Where There Be Guides

As you may know, my fixation with Glacier National Park has led me to guiding.

By description, “to guide” is to “show or indicate the way to someone” and a guide is the person who shows the way to and advises others. In theory, it’s a rather glorious position: the guides are the lucky few that get paid to hike all day and share the knowledge they have so studiously acquired from time on and off the trail. Ask any guide and they'll say guides are the folks held on a pedestal as the beautiful, athletic, free-spirited (and, sometimes, slightly crazy) people that even folks thrice their age will follow around like ducklings, no questions asked.

What those folks probably don’t know, or choose to ignore, is that it’s common practice for guides to lie about anything...

And everything. 

I admit it, I lied once. About a flower. I felt terrible about it afterwards. Sort of...

What a guide won't probably mention in their description is that they go for days without showering (unless you count swimming in lakes...), they can probably fit all of their worldly belongings into their car (if they even have one), they believe it is socially acceptable to wear socks and sandals together (guilty as charged..), and that they are often befuddled by the fact that trail-mix is not a legitimate food group (as I sit here munching on trail-mix whilst writing this).

So here I am, a guide in a park where all the trails are impeccably marked and groomed to a tee. I get paid to wake them with a smile, their favorite hot drink in hand, ease them into the day with a hearty meal, and take their photo beaming on top of passes they’d never dreamed of going to. I get paid to do a job that I would happily do for free (don’t tell my bosses!).

Those are all wonderful aspects of the job absolutely. As the season progressed though, I found myself wondering why anyone would hire a guide in a park where it is somewhat difficult to actually get lost on the trails.

Then I got cornered at the back of a pool at the base of a waterfall after an afternoon swim. Fortunately we had the forethought to carry the bearspray to where we jumped into the water rather than leaving it with our daypacks… Needless to say, the conversation goes something like this:

“What’s that?”

“What?”

“Look! Awwwwwwhh! It’s a bear…cub…. S***.”

(cub comes around the corner, walking upstream directly towards us)

“F*** Do you see the mother??”

 (momma bear comes into view, also strolling directly upstream towards us)

At this point, we don’t dare head towards our packs and realize our getaway, the trail, is pretty much directly even with the ambling bears’ progress upstream.  We quickly assess our other options, backing up slowly as the bears continued to make headway on us. They amount to something like:

“Get in the water! They won’t get us in the water! We can swim across”

“Yeah, right into the CURRENT from the WATERFALL that will sweep us DIRECTLY to the BEARS.”

“Oh.”

“Can’t bears swim faster than people anyways…?”

“….”

At this point, we back up as far as we can go. Rocky cliff wall on two sides, blue lagoon on one, and bears at the forefront. Someone hides behind a tree, determined not to be seen by Mama B (I mean, it’s not like she can simply smell us after we’ve been in the wood for three days… right….). Another, fueled by adrenaline, looks directly up at the rocky face and determines that in an act of dire desperation they could sure as hell maybe, possibly, potentially scale the wall. Meanwhile someone else fumbles at the bearspray.

“Spray it!”

“What? No! The bears aren’t paying attention to us!”

“SPRAY IT!!”

“NO. The breeze is headed towards us anyways. So, you want me to spray you like those Chinese tourist sprayed themselves last summer??”

And so on and so forth.

Fortunately for us, the bears have zero interest in us and the cub crosses the stream some fifteen paces away from the lagoon we had previously thought was paradise.  Needless to say, the folks walking down the trail just after the bears cross the stream are more than slightly baffled when seeing us thawing from our adrenaline-inspired positions that have us pressed against the back of the rockwall like wallflowers terrified to hit the dance-floor at a high-school prom.

If you hadn’t already guessed it, dealing with bears in Glacier National Park is what many of our guides have surmised to be the main reason folks hire us.

Yes, these guys:

Well, that and having a personal chef on the trail of course to provide the “no you won’t be losing 10 lbs on this trip like you secretly hoped” experience in the backcountry.

When guiding, one spends an exponentially disproportionate amount of time thinking about food. Did everyone get enough to eat? Let’s divvy the food out to carry. Does everyone have a food bag? Oh no, they’re not talking anymore… do they need a snack?? Should we take a snackbreak?? We should take a snackbreak. Oh shoot, it’s 5am, how long will it take to get ready for the day? Are my guests up? No, of course not. I should get up and boil water. Is there enough coffee to last all of them the whole trip? There has to be. There is. Phew. Is there enough food for breakfast? Why aren’t they eating? Oh, they’re eating. They were just stunned at the thought of having scrambled eggs and sausage breakfast burritos. Ok. Good.

And so it goes. All day, everyday for as long as you are scheduled to be out.

But that’s a topic for another time.

Summers in Glacier are phenomenal. Stupendously phenomenal. For a few fleeting months we work our tails off for the privilege of calling this little piece of paradise home.

At the end of the day, however, Pat Hagan still puts what we do best:

Humbled.

Today I learned several lessons.

All of which confirmed my belief that I'm not the most graceful adventuress that ever existed. I'm not afraid to admit that I've faceplanted for pikas, tripped going up the stairs, and jumped at twigs snapping under squirrels. Today was just another day reminding me humility is a good thing to keep close by, perhaps (well, stored in your back pocket anyways).

And those lessons include, but are not limited to by any means:

1. Tele skis, no matter how much you want them to be, are not interchangeable with cross-country skis. Especially not without skins strapped to their glossy waxed undersoles. 

2. No matter how much you convince yourself they are just slightly wider "skinny skis" (as my fellow tele-er anti-crosscountry skiing ranger so belovedly calls them), they will still NOT actually be the same thing.

3. You know you must look ridiculous trying aforementioned activity when all 3 dogs tromping around in the woods with you look genuinely concerned for your wellbeing- and you can tell from the looks in their eyes- then one of the pups INSISTS on staying right by your side as you sidestep a hill. It's as if they think you might legitimately have an issue and/or harm yourself for the slow rate at which you are moving....

3.a. Said dogs will be even more concerned about your wellbeing if you take your skis off to walk up a hill to save embarrassment, step off trail, and promptly end up in waist-deep snow. 

And they will certainly cock their ears at the cacophony of sounds you emit while squirming your way out.

4. Going for a run to redeem yourself for the failed ski attempt isn't always a valid solution... especially when it's cloudy out and you are breaking trail and get a wee bit o snow-blindness... so you, for all purposes, become an ungulate (read: deer, moose, cow, etc) with no depth perception and end up tripping even more.

5. Homemade curry, a glass (or two) of wine, some pushups, and some crunches are an excellent way to redeem oneself, however (as does a phone call with a beloved one).

Funny though, isn't it, how humans can be doing something alone (or in my case, with 3 dogs) that makes oneself look a fool and still end up feeling slight embarrassment. Embarrassment and awkwardness in my book are just an excuse for a good laugh at yourself. Why do we use a word, such as embarrassment, that has typically negative connotations for moments that draw out hearty laughs? Why not instead use words like ridiculous, wild, outrageous, and comical? But it does beg the question, is it really an embarrassing moment when there's no one there to witness it?

"Blessed are those who can laugh at themselves for they shall never cease to be amused"

....And boy did my day provide myself plenty of amusement.....

The Glacier Saga

It all began with a boy....

Ok, well not really... but kinda... it would be folly to deny that a boy didn't play a role in my consideration of venturing to Glacier last summer. It got your attention though, didn't it?

I'll admit, I wasn't looking to work in Glacier last spring. I wasn't even looking for a job at all- I already had one, albeit a not-so-salaried one. But a job none-the-less mentoring kiddos I had already dedicated one summer of my life to.

And here I am the better part of a year later much to my amazement, considering the tumultuous turns of the summer and the fact that I had all these grand travel plans for what I was going to do after my grand Glacier adventure... not that those plans have been discarded, they've simply been delayed.

So here I sit, in a cabin on the edge of the park next to a wood stove with the wind howling just outside my window and I think, why? Why am I in a place in the middle of winter with few other people around, no nightlife to speak of, and nothing but yak-traks, snowshoes, skis, and skates for amusement (a situation I've been known to occasionally complain about I'll admit)?

I'm here for the wolf track five minutes from my door that's larger than my hand, for the challenge of finishing a snow-survey before the wind knocks the metal tube from your hands and the train rolls to a creaking stop blocking your route back to the car, for the adventure of skiing 15 miles of unbroken trail with a ski-pole held together by duct-tape and ski-boots with ripped lacings that freeze solid to too-skinny skis.

I'm here for the sight of a sleek & lanky mountain lion vaulting itself across the road in pursuit of a white-tailed deer on the way to work, for the look on an out-of-staters face snowshoeing for the first time on a clear day by St. Mary lake, for the laughter that results from snowshoe racing &, consequently, face-planting in the snow,  for the knowledge that every day brings something unexpected, for the solace that the mere existence of these mountains lend to one's soul.

I'm here because I can be here.
And that's all there is to know.

Wanderlore.

"Life is short, play hard..........but play safe :)"

Reads an email from a mentor. Ok, well, one of my mentors.

Now I'll be the first to admit that I am quick to look up to outdoorsy, knowledgable people who have succeeded in making careers out of the line of work I crave. And, by working in Glacier National Park, it goes without saying that I have found many mentors.

There's the soft-spoken naturalist who proposed to his wife just a week after leading her on a hike at a Nature Conservancy guest ranch because they "just knew." Montana in the summers, Arizona in the winters. Leading hikes and leaving students spellbound by revealing how every little thing in nature connects, from blade of grass to grizzly bear.

There's the graceful wildlife biologist who moved to Glacier as soon as she graduated from the University of Montana and never moved away, working at the East Glacier Ranger Station for 25 winters and becoming a cross-country skier like no one's business.... and still, STILL sharp as a tack and as lovely as the day she graduated from college (well, so I imagine).

There's the geologist-turned-ranger-turned adjunct professor who keeps tabs on my Glacier life by giving me advice on how to extend my Glacier season as long as possible (read: how to delay the proverbial "real world" interminably... well, for the foreseeable future at least) and telling tall tales of mountain-climbs past.


Such mountains to climb and heavenly places to play in have always been a priority in my life. I've realized, though, that having people with equally beautiful, awe-inspiring souls are even more important to have around. It's the landscape that attracts you but the people that make you stay.

My time in Glacier thus far has been a whirlwind of faces, places and experiences which, when woven together, have begun to create a narrative, a saga, a legend in their own right.

I came for a season, I've stayed for a year. The sights and stories exposed at every "Hi, I'm ____" plant an enticing seed in my mind of "what ifs" and "what's nexts"....


And every time I turn to leave, my attraction to Glacier's lore inevitably lures me back.