Remembering Jake

We had some very sad news in Glacier last week.

Jake Rigby, a neighbor and fellow seasonal science technician fell to his death during a solo, multi-peak, off-trail traverse. The Park had over fifty people out for several days, searching basins and ridges, calling his name. Most of those people are my friends. Most of them knew Jake. It is a heavy, heavy thing.

I didn't really know Jake, but I had seen him around the neighborhood during the summers. By all accounts he was a very good, very kind man--a house teeming with interesting books, an adventurous spirit, a love of strange music, and of big mountains. We are all of us here kindred spirits, bound by a love for this place, by a certain lifestyle. This could have happened to any one of us. I don't know how to think about these things... what to do or say or feel to give or receive any small comfort--beyond to think that his heart must have been filled to bursting with the beauty of the day, and to hope that death is but another wondrous journey. And, more than that, to know that he will be remembered. And that he will be missed.