Greetings everyone, I’m enjoying a lovely March snowfall here in central/northeastern PA at the moment and just wanted to note a couple things here before getting into the story behind this image…
One - I keep meaning to say that anyone who is browsing this blog via email and may have trouble with the readability of the layout - I urge you to click the on the title, which is highlighted in blue, or to click any of the other links which take you directly to the blog page on my website. I say this because I myself don’t particularly like how Mailchimp “translates/displays” my Squarespace design onto the emails. The layout on the website is how I want it to look and is much more pleasing to the eye shall we say. I may at some point decide to just convert to Squarespace for my email campaign (that was not an option yet when I initially set this all up). At least for the immediate future though, I’m letting things be with Mailchimp. If anyone has any strong feelings one way or the other, please feel free to let me know as I will definitely take input into consideration. I, after all, want everyone to be enjoying these!
Two - Just forewarning you I have a bit of a blog blitz I’m lining up over the next month or so! I don’t like to be too intrusive to your email accounts, lol, I just have a decent amount I want to get out within the timeframe of late April. And I’m working on prepping as much as I can before the Spring landscaping season and then the hopeful Art Festival season start ramping up and life gets a little crazy! So for the next few weeks maybe expect up to 2 emails a week between new image releases and stories I have to share. Just figure I’m catching up on close to 2 years of silence ;-)
…So, this one I’ve had hidden in my pocket so to speak since Summer 2016. Man, that was quite a Summer…
I made my first cross-country road trip attempt in 2015, with many hiccups and fell short of actually getting technically “coast-to-coast.” In 2016 though, the stars aligned and along with embarking on the art festival scene, I made a successful voyage from PA to the coast of Olympic National Park and then returned home and up to Acadia National Park! Now that’s coast-to-coast, and back again or something of the sort, haha! All those details are for some other story though, what is important here is that somewhere in the middle of that journey were 10 amazing days in Glacier National Park.
If you’ve met me, and if you’re reading this chances are most of you have, you’ve probably heard me regal over my love for Glacier. I didn’t originally intend to spend 10 days there, it was going to be something like 5 days in Glacier, 5 in Mt. Rainier, and 5 in Olympic. Well, day after day after day 5 in Glacier, I would wake up and think, I could spend my day on the road to Rainier… or just stay here in Glacier… And so I did for double the time, leaving me with, if I remember correctly only 3 days for Rainier and then 2 for Olympic. Do I wish I had more time in those parks and do I intend to plan an adventure someday where I do - YES. Do I regret spending that extra time in Glacier - NO.
This was even my 3rd time to Glacier at that point, but if you’ve been there, then you have maybe felt the spirit I always refer to when I speak of this immaculate place. It does something to you, it does me anyway. I’m talking the kind of thing you feel in the essence of your soul. I have now been there 4 times and even though there are so many big Parks and wild places I haven’t been and long to see, I cannot wait to make it 5 and so on and so on. Being a Northeastern dweller, the thought of making a Western expedition without including Glacier is absolutely ludicrous!
Sorry, here I am just going on a tangent of love for a place…
The image at hand… the lesser explored region of Glacier is known as the North Fork. From West Glacier it is about a 2 hour drive on washboard dirt roads at about 25-30 mph way out into the deep forests of northwestern Montana. The lakes are still pristine and the mountains still soar but one thing I have not experienced there is the traffic jams of the Parks’ more popular destinations. I love those popular places too as they are justly so, but I also really love getting out to this more remote section where you can truly feel how detached you are from civilization.
In fact, one of my favorite backcountry campsites comes from out here. From the foot of Bowman Lake if one takes about as leisurely a 7.1 mile hike as one can in a place like Glacier, one will come to the camping area at the head of Bowman Lake. The entire hike is through a dense almost rainforesty setting along the western shores of the lake. The water is about as Caribbean blue as you can get in the right light and you see the peaks of Mt. Carter and Rainbow Mt. up ahead towering above to roughly 10,000 ft. When you reach the camping area right on this pristine body of water, Carter and Rainbow dominate your eastern field of view, where Northward lies this specimen - Thunderbird Mt. where within its chasms lie more of Glacier’s backpacking treasures…
I camped here with my brother on the culmination of a backpacking itinerary my first time here in 2013. I knew I had to go back. On this particular adventure, I had one of my scariest wildlife encounters. No, not a Grizzly. Although this region of the Park frequently has Grizzly sightings and warnings and several other campers I spoke to out at the head of the lake that evening said they had seen a bear crossing the trail earlier in the day. Mine was a skunk. Yes, a skunk! He/she seemed friendly enough at first sight but tormented me for the next couple miles of trail! You see, this little bugger did not want to get off the trail and most of this trail due to the sloping conditions on both sides does not make for easy just going around. So for over an hour he/she would bluff charge me and then run up ahead a little bit to where I felt safe hiking a little bit more and then back to charging me. I quite fortunately was able to keep enough distance to where it never felt the need to actually spray, but whew man, what a game of cat and mouse if you will! Being sprayed out here would be serious bad news in so many ways! Eventually the skunk would take off into the forest and let me get back to the hike at hand in peace… with only Grizzlies to worry about, haha!
I had a late night that night, sitting down on the lake shore, the moon above the ghostly mountain spires, I entranced and deeply inspired. The next day I slept late as it was raining and I was exhausted and honestly it just felt cozy and wonderful in my hammock. In the afternoon, I enjoyed conversation with a group of 3 young men who had just come down from Brown Pass, and had quite an amazing and safe Grizzly experience they were telling me about. As the day went on, they offered me to camp in their site area as opposed to having to hike back so late. At first I declined, wanting to keep to my itinerary and not alarm anyone. But I kept not moving and found myself down at the shore line sizing up the mountains through my view camera as the rain and misty fog blanketed the peaks, creating such wonderous conditions. As the sun (wherever it was out there) was beginning to go down, the storm also began to break. A couple shafts of light actually broke through briefly (which unfortunately I was not in the right position for), but prompted me to re-compose, during which another young man came out and began talking to me wondering if I was shooting for someone (like a publication or something) because of the large format gear. I explained I was an artist and this was “just for me.” He hung out while I finished composing and fired off a few exposures of the storm as it literally lifted off the mountians, dramatically revealing the peaks of Thunderbird! All of a sudden he goes “Look! Snow up on the peaks!” I said something like “oh yeah, wow!” As snow in the month of August, no matter what the elevation is a pretty neat concept! We both enjoyed a moment of giddiness and hoped that anyone camping up on the pass tonight was prepared for such conditions.
I did decide to take those new trail friends up on their offer and set up in their extra space for the night and have a safer hike out the next day. We all enjoyed a nice roaring campfire that night and some great conversation. Turns out the guy who came down and hung out with me during my photograph was/is a Glacier backpacking guide and had a group out with him. He enthralled me with stories of Winters spent in the Park and how wolves would hang out around the cabin. And funny enough, I would run into this guy again, a few years later with another group in another section of the Park…
My hike out the next day was much more laxed than it would have been the previous evening for sure and fortunately no alarms had been raised. Although it took me a few years to prioritize the scanning and printing of this image, I have often thought of this experience and photograph quite fondly and I’m happy to be presenting it. Just remember, when you find yourself out in the high country, rain where you might be standing may just be something a little purer hidden in the high peaks, only to be revealed when the storm lifts.
My best until next time,
Brandon
“When the Storm Lifts” - Brandon Kline
“When the Storm Lifts” - Brandon Kline