Dear Kathy

 

I have as much desire to see you as you do me.  I can only sympathisize [sic] with your feelings.  In spite of more than two years that has passed, with such correspondence that we try to keep, a meeting time/place can be postponed to a time of personal and economic convenience.  How long that will be I have no notion of, but sooner it will be with respect to our lives, long lives at that.  Patience is a virtue, someone taught us!  (Sanibel, 12/28/75)

Dear Kathy,

Do you remember that time we took that crazy trip down the Upper Missouri River?  I know time has passed, flowed by like the river itself.  But that is our story, is it not?  Why, at the time we determined we had known each other for 50 years, based upon that packet of old letters from me you brought along.  Our memories fade in our old age, but the letters, like this one you now read, rekindle them.

Perhaps, my good friend, the twain of us shall meet, and pardon the passing of time to have delayed it so long, and perhaps we shall not, as fate will deliberate on that score. (July 28, 1974)

I met you in Fort Benton, awaited you and our motel room.  The place was a bit strange – a re-purposed 100 year old mercantile building with no windows to the outside so we could witness the ever changing weather situation, yet large enough to sort the hodge-podge of gear for the trip.  The hostess was a bit sassy and somewhat ornery – I had to wait on her and you in the deepening cold.  When you arrived, we walked the river front and the old bridge to pass the time, and then called upon our guide Nicolle who at first asked if we wanted to cancel due to the pending weather.  

I guess we thought ourselves made of solid stock for we said no.  Oh! Perchance it was me that said no, and you followed. Having both travelled so far for this long-planned event, how could we cancel at this time?  Instead, maybe some prayer for better weather was in order, and an adjustment in our itinerary to cut two days off the duration for when the weather might improve, to shorten the days to hunker in our tent if weather turned worse enroute.

Like just about every soul on this globe, I have been blessed with a mind to think, and like just about every soul, I have tinkered with its machinations, grinding the gears to grind out thoughts.  That’s a lot to say about thinking, but regardless, I’ve been thinking.  The past seems, other than past, very distant, and between then and now there is a big void!  Why? It matters little the past is a memory, the future unknown, the present, happening!  (Hendersonville, NC July 15, 1974)

And then there was the matter of Andy.  Remember how this was to be the third ‘every five year” adventure – at this cold moment, realizing we had the powdery remnants of our long departed friend safely tucked in a small envelope?  Hard to believe it had already been six years since he passed, and 16 years (COVID adjusted) since we three first met in the Oregon forest and agreed to do this.

I haven’t heard much from those we grew up with.  Perchance you and Andy are the last standoffs. Though there is no telling how long that will continue, all persons follow the path time leads them to.  Different ways, thoughts and actions (Atlanta Oct 25, 1975 to KS UC Santa Cruz)

No, we were bound and determined to go!  A nice dinner at the local “fine hotel” – the empty Grand Union - yielded a bountiful harvest of Brussel Sprouts, not all of which was consumable and was tucked away in our gear to add to our future camp meals – two more memorable meals, as I recall.  A fine evening to reconnect as old, dear friends, and to work out the anxiety of the adventure ahead.  I think the beverage helped with that!

As I write this, I still know that there is a person to whom this is directed. Not a ghost or government official, but to someone whom has interested me from the outset.  So don’t puzzle yourself with how I changed.  There still exists the need to correspond, out of some reaction to the past.  Let yourself be convinced that this is the same person, displaced to another part of the country, that you knew of long ago; the same old soul that is carried to old age!  (Atlanta Oct 25, 1975 to KS UC Santa Cruz)

We loaded your car and headed north to Coal Bank to put-in on the river.  It was cold though not raining when we left Fort Benton, but do you remember turning onto the gravel road toward Coal Bank and parking the car?  The setting was surreal – an expanse of wide open treeless prairie, the muddy gravel road stretching ahead of us, and snowy rain splattering the windshield. 

Oh, this was classic – seemed like a Fargo moment. “Do you think we should do this?”  I could sense your heightened anxiety, yet you thought me ready to bluster on and be brave, and so you too would soldier on.  I simply needed another opinion.  While still in cell range, we called Nicolle and asked what she would do. “Postpone departure a couple of days and go see Don Sorenson at the Virgelle Mercantile – he will have a cabin. That is what I would do. You can still make Judith Landing in three days.”

We mustered ahead a few miles to Virgelle – an old town of 1912 vintage when the railroad came through, with only his Mercantile, a Bank and a few outbuildings remaining in this idyllic spot each filled with antiques.  Yet he had crafted this antique emporium with a bed and breakfast using relocated Settler’s cabins. Oh, they were cozy, were they not?  Wood stove, and outhouse nearby- a double-wide no less!  Yet still the creature comforts of a shower room available elsewhere on the compound, and the miracle that was Don’s breakfasts. Two nights stay is what we sought in this mounting snow, now just to watch and wait.  And talk. About our parents, children, families, old school mates.  About life and relationships.

So we hunkered.  I recall that most favorite picture of you – I still have it – sitting at the table, looking out the window, watching the evolving snowstorm from the warmth of the room, a warm glow upon your features.  Do you remember that day, reading my old letters from as far back as 1973?  Oh, there were laughs and tears reading these.  You gave them to me – the hard copies, aged and yellowed, a glimpse long forgotten into the details of my youth, revealing a genuine love and friendship for you that has never really left, you know. It continues to this day, in this letter, my friend.

I was unduly amazed at your reaction to my letters.  I was happy that you liked my prose-like letters!  But one secret!  Writing is one of my better means of communication.   (Sanibel, Aug 9, 1973)

But after two days, with a brightening yet cloudy and damp prospect, we embarked on our journey downstream.  We had to go, growing restless in the cabin, a safe space.  We waited for this moment, and the cabin, though a wonderful respite, was not the journey, though a bit of Andy did ceremoniously contribute to the “gemütlichkeit” of the place.

Glad you like the photograph, as I produce, more may come in the next decade (I have confidence that we will know each other that long!)  (Atlanta Jan 19, 1976 to KS at UC Santa Cruz)

As I recall the weather was not so kind as we would have hoped, but did manage to scare all the others that had considered this voyage, for we found ourselves alone on the river and every camping spot. That may have been a bit unnerving for you, but it was blissful. Just us, and the grand scene nature carved for us.

What a fantastic land I have come to. Like a shipboard sailor seeing nothing of life except the perpetual castings of the restless sea, land seems like a strange and different experience.  Why should it be so different for me? From land to land is perhaps no great change.  But that is an idiots reaction!  This land is . . . as words can’t rightly express.  Perhaps you can grasp the feeling.  The mountains are as ageless as the sea, perhaps as unique, perhaps as dull to some, but to me they are pinnacles on which I can come to grip with changing patterns of nature, places for rest, inspiration, contemplation and peace.  And for certain other lands possess some stultifying reactions, but my life is slowly awakening to the new life ahead, which inspires this soul. (Hendersonville, NC July 15, 1974)

I remember with particular fondness the following events:

·       Paddling alongside the sheer white cliff descending directly into the river, and all the carved mountains, walls and cliffs; many a person could we imagine sculpted in this stone edifice.

 

·       Hiking up the slot canyon, getting narrower and narrower, though you were quite tired.

 

·       Watching the wildlife – birds and beasts – beaver slapping its tail, engaging with a clutch of river otters at sunset along our campsite embankment, and worried about the reported sightings of a grizzly bear in our midst.

·       The old stone settler’s cabin – a ruin as I recall – set in a pristine valley descending to the river, where we found Andy would have told many a story of this place, the story teller as he was.  He can do so now.

·       That amazing sunset squeezed between a rain burst and our dinner, suddenly evolving into this amazing experience.  We were giddy with excitement seeing the changing colors on the distant rock cathedrals, cliffs and pinnacles.  And then it was gone.

·      

That final day!  How could we forget starting the morning with a river of glass, and around a bend the tail wind picked up with a vengeance, sending cross currents and whitecaps across the entire river.  You didn’t need to paddle, and for me only to steer like Huck Finn riding the currents.  We missed our campsite and suddenly found ourselves at the bridge – at Judith landing, I think it was called – the paddling was over!  We had “paddled” 20 miles with that tailwind, more like a whitewater rapid for most of the distance.

Perhaps you have seen a rose bloom, one by one the petals unfurl, gracefully unfolding until full flower appears.  Such is my feelings.  In a sense, I have unfolded, or rather, my surroundings  unfolded me. I have learned so much.  All that I sensed, smelled, felt, saw, all converged on me in a motion of absolute peace and genuine harmony.  Though peace and harmony is so hard to define on the whole, it is easily felt individually (Hendersonville, Sept 4, 1974 – to KS in ML)

Oh, Kat.  Do you remember?  I do hope so, for it was a remarkable journey to reconnect our lives separated by time, distance and the life we have each lived. I choked up a bit as you drove away from the hotel in Lewistown, thinking to the next time (five years hence?) but resolved to quit being so sentimental and get on my bike.  And so I rode off on my journey, and you on yours, to whatever lay ahead.

The beauty and natural splendor intoxicate me as cheap wine, the absolute “silence, like a cancer grows,” possesses me in a peaceful clutch, never letting up until, encamped by a road, is returned to the wood.  The grasses sing their song, brushing with but a faint shimmer against my weary bones, swaying artistically over the vines atop a mountain.  A web, laden with drops of moisture, attempts vainly to strap, successfully entrapping my glance with awe! Never has any journey been so rewarding, so pronouncing of its joy, and never have I been so much at peace.  You, of course, over the many miles of contemplative silence, fill my thoughts. Half the trip now memory, 150 miles, I sign off.  I love you.  Peter   (The woods of Tennessee,  August 13, 1974)

I sometimes get the impression that I nauseate people with my letters, however sparse, though you once mentioned you enjoyed it.   I can lash out the best messages with the written word, this is my medium, this the message.”  (Hendersonville, NC July 15, 1974)

Baldy

 

I have always been fascinated with maps.  Now, as I plan my trips, I study the routes and the special geography of the areas I plan to visit,  My first two days plan was inspired by a dark green “outcrop” on Googlemaps south of Havre, surrounded by what appeared to be the vast plains of Montana – locally called the “golden triangle.”

The Bearpaw Mountains and Mount Baldy was my destination.  This is the plains, how high could they really be compared to the Rockies?

Certainly, I could have made Havre to Fort Benton in one long day, but why just race there?  I could have been picked up at Havre by our guide service.  Exploration of new, out of the way places, is what intrigues me.

 Departing early Monday morning, May17th on a beautiful day, I almost immediately started a long 34 mile climb, estimated by my cycling website as about 4000 feet.  And it never seemed to end.  Indeed I could see Mt Baldy from the distance in a few spots, but it was nestled within the rest of the Bear Paw terrain and not always easy to spot.

Up and away!

The climb largely follows Beaver Creek, and along many miles of this route, there a campgrounds sponsored by several organizations along the creek, such as one of two I stopped at (to rest) supported by the Lions club.  Quite empty.  Had my lunch, and since it was quite warm and my quadriceps talking back to me, I found a small stream pool, stripped down to soak my legs in the ice cold water.  It was actually was quite therapeutic, if only momentarily.

I continued to climb and after many twists and turns, found myself at a long awaited crossroad at the northeast base of Mount Baldy, now in soaring view.  I had two routes to Big Sandy – one that shows up on some maps and not others skirting the north side of the mountain past the Bear Paw ski slope, and other encircling on a more well used gravel road around the east south and southwest side of the mountain. 

Naturally, I chose the road less travelled by – Whitman would not be pleased to know that this was a very poor decision.  The road became gravel, very steep, and eventually became a very rugged Jeep road whose steepness and rockiness required me to push my bike up, trying to reach the pass and my certain expectation of a very long down hill stretch to Big Sandy.

Now with areas of patchy snow, laboring like a mule (ass?) to push my heavy bike, I gave up.  I turned around and decided this was not the way to go.  I walked back down the mile or so of my error and happened upon a campground that was completely empty, and found the spot I had been hoping for –with a perfect view of the mountain.  It was 3:30.  I spent hours climbing – I knew when to stop.

Where I gave up walking

How majestic this peak is.  Yet once I entered the Rocky Boys Indian Reservation, I took note of a sign disallowing any visitors within ½ mile of the summit.  The Rocky Boys reservation was started in 1916 for the benefit of the Annishinabe Ne-i-yah-wahk, the Chippewa Cree.  For them, the mountain is sacred, and the half mile limit was established so the tribe can conduct their vision quests on the mountaintop to enable 16 year old boys to become men.  They climb the mountain with no food or water for four days in pursuit of their vision.

And I could now see why.  In this tribal campground; alone, I could enjoy the splendor of the peak and imagine the view from the still snow-capped summit.  And I nourished myself from the waters of Beaver Creek, now just a small stream, as I had consumed a vast amount of water just to get here.

Mount Baldy from my campsite

Spending a cold night without the tarp on the tent, I was witness to such a starry display over various moments of wakefulness that could easily have kept me awake all night, but the fatigue of the day had caught up with me.  My expectation of a small climb to the pass and then a nice long downhill to Big Sandy seemed a cinch, even though it was all gravel.  My legs and my mind were refreshed, after all. There by lunch and could possibly make Fort Benton another 34 miles down the road.

Wrong!

That misleading imagery of the map showing great plains emanating from this small mountain range does not reveal the true topography – a roller coaster of very steep downs and very steep ups on a somewhat rough gravel road surface, totaling another almost 2000 feet of climbing.   The geography of undulating hills dipping through creek draws and back up to running ridges meant I was not able to “let it roll” to power up the next small hill as I was squeezing the brakes.  And the steepness of the hills became magnificently tiring, requiring me to shed my shame for pushing my bike up many of the them (that's exercise too, right?).  I had visions of simply tipping over I was grinding up so slowly. And I almost ran over several snakes!

But the scenery of these undulating hills, of evergreen forests transitioning to rolling plains, was spectacular – “God’s country” according to one rancher that stopped his ATV to mention that he has only ever seen one other bicyclist make this route through his enormous ranch.  But as I slowly descended below the evergreen treeline and into the grassland I was hit with an enormous headwind that further complicated my travel and made the stretch very difficult, nearly blowing me over a few times (later reported to be as high as 40mph). 

The long and windy road, past those distant buttes

Finally, I crested a ridge and could see the small town of Big Sandy in the distance – way in the distance – and through this treeless plain with a full frontal assault of wind, I slowly made my way there, only to finally be stopped a few miles from town on a stretch of road whose gravel was like riding on ball bearings – very unsteady and sure to tip my rig.

I gave up again – I walked for a good mile or so along this road pushing my bike in the wind – Big Sandy so close yet so far. And then came Rusty, rancher of the X-Ranch I had just passed.  He offered and I accepted tossing my bike in his pickup bed and rode what turned out to be only a mile to paved surface, and two into town.  In that short period, Rusty told me about the Golden Triangle – the great plains that produces huge amounts of grain – bordered by Great Falls, Cutbank and Havre, even promoted on my Mountain Man beer can this evening.  He dropped me at The Motel (its actual name) where a shower, a room and meal in this tiny town was reward enough for two days of a most beautiful grind!

Baldy inspired my journey, as I suppose it still inspires native boys on theirs! No regrets.

The Longest Day

 As I write this, it is early morning on the train in east central North Dakota heading to Havre, Montana, the sun just rising, distant clouds a slight shade of pink against the big blue sky.  It has been too long since I last visited this keyboard.  And now, 10 months have passed, and I am breaking free of the pandemic, of the politics, of the heated divisive nature of our society.  

I am simply going to ride my bicycle home. 

North Dakota morning from train

There really are no words that have not been said or written in so many places about the tumult of 2020-2021.  I can offer nothing new to this dialogue except this: it has been quite simply a remarkable year, a historic period in which the COVID pandemic, the racial justice movement and our divisive politics all converge in a perfect globe-consuming storm. Even this sentiment is not new.  And through it all I discovered what so many have discovered: we can adapt, work from home, and actually enjoy it!  I seemed to have gained much time in any given day.  I could watch my garden grow, go dormant, and rise up again this Spring.  But to you loyal readers that had to work from home and tend to your children’s schooling – I feel for you – that has to have been very tough!  But I think as a society we now appreciate teachers and childcare workers more, but also appreciate more family time and the ability to watch them grow in daily increments.  

Even perhaps, the family meal has more meaning now.

Society will be forever changed by the events of the past year.  Work will not be the same – at least when it does return to “normal” it may have been long enough to somehow seem different.  Hopefully, we will have made meaningful strides in social justice and policing when we look back at the George Floyd martyrdom, whose violent, shocking death but mere miles from my home shook the world, only because it was caught on video, for otherwise this incident would have been one of many relegated to an inequity dustbin – summarily ignored.  Maybe we can now get to a point where we can all breathe -  together as one people.

And of politics, what a truly shameful display that history will record.  The Capitol riot that no one thought could ever happen was incited by a deranged President who puts his faith in lies and deceit, and mercifully had been booted from office by the electorate, but not from memory or lingering influence.  But the political divisions and hateful rhetoric continues with stupid people saying and doing stupid things. While I have always been a centrist conservative, I can say now that the Republican party is rotting from the inside out, and no longer is even close to representing any of my centrist conservative values.  Good riddance!

Approaching Havre, contemplating the longest day and the journey ahead

Amidst this backdrop, I am finally on the train following the longest of days yesterday (May 15).  So much time and mental energy went into the planning of this trip – a countdown to yesterday.  The day finally arrives.  On a whim, I decided to bring my freshly boxed bicycle to the train station to check it in early, only to find out they no longer take a boxed bike, but I could “roll-on” my bike fully assembled, and schlep my gear on board. Glad my intuition told me to check again as I would have been hastily assembling the bike in the station while a wedding event was roaring in the same great hall.  So I went home to reassemble my bike, and then fidget over small tasks in the garden just to pass the time, enjoy a nice Becky-made dinner, take a walk, until I could finally board at 11:30PM.

So in this backdrop of the past year+, I am escaping.  I plan to ride from Havre to Fort Benton, and meet my dearest friend from high school, Kathy Siebert (with the full support of Becky). We will paddle a canoe for 5 days on the Upper Missouri Breaks, celebrating a pledge we had made with our departed friend Andy to meet every 5 years for an adventure. Andy is with us as well(on what would be our third such sojourn), riding in an envelope in my pannier, a gift of widow Amy.  Following this, I will ride through Montana, Wyoming, South Dakota and Minnesota, riding past Devils Tower, the Black Hills, the Badlands, and numerous small towns that dot the South Dakota and Minnesota prairie. 

Many miles to ruminate, reflect and absorb.  It was the longest of days, and indeed a metaphor for this whole past year.

Just off the train in Havre - not this old Great Northern Locomotive!