The North Remembers

I'm not going to talk about spring. It is simply way too early for such talk in the mountains. Our environmental palette remains subtle: white, greys, blues, white, greens so dark they appear black... white. Our feet adjust to snow, ice, slush, snow, ice, slush. Our crocuses continue their dormancy. We don't hold our breath.

Last month some friends and I spent a long holiday weekend volunteering for the park's fisher DNA study (read about similar work here) assembling and re-bating old hair-collecting stations in Many Glacier, in hopes of detecting an animal who is hard to detect. This involved skiing into a backcountry cabin, getting pounded by wind and snow, and reveling in the rare pleasure of having the busiest part of the park all to ourselves. The trip reminded me of everything I love about winter--the smell of the cold caught in your hair, hands wrapped around a hot mug, fire crackling, fresh tracks on the snow, the way the landscape feels monochrome--and my mind returns to it on this misty, drizzly day.

Objects are as fuzzy as they appear

Four feet

Freshening the meat packet

Harvesting hair

Adding the love scent

Sidewinder

And not a shanty in sight

Drip daggers

See you in spring...

   

Mephitis Mephitis

Yesterday we were heading into the Park for a ski, when lo! my day was made by a special wildlife sighting. Naturally I have seen a savage number of poor roadkill skunks over the years, and even the sad and smelly remains of some in Yellowstone wolf scat, but surprisingly, I've only ever seen one live individual in the wild. Until yesterday... when we saw this little duffer loping over snowdrifts between lake shore and road.

Le Pew

My first thought, well, it wasn't so much a cohesive thought so much as a bombastic emotional reaction/squeal of pure glee, was look! A skunk! A skunk! So fuzzy! Look! Look! That bushy tail! Skunk! My second thought was more akin to, Must. Get. Out. Of. Truck. Must. Get. Close. To. That. Fuzzy. And soon enough I was out of the vehicle, jogging along next to the skunk for a few hundred meters, grinning in breathless delight. Some of you may question my judgement, but let me remind you that while they see and hear quite nicely, skunks have pretty terrible eyesight, and the little guy could barely see me. (This poor vision is partially to blame for all those fatal automobile encounters.)

Just look at those little pink slippers!

My third thought was that Walt Disney is a liar. Remember in Bambi, when Flower gets all sleepy and goes into hibernation for the winter? Yeah, well, that just wasn't jiving with Mr. Bushypants here. Striped skunks don't actually hibernate. They go into a state of torpor--a generally inactive, denned up period of rest, though they may come above ground a couple of times to poke around and empty their scent glands. Also, Walt, deer don't get twitterpated in spring, okay. They mate in the fall. Do your homework.

The Ice Queen Cometh

How sweet is Ice? It cools our gin in the summer. It gives us endless recreational opportunities in the winter. It graciously provides us with synonyms for Smirnoff's malted beverages, righteous bling, meth, murder, in case of emergency, and Ned Stark's justice-dealing greatsword, (which, when you think about it, fit together a bit too perfectly)... You just take water, cool it down, and boom! You've got yourself something to interpret. All summer long the hike to Glacier's Avalanche Lake is unbearably busy, but come late fall, it is your own private glittering little diamond trail of wonders...

Avalanche Creek: Curator of Icy Delights

Your Typical Icicle Action (See: Textbook, Jingle Bells)

The Labyrinth (See: David Bowie)

The Dust Ruffle (See: Car Wash, Classy Mud Flap Alternative to Naked Lady Silhouette )

The Trumpet Bell (See: Angels We Have Heard On High)

The Hand-Dipped Candle (See: Renaissance Festival, Rembrandt)

The Blorb (See: Cauliflower. Do Not See: Growths)

The Eruption (See: Death Spikes, Sea Urchin)

The Forest Ninja (See: Death Widow, Nakamura and Slavin)

The Vanilla (See: Flattop, Collaborate and Listen, Terrible Mistake)

A Farewell to Arms

Where giants have walked, apparently

Well, my field season is finally over. This was the last year of this incarnation of the Bear DNA project round these parts, and we had a good run, but the end was bittersweet. Taking down all of the barbed wire and nails and such from trees in which they've been embedded in for four years necessitated semi-Herculean efforts.

And also sound effects. A whole lot of sound effects. And talking to those trees. And yourself. And cursing all things metal. And cursing the very tall people who put the tags in too high. And cursing the trees themselves, but then feeling really guilty and taking back those particular curses, and putting a bare palm against the sticky, hairy truck and apologizing.


A person walking down the trail blindfolded may have thought one of many things:

(1) that an Olympic dead-weight lifter had moved to the area to train;

(2) that James Brown was back from the dead and enjoying more rustic huh-hahs;

(3) that George Carlin was back from the dead and testing new cussing combinations;

(4) that a sadistic dentist was administering a root canal (just relax, help me, help you...):

or (5), that a deeply conflicted Smeagol was waging a schizophrenic war of morality...
(f*#k you!...I'm sorry...dammit!...it's okay...arrghgh!...sorry, sorry, sorry)...

In short, the whole process turned each of us into a bit of a weirdo.

Cleaning up the forest

Meanwhile, such efforts worked their physical magic on our bodies... making us that much more tired at the end of the day. Our arms, so accustomed to hanging uselessly at our sides all summer, were finally called to... um, arms... as it were. They got all strong. They developed lines and bulges we'd never seen before. They lead us to delusions of grandeur--mainly day dreams of careers in arm-wrestling or can-crushing or ripping off doorknobs for fun. But we asked too much of the poor lazy things. They got tired, weak. They began to rebel... went numb while we slept, hands curling into clawed shapes. They started to seriously complain when lifted above chest-level. They did not want to help remove so much sap from our hair. They started talking to our knees, who got all cranky again, and began to imitate crumpled cellophane and creaky stairs and Rice Krispies freshly doused in milk.

Then the weather got in on the torment. Snow then rain then slush then rain then snow. 60 mile and hour wind gusts pushing us backward, tearing maps from our hands, and slamming car doors with authority. Cold air freezing our shoes and toes and fingers and noses. All of it briskly escorting us out of the woods. Call it a night, folks. And then we were done.

And while a week later I am still enjoying the fact that the decision to venture out into the wintry mix is now optional, I'd be lying if I said I didn't miss it already. I guess I'll be seeing you around, bears. Enjoy your long nap. I think I'll have one too.

Hiking the Nyack Loop

Reasons for and advantages of getting up early

Paperback writer

Chilled frills

Beargrass resembles a bear not at all

Sigil

Charcoal scales do shimmer still

Pearly everlasting

Ring around and around and around the mountain

And when I shall die, take him and cut him up into little stars

Running through it

Castaways and cutouts

You've got to take water to make water

Dewshine

Not all bread crumbs are made of bread

Some fine faerie riding glove

You can find me at da club

One side will make you grow taller

Symphoricarpos

Soldiers in their caps of red

Cipher, decipher

At a attention

One thousand silent sparklers

Traditionally, berserkers do mean business

Winter Is Coming

The Starks were right.

And I heard from the trees a great parade

All things go, all things go

Be still and know your sign

I'll put you right in it, I'll show you the sky

Dreamlike, on account of that frosting

The sweet delights of a wild funnel cake

If you've got the patience, celebrate the ancients

And we laughed at the beatitudes of a thousand lines

Figure an hour in for thawing out frozen shoes