up the bowl where I gaze gape-mouthed upward. Here is the Big Dipper for you, offered in high def tonight. Then there’s the Milky Way, which spans the heavens like a lattice of shining dust.

  Against the tapestry overhead, my limited mind is as the flashlight beam bouncing among the boulders — able to perceive small parts of it but never close to comprehending the whole. But I try anyway, vainly trying to expand my consciousness out into the infinite recesses of the universe above.

  It is like tossing a sugar cube into the ocean. One dissolves utterly; the other is utterly unchanged.

It occurs to me that for most nights in my life I will be in some kind of town or city, lucky to make out the brightest celestial bodies, while halogen bulbs and neon signs are everywhere to see. Yet just a century ago, this cosmic panoply I see now had held rein over every clear night on earth. Wouldn’t it have changed human perspective to see that kind of display nightly, when no one needed to make a special trip into remote places to see it?

  I can’t help but think of the Isaac Asimov story “Nightfall” in which a civilized planet with multiple suns never experiences darkness. But then a rare total eclipse reveals the stars and it plunges their society into chaos.

  No doubt Asimov was on to something when he wrote about the power that stars have on the human psyche.

  My take on the matter is slightly more optimistic. A starry sky like this one is a vaccination against myopia. Those of us who take the far-off stare into the heavenly spheres step outside the dull trappings of everyday existence. I would rather lose my mind to the stars then shut it up within the narrow walls of sober institutions.

  It pleases me to climb mountains and see far. So it pleases me to see these farthest, celestial realms. They are better understood today than when we first stepped out of caves to gape at them; but they remain largely unwritten – a blank page for the imagination’s possibility.

  It is ironic that science has made leaps and bounds in broadening our intellectual understanding of the cosmic realm, yet at the same time, we are cut away from that primal experience of being in it, of looking directly across the passages of space to the worlds beyond. We are more likely to see the workings of this universe as a telescope image or a computer model on the LCD screen; a brief diversion from our otherwise bland workaday lives.

  And even if these lives shrink and seem meaningless compared to the far-out reaches of the universe, I say it’s far more depressing to go through life with eyes cast down, intentionally ignorant to the fact that we are but one pixel on that vast canvas.

  Being one motif in the baffling image, we can look at the other parts and try to see where we fit into the grand puzzle, thus we learn something of our own shape.

  Alone again, above the city, nearer to the stars, my mind is forced to consider itself as one entity. I am distanced temporarily from the connections to people and other responsibilities that I use to define myself on other days; in their place I have space forever.

  At least it’s that way until I find myself standing in a patch of light.

  I blink in surprise. Everything including the tent and the boulders behind me is completely lit up.

Not angels or aliens that I can tell. It’s someone else camping out here on the other side of the lake. They must have seen me getting the tent set up.

  “Hey!” I call out.

  “Hey.”

  “How you doing tonight?”

  No reply.

  Okay, I guess I can live with that. The light goes out. It was super bright. Did they bring a set of headlights up here or what?

  I’m slightly unnerved, but at least I know I have a can of bear spray if they are planning to go all Blair Witch on me.

  Studies have shown that as few as one third of the people you’ll meet in the wilderness are psychotic axe-murderers, so I’ll probably be OK.

  Now that the other light is gone, I use my own to finish putting up the tent.

When I finish the work, I take a minute to lie on the grass nearby and gaze upon the firmament. The beauty and mystery of it moves me, but I am also getting kind of cold out here. Once I get inside the tent, that will be it for the view. It will be lost behind the rain fly that I have put over the tent to deflect night’s winds.

  Starlight is very pretty, but unless you happen to be handy with a sextant it’s not very practical. Unlike our good old Sol, it won’t even you warm.

  Warmth was gone from the sky now, but I had it in my sleeping bag. And there was my universe, slightly larger than a nutshell. Here I could cower from the infinite from behind walls of nylon and close myself off for the sake of comfort.

Looking down to Lake Angeline

From Acadia to Yellowstone: 12 months of National Parks, Forests and Monuments

Author assing around in White Mountains last year

“I can’t believe that was a year ago,” I said a year ago.

I was in New Hampshire with my two friends named Ben, one from my hometown, the other from my college.

The previous August, Ben from College, Max from College and Tom of “Tom’s On The Move” fame, had left for a month-long journey in Peru.  If you scroll back far enough through the hallowed pages of this blog, you will find my riveting accounts of that adventure — from our wanderings in the dry deserts around Nazca , through Machu Picchu and the shits, until at last I scaled the glacier to the summit of Yannapaccha. 

A year later, the two Bens and I were getting to go on a slightly less ambitious adventure in the White Mountains, along the barren 5,000 ft ridge from Mt.  Lafayette to Lincoln and then Little Haystack.

The mountains weren’t quite as big as Peru’s but they have a stunning New England beauty that is all their own. As we hiked through the pines and up into the barren alpine zones, we talked about what kinds of adventures we could have next.  Peru was just so damn awesome, what could we do to top that?

It’s debatable whether I’ve topped anything over the last 12 months, but I’ve also been pretty busy.  In that time, I’ve seen more National Parks and Monuments than I have in all the previous years of my life.

If for no purpose beyond my own callow validation, I’ve included listed some pictures and descriptions of my visits to these awesome places. Feel free to stop reading now. The page view counter has already registered your visit and I can feel good about myself regardless.

The White Mountain National Forest-New Hampshire, Maine

The Bens looking out over the Lafayette ridge in the White Mountains

I’ve done more hiking here than anywhere else and I still think it’s beautiful. Westerners may scoff at a range who’s highest prominence is just over 6,000 feet. Yeah, laugh all you want. Try climbing Mt. Washington in winter when it gets to 20 below and hurricane force winds are blowing ice into your face. 4,000 feet.

The ridge along Lafayette wasn't quite so intense when I hiked it last, but it made for a nice summer trip with plenty of hundred mile views across the New Hampshire landscape.

Acadia National Park-Maine

Waiting for the sunrise on Cadillac Mountain

A fine place to see the sunrise come up before the rest of the country does. Max, Josh and I climbed up Cadillac Mountain in the early morning hours, managed to avoid tripping or falling down anything, and watched the sun rise out of the ocean. The carriage roads around the island afforded some spectacular running. None other than Mr. Nelson Rockefeller had built them and they are reminiscent of the paths through Central Park — only they weave around mountains. 

Rockefeller also deserves some credit for buying up the land for Grand Teton National Park (included a little further down).

One day I went kayaking and got to see some of the local attractions like the Cranberry Isles and The Thunder Hole.

  

Sand Dunes National Lake Shore-Indiana

I can’t say that I really got a chance to experience this place, since I was simply driving through. I made a point of pulling off the highway though, even though it was pouring rain. I got drove down to the beach, got out and skipped a rock across lake Michigan.

If the weather hadn’t been so crappy, and I wasn’t so hell bent to keep pushing west, I would have camped there. Instead, I drove a few hours more and spent that night sleeping at a truck stop inside my car.

Anyway, Sand Dunes is administered by the National Parks service, so I’m going to add it to my count.

Badlands National Park-South Dakota

My dad on our trip to the badlands

I first encountered this strange desert landscape when I made the drive out to Wyoming. That’s also where I ran across my first rattlesnake and saw buffalo for the first time.  In March, my dad came out to visit and I got to go over the same territory of  buttes and canyons. This still may be the most beautifully strange place that I have ever been.

The Black Hills National Forest-South Dakota, Wyoming

Spearfish canyon in March

There is plenty to love in the Blackhills if you are into driving RV’s or have always dreamed at spending the night in a Flintstone-themed campsite. From Wall Drug to the Reptile Gardens to Mt. Rushmore millions of Americans have flocked to the sacred lands of the Sioux, now an oasis of tourist schlock. 

But there is still plenty of beauty out there. I am particularly impressed by Harney Peak, the highest point in South Dakota, which I have been up twice since moving out west. The nearby Needles rock formation is spectacular.

There is also Spearfish Canyon, which is a fine place for cross-country skiing or hiking, and the Bearlodge Mountains, in Wyoming, which afford much of the same scenery with fewer tourists.

Devils Tower National Monument-Wyoming

No, there is no apostrophe in Devils Tower.

I still haven’t climbed it, but I have been around its base for what that’s worth. Not only is the tower itself a spectacular sight to behold, but the land around it is very pretty. There are the ponderosa pines and the Red Beds near the Belle Fourche River down below. In my trips there, I have had the chance to see hawks and bald eagles wheeling around its summit.

The Bighorn National Forest-Wyoming

Looking past a cairn towards summit of Cloud Peak

The majestic Big Horn Mountains lie right outside of Buffalo, just 70 miles west of me. They are a nice place to get away to that’s not so far.

I’ll just want to have some good snowshoes in order to hike there when winter rolls around.

Grand Teton National Park-Wyoming

View of Grand Teton between two pine trees

I can’t wait to go back here and climb some more mountains.

Little Bighorn Battlefield National Monument-Montana

Memorial to fallen Indians  on the Little Bighorn Battlefield

If Custer had come in on a day like the day Ben (from my hometown) was there, the battle probably wouldn’t have happened. The smoke from a fire on the nearby Cheyenne Reservation obscured cut the visibility drastically so that he probably wouldn’t have spotted the Indians from the “Crows Nest” up in the mountains. It was a great way to see where this terrible battle occurred, which hardened the United States resolve to  subjugate native  tribes and land.

 I had read “The Last Stand” by Nathaniel Philbrick earlier in the year, which gave me a better sense of how the battle had unfolded, and how strong personalities like Sitting Bull, Crazy Horse had clashed with against one another like tectonic plates. As wonderful as the national parks are, in many ways they seem like a compromise made necessary to check the land-grabbing ambition of Manifest Destiny. Manifest Destiny won and the west was tamed.  As great as the parks are, they will never match that original freedom over the land.

Shoshone National Forest-Wyoming

&Custer National Forest-Montana

Shoshone National Forest near Cody, Wyo.

I haven’t really hiked in these places yet. But based on my drives to and from Yellowstone, I really want to.

They have the beauty to match Yellowstone and the Tetons and have the added bonus of being less populated and not requiring campers to register their places in advance.

 Both Shoshone and Custer are in the Absaroka range, in Wyoming and Montana respectively.

On the way from Cody to Yellowstone’s east entrance, the mountains in the Shoshone Forest have a Utah-like quality to them with majestic, weathered stone overhead. The elements have hewn the rock into strange, towering formations that would look right at home in a surrealist painting. Even with the desert quality of the landscapes, there is still snow on the peaks, that climb as high as 13,000 feet.

On my second trip to Yellowsone, Ben and I went to the Northeast Entrance via Red Lodge, Montana, taking us through Custer National Forest and through a different segment of Shoshone.

After we stopped to sample beer at the brewery in Red Lodge, we went over the pass, which tops out at almost 11,000 feet.

We stopped at the Montana/Wyoming border and went for the walk in the tundra. Above us glaciers remained, scorning the heat of summer. Below, pine forests climb the slopes..

Shoshone on the Wyoming side, was far different from the Utah-like waste near Cody. Instead, the mountain slopes were lush with pines and meadows full of wildflowers. It was spectacular in the late day light.

Shoshone National Forest near the Montana Border

Yellowstone National Park – Wyoming, Montana and Idaho

Ben looking at the Yellowstone River at the start of our hike in the north part of the Park

In my two excursions to Yellowstone, I have covered a good part of the territory. From Mammoth Hot Springs, to Grand Prismatic and of course, Old Faithful. Along the way, I saw plenty of buffalo and elk.

Needless to say, the place is not overrated. It is filled with tourists up to the Wazzoo, but I think the park does a good job of accommodating them all.

Plus, when I did want to get away, I managed to. Ben and I spent two full days of hiking near Mammoth and the only time we saw people was near the trailhead. In their place, we had an ungodly amount of bugs, which was a drag.

On my first trip out, my dad and I climbed to the top of 10,500-foot Mt. Washburn and got the treat of taking in a panorama that included the Grand Canyon of Yellowstone, Yellowstone Lake and the distant peaks of the Tetons.

Like any place, taking the time to walk away from the car and get into nature firsthand makes the experience all the more rewarding.

Elk horn resting near the trail in northern Yelowstone

And there you have it! 12 months, 12 national parks, forests and monuments. And while I’m on the subject of federally maintained lands, I guess I’d be remiss if I left out the Burnt Hollow Recreation Area 20 miles outside Gillette. This land belongs to the government via the Bureau of Land Management. When I don’t have the chance to explore the far-flung and spectacular places, it’s nice to have something relatively close and still pretty good.

I would like to thank Big Government for setting aside these areas specifically for me to play in, and for the amount of work they have put into keeping them unspoiled and full of wonder.

Grand Prismatic, Yellowstone

Cloud Peak in 24 hours

View of Glacier Lake from Cloud Peak Summit

 Some adventures are all about going for the big one.

Sure, I’ll wander off into the wild to get to an obscure mountaintop that no one’s heard of or scramble up that random butte for no reason other than the desire to see how things looks like from there. But, like most people I can be a sucker for the big names, the celebrities if you will in the world of outdoors.

Compared to the big shot mountains in the Tetons and down in Colorado, Cloud Peak would be lucky to make the C-list. That doesn’t change the fact that at 13,167 feet it’s still the tallest thing around northeast Wyoming; big enough to have the Cloud Peak Wilderness named after it, not to mention Cloud Peak Energy, the multi-billion dollar coal company based in Gillette about 100 miles to the east.

Almost a year ago, when I decided to move out to that city, the Big Horn Mountains had a lot to do with the decision. If I left, I was going to make damn sure to climb a lot of those mountains. One of those days, I was definitely going to climb the tallest one of the lot.

With the waist-deep snow finally melted, I was looking at an achievable goal. Cloud Peak is not too far from road access and has a gradual ridge for hikers on the Southwest side that doesn’t require technical equipment. Some of the local runners I know have done the whole 22 miles and 4,000 feet of climb from the trailhead at West Ten Sleep Lake in a day: the Cloud Peak Marathon, they call it.

I decided to tone things down a notch and do a two-day trip. I’d hike six miles from the Ten Sleep Trailhead the first day and then camp at 10,000 feet at the shores of Mistymoon Lake. The next day, I’d leave the tent and take a light pack to the Cloud Peak summit, get back to the tent and hike out the way I came: 16 miles.

I lit out from Gillette early Saturday afternoon, It was another 90-degree day in Campbell County. Since there is no A/C in my car, I had the windows down, as I shot down the highway, sweating in a whirlwind of superheated air. Every mile, the mountains grew larger in my view, cool, their cool slopes patched with snow and ice, outside the reach of brutal summer.

 I turned off Interstate 90 in Buffalo, then started up the 9,000-foot Powder River Pass.

While the faithful Mazda made the climb without protest, it was less happy when I turned off the highway onto the bumpy dirt road to the trailhead and the nine rattling miles of abuse to the suspension that followed.

The trail to Mistymoon Lake begins just above 9,000 feet. I got there at 5 p.m. when there was still plenty of light to hike in. The trail was smooth and pleasant, winding through the tall stands of lodgepole pines. Occasionally, the trees would break away into a glen, and I would see the denuded granite sides of mountains up above, decked with snow, exalted in the late afternoon sun.

One of the mountain lakes that I passed on the hike in

I reached Mistymoon Lake by 8 p.m., tired from the ups and downs along the trail. A clouded sky and the fading light dressed the surrounding landscape in dull colors.

But what a landscape! The trees that I had begun my hike with had fallen away with the elevation gain. Mountains thrust upward from the far side of the water in brazen walls of rock. Cloud Peak lurked further back, separated by distance, fortified by cliffs.

Large boulders scattered lay atop the alpine meadows nearby, calling cards of the last glacier. A few other campers had already pitched their tents on some of the grassy spots near the shore. They were finishing up their meals, getting ready to crawl into their sleeping bags as the darkness fell around us.

I chose a spot for myself and heaved the pack off my shoulders, glad to shed its weight.

As I did, the clouds parted in the west. I watched a blush of salmon-colored light spread across the mountaintops, illuminating the land peaks me, even as it stayed dark down below.

A small rock outcropping, a couple hundred feet above the lake looked to be crowned in orange as it snagged the last of the light. Taking a madman’s inspiration, I began charging up the bouldery slope, trying to reach the light before it faded. Alas, I wasn’t quick enough, and before I could reach Valhalla, the stone reverted to the dun shades of before.

The gods denied. But at least I had pictures.

From my vantage point, I could see another luminous corridor that opened over the land to the south, from the forested high country, down to the rangeland thousands of feet below. I watched, Gollum-like from my crouch among the darkened boulders, then scrabbled the rest of the way up to the dim summit.

View over  Mistymoon Lake looking south 

More earthly concerns awaited where I set up camp. I realized that despite my diligence in packing a camp stove, fuel, dehydrated food and spoon, I had neglected to bring a lighter or matches. I was discouraged by my absentmindedness, but not because I was afraid I’d go hungry. I’ve learned that dehydrated mashed potatoes are perfectly edible in cold water, if slightly less enjoyable.

I dumped my canteen over the pot and set to eating. Not bad. Not bad.

After the meal, I got into the tent and crawled inside my sleeping bag. I set my cell phone alarm for 4:45 a.m.. All the better to start hiking early and get down before any thunderstorms started brewing.

I woke to the alarm in the dark and cold and began preparations in the lantern light. This consisted of pouring cold water over some instant oatmeal and spooning it down with some raisins. I put some warm socks over my hands that were thicker than the gloves I had brought, cleaned up breakfast and put everything I thought I needed into the pack.

I turned off my lantern and picked my way along the trail in the predawn light.

There is no trail to the summit marked on the map, but there is an informal footpath up Paint Rock creek designated with cairns.

I wound on and around the trail, through a maze of boulders , scrambling up steep pitches of rock. It was impossible to find all those little stone piles and I frequently wandered off trail. It was easy enough to keep going in the right direction using the canyon as a guide. Eventually, the route started climbing away from the creek. I made sure to fill up both my water bottles and treat them with iodine before I left. It might be a while until water was available again.

As I climbed, I saw the first beams of sun light up the tops of the peaks. In the reverse of the night before, the golden illumination climbed down from the mountains, bringing warmth to the rest of the world.

The tops of the canyon above me blazed with the first stroke of day and I tramped merrily beneath it all, stupefied by the beauty.

A tributary of Paint Rock Creek on the way to the Cloud Peak summit

                          

It's a little cheesy, but I couldn't resist photographing the bright canyon top in this puddle

I started across a small snowfield and sunk in knee deep before I made it the whole way across. Well, it wouldn’t be a trip to the Big Horns if I didn’t posthole at least once.

I passed beneath a few other snow fields. The snow melted steadily into streams going down the mountainside. But instead of running along the surface, they sank down into the boulders. Oftentimes as I made my way over the broken rock, I could hear the water rushing beneath me. It reminded me of the documentary Touching The Void where a wounded climber manages to crawl down the mountain, is desperately thirsty and hears water coursing through the ground beneath his feet  but has no way to reach it. I tapped the canteen in my side pouch, glad that I was stocked for now.

After I spent some time climbing the ridge, the top came into my sites, just another mile of scrambling up the Dumpster-sized rocks. Sometimes a boulder would tip under my weight and I would hop nervously to the next. I found my heart pounding in my chest and it occurred to me that I was probably working harder in the thinner air. Only once did I get a slight dizzy feeling and it passed quickly.

At 8:45 a.m. I came upon the summit. I climbed the highest boulder, and let out a whoop of exultation. To the north I could make out the sharp summits of Black Tooth and Woolsey. Then there were the stony ridges coming of Bomber Mountain to the south.

Most spectacular of all was what was right in front of me — and straight down.

Cloud Peak’s summit stands at the brink of a 2,000 foot cliff. Below lies Glacier Lake, which as the name suggests, is surrounded by an immense glacial bowl. Minerals scraped off of the mountain have colored the western segment of the lake a stunning turquoise color, which seeps into the eastern portion, which is a, darker, deeper blue.

 I could sit above it all and see the world stretch out past my boots. Here was the chain of alpine lakes pouring out of the glacier over the rock fields and watering the piney forest. Here was where the forest fell away and gave way to the dusty rangeland that grew fainter as it went east until, at last, it blended seamlessly into the hazy sky.

I stayed on the summit for about an hour, taking in the views of Woolsey and Blacktooth, daring my way out on the ledge that overlooked the glacier. A brown smudge across the sky marked smoke from wildfires burning somewhere down below. At one point I caught a whiff of burning smell.

Smoke was one thing; thunderheads would be another. In looking out over the sky, I counted myself lucky that I didn’t see any.

I thought about my plan to try climbing Bomber Mountain that day. At 12,448 Bomber is shorter than Cloud Peak, but there was a substantial dip between the two. The wreckage of a bomber plane that crashed there on a World War II training mission still remains.

Looking across the way to the other mountain, I found a ridge that looked steep, but one I thought I could climb.

Getting there from Cloud Peak would be trickier. I decided to do a little scouting on the south side of the Peak. The topo lines on my map seemed to indicate that it would be doable.

I could have butt sledded down one of the snowfields, but they looked too steep and I would risk losing probably control in a very bad way.

Here's one way to get off the mountain really fast

I was walking over an immense, slanted stone surface near the cliff when I put my foot down on a surfboard-sized boulder. Instead of staying in place like a good rock is supposed to do, it slid out. I fell backward and grabbed another boulder for support, this one the size of a VW bug. Thankfully, it stayed in place.

Meanwhile, the rock I had stepped on sped up and then plunged over the cliff. I wasn’t able to see what happened but it must have been pretty epic. One boulder struck another and then another. As I clung there, I heard what must have been hundreds of pounds of rock go clattering down the thousand-foot wall, the echoes reverberating through the canyon. I wasn’t counting, but it probably lasted a full minute, growing larger, more distant and more terrifying. I delicately pivoted my weight onto the foot that was on solid stone, trying not to put much weight on the VW boulder.

I scrambled back onto more trustworthy ground and caught my breath, just as I heard the last stones go clattering down the abyss.

“Fool of a Took!” I muttered, feeling the flutter of panic in my chest, but not a little bit of hilarity at the situation.

It just kept going! I thought to myself.

Fortunately rock has a lower co-effecient of friction than soft human flesh. Even if I hadn’t caught myself, I probably wouldn’t have gone over. The experience was still jarring enough to make me rethink my off trail plans.

I made my way back to the regular trail and started the descent. I saw a couple of hikers going up as I went along and gave them updates on what they had ahead. There were some big white puffy clouds that looked like they could mean trouble, but didn’t do anything.

By mid afternoon, I was back at the tent on Mistymoon Lake and packed the tent and everything else in the bag and headed for the car.

That last six miles left me plenty weary. It was 5:15 p.m. when I got back to the trailhead: just over 24 hours after I had started for the summit of Cloud Peak.

I had earned myself a helluva sunburn, was grubby and tired. Above the fatigue my  chapped lips twisted themselves into a smile of satisfaction. I had got the big one.

Alpine flowers near a snowfield on Cloud Peak 

The Pusher (An Adventure Through Wyoming’s Teton Mountains)

 It’s true: some of the best adventures get hatched over steins of beer.

So it was when my friend Ben and I sat inside the Snake River Brewing Company in Jackson, Wyoming, a pint of stout and an India Pale Ale on the table between us. I pulled out a map so that we could take an informed view of the mountains outside the city.

There, the mighty Teton range reared up out of the land, thrust like stony teeth from the sagebrush plains and evergreen forest.

Usually, a respectable mountain range will provide a set of foothills that build up to the main event. The Tetons dispense with this formality. 

From the 6,000-foot base of the mountains, you can point your eyeballs straight up and gaze upon the dagger-top of Grand Teton, which stands at 13,770 feet. To see the top from below is a far thing from being there, at least if you ask the climbers who have dared that pinnacle of rock and ice.

The brewery was far more pleasant. We were roofed off from the dark clouds gathered overhead, the rain and the roll of thunder. Not only could we quaff our craft beer in comfort; we could also nosh on delicious pizza. It was a far cry from two days ago in Yellowstone where we had hunkered down for a meal at a remote campsite. We had cursed around the pot of rice and bean soup, swatting away squadrons of mosquitoes and black flies.

We were back in civilization, now but couldn’t stay. Not if we wanted to have a legitimate claim to real adventure.

Grand Teton, was a few degrees out of our league, I decided, but there were plenty of other places on the map that looked promising. If the bad weather let up by the end of the day, we would be able to hike out to one of the backcountry camp spots in the national park.

If we started late in the day, we wouldn’t be able to make it far so I selected a place with some of the nearest available camp spots: Granite Canyon. The beauty of that kind of trip trip was that Ben and I could make it as easy or as hard as we wanted.

The hike in looked to only be about three miles or so, and if we made our hike an out and back, we would be able to camp in the same place the next day. That day, we would be able to hike without our backpacks and we could hike a short ways up the canyon before we turned around. Or, if we were feeling more ambitious, we could try to hike a large backcountry loop. My eyes skimmed along the topography, up the contours of the canyon to Housetop Mountain. We probably wouldn’t make it there but…

…But I was a pusher. As soon as I made out the lines of that 10,500 foot summit, I knew the most obsessive part of my soul had locked on it and would have to be pried away before I gave up my pursuit.

As Ahab had fixed his existence upon the white whale, so does my mind brood upon the summits of lofty mountains. 

I pointed out the canyon on the map to Ben, who said he would be willing to start later in the afternoon if the weather cleared up.

“There are a few mountains we could do around here,” I said. My finger grazed along the topographic lines, inching its way toward Housetop.

“—If we’re feeling ambitious the next day.”

Ben, who is less experienced with mountains, and also less damaged then I am, said that he was fine with whatever. He just didn’t want to get sucked into doing something that was too grueling or dangerous.

“We’ll do whatever your comfortable with,” I said and meant it.

I am a pusher, but I like to think that I’m not yet a madman. I’m not an Ahab who would kill himself and others to achieve a goal. I’m not the pusher from the Steppenwolf song who “don’t care, if you live or you die.” I’ve turned around on mountains like Washington in New Hampshire and Anthill in Wyoming’s Big Horns when I felt like time was running out or that the situation was becoming too dangerous.

I do my best to take others’ abilities into consideration, just as I take my own. If I miscalculate, I will step back and reassess the mission.

I wasn’t sure how difficult a mountain like Housetop was going to be, but if it looked unassailable, I was fine with sticking to an easy hike inside of Granite Canyon. If the climb looked doable, I was definitely going to sell it and be as persuasive as possible.

First we had to get registered.

We finished the rest of our pizza and beer and got in the car for the ranger center in Moose, about 12 miles up the road.

The ranger I talked to told me the area was beautiful. We got the all clear for two nights of camping in the lower canyon.

We also got a transparent “bear canister” to put our food and cooking supplies in. The canister, which seemed to be made out of the same stuff as a Nalgene bottle, worked like one of those childproof med locks. No three-year-old or grizzly bear would be getting into my oatmeal!

I also had my trusty can of bear spray attached to a holster on a hip belt. Bear spray is like the stuff you would use for protection in a city, only more powerful. When Ben and I were in Yellowstone, the rangers told us the spray made for better defense than firearms. A bear might back away from the pepper-spray cloud. A puny handgun round might just make a piss him off.

As an added protection against ursine aggression, Ben and I made sure to either talk loudly or make random noises to try to scare bears off the trail as we walked. A few renditions of “Finnegan’s Wake” didn’t hurt either.

I’ll admit to not quite understanding how human noise will frightens enormous bears with claws and teeth, but apparently it works.

Our government-issued bear canister, with my new tent in the background

I let Ben drive the Mazda down through Jackson, across the Snake River and then north past the Teton Village ski area. The pusher rode shotgun.

We rolled up to a gate into Grand Teton National Park, where we got the bad news.

“The road’s closed,” the ranger announced.

Shit.

“Closed?” I asked.

I looked back my map with a feeling of incomprehension, betrayal.

“The road’s under construction. If you want to come back, it will be open tomorrow.”

A fat lot that would do when I had already booked the camp area for that night.

“Looks like we’ll have to turn around and start tomorrow,” Ben said.

He was right, I thought. What else could be done? Another chance to look around Jackson might not be so bad.

but…

“Hey, turn around, I want to ask that ranger a question.”

I got out of the car and showed the ranger the map to ask if we could leave from the trailhead from Teton Village — even though our backcountry permit said we would be leaving from the Granite Canyon trailhead.

The Ranger said we could, but warned that the trail from Teton Village I was looking at was especially challenging with a lot of up and down. We would be hard pressed to make the campsite by nightfall. Night is not a not a time that I wanted to hike in bear country.

“Well thanks for your time,” I said. At least I tried.

Before we left again, the ranger pointed out that we were only about a half mile from the trailhead that we were going to go up anyway. Why not park near here and then walk up the closed road to that first trailhead?

A fine idea!

He pointed out a nearby equestrian area where we could park. We were back in business.

It was hot as hell when we got out of the car and I started packing stuff into the bear canister.

The pot and stove fit with the food that I had. The bowls were tricky. Actually, they wouldn’t fit.

“Hey Ben, do you have any problem with us eating out of the same pot?”

Problem solved and less weight on my back.

We would have oatmeal for breakfast, flatbread for lunch and couscous for dinner. For hungry moments in between, I had packed us some trail mix and a separate packet of dried fruit. Water wouldn’t be an issue as there was a stream running all through the canyon and I had brought plenty of water purification to kill bacteria.

For clothes, I had my quick-dry shirt, running shorts and a warm fleece and rain jacket..

We started down the road, walking toward the snowy Teton peaks.

It wasn’t so far to the trailhead. When we got their the dark pines closed in around us, filling our nostrils with the rich, smell of their needles. The fallen needles formed the ideal, cushioned walking surface. Unlike the dry sagebrush plains in the east of Wyoming, here life ran riot. Bright green leafy vegetation sprang up from the well-watered ground. Small birds fluttered among the trees.

Because the hiking was so easy, we reached the camp area pretty quickly. We were allowed to choose any site along about two miles of trail, so I proposed that we use the daylight that we had and press on.

After a while, it was getting dim enough so we chose a site near the river and pitched tent.

We encountered several moose and deer along the way

Camp eatin'

We felt pretty good the next day as we started up the trail again.

I didn’t have to be a pusher for the first part of the hike. We were both in good spirits. The trail followed the canyon upward steadily into the mountains.

After a few hours, patches of snow began to appear alongside the river.

Then I saw Housetop.

It looked less like the peak of a domicile, more a pyramid of boulders with a plain of snow still clinging onto its east face.

To get there we would need to go off trail. It was only about a mile from there to the summit but it would be steep.

“Are you game to try this?” I asked Ben.

He was.

When we got to the bend in the trail where I had planned we started hiking up a steep gully.

‘Let me know when you get outside your comfort zone,” I told him. 

“Okay.”

After an exhausting pitch I decided, to save at least one of us some energy and go ahead to see if there was a feasible way forward. The going was pretty steep again, and I had to make sure not to stumble on the loose rocks.

It was steep, but I felt comfortable enough. If nothing else, months of fooling around on the Buttes near Gillette,  Wyoming had given me a greater comfort level when it came steep climbs.

I got to a flat face on top and saw the peak again. It wasn’t far. We could climb it.

“Hey Ben! Come on up. I’ve found a way here.”

He looked up skeptically.

“C’mon man. I know you can do it.”

He made slower progress than I did. I could see the steep pitch and the long drop were making him hesitate..

 “That was definitely past my comfort zone,” he said panting as he reached the top. “How the hell are we going to get down this?”

“We’ll get down it no problem.”

I was more interested in how I was going to get up that.

There was one more pitch on the way to that final pyramid, and it looked even steeper than what we had climbed up in the first place.

I tried to think of some easier way that we could both achieve the summit.

Part of the wall was out of view and if we hiked around, I though there might be a gentler routee somewhere I couldn’t see.

But I wasn’t so lucky. There ere a couple of viable routes that I could see to the summit, but they all looked even steeper and more scrabbly than what I was thinking of before.

In between me and the wall, lay an immense bowl of white, glacial snow. At its center lay a lake of striking mineral blue. It was impossible to tell how deep it was.

Housetop summit is on the right

When Ben made it to where I was standing, I asked him if he would like to try going back around to where the slope was gentler. Not too keen.

I wasn’t surprised. The summit was maybe only a half-mile from where I stood, a very steep and treacherous half mile,. Having come this close to the summit of the beast, however, I was loath to give it up and maybe never have a shot at it again.

I asked Ben what he would think about the idea of chilling out by the pond while I went for it. He said he could swing it, but asked me not to kill myself. When this happens, it can be very inconvenient to the other guy. I appreciated this and assured Ben that staying alive and uninjured still had top priority for me.

 Still, by splitting up, I knew I was entering an uncomfortable area in hiking ethics and safety. Most other places, I would have considered this completely unacceptable. Fortunately, he would be able to see me on most of the climb up. I would be coming back soon. The lake was a beautiful place, and probably not a dangerous one.

To make things faster, I decided not to go around, but to attack one of the steeper scree pitches that got to the summit pyramid faster.

One of the many fossils we found in the area

I rounded the lake and began the hard work of getting up that final, treacherous pitch of scree.

I was still the pusher, but I was now only the pusher of myself.

Occasionally, a footstep would send a rock clattering below my boots. The lake got smaller below me, but I still felt its stare going into my back, a serene, unblinking eye that was as cold as the ice that rimmed it.

View from near Housetop summit

At one point in the route up a large overhanging boulder divided the route in two. Left or right? Right was more in Ben’s view so I chose that way. The scree became shallower, and the pitch was steeper.  I clutched feebly at the surface, trying to make my way up an inclined plane of ball bearings. There was a pretty steep drop to my right side, which I didn’t allow myself to look over it. Every muscle was strained, working towards the goal of getting me up the damn thing alive.

DEET that I had sprayed on my hat seeped into my sweat and began to seep into my eyes.

Concentrate.

I made it over the side.

I let out a war whoop to let Ben know that I was doing fine and started up the pyramid. Scrambling over the boulders made for a much gentler climb and was actually kind of fun. In ten minutes, I was at the top.

I made out the summit of Grand Teton above me to the north; The Snake River Valley below me and to the east. To the West, there was the state of Idaho. Time to start climbing down.

I made my descent down the easier, longer way that I had seen before. It was still a rough scramble over that scree.

 I had scratched my mountain itch and we still had several days left to spend together in Wyoming.

“So,” I told Ben. “What do you want to do for the rest of this trip?”

Grand Teton from the summit of Housetop Mountain