A Montana Journal, February, ca 2020

There was deep trepidation in them high mountains this day, and, soon coming, plentiful pain. As yours truly embarked on new and novel adventure – cross-country skiing. Never before here on the green side of my mortal existence had I contemplated the strapping on of thin wood planks to foot and sliding across snowy cover. But I have a friend, name of Bill, who thought I might enjoy giving this thing a go. I recollect when friend Bill introduced me to elk hunting. Tho toting no long-gun nor pistol myself, I trailed with him up savagely vertical ascent covering some twenty-and-five-mile of rugged mountainsides into them high forests, until lungs come to screaming for air and body was in agony from climb. It weren’t ‘til after this torturous trek I come to discover friend Bill must be a stranger to the truth, as he related we’d only hiked along old dirt road two maybe three mile at best. Based on bodily suffering endured by yours truly, I reckon positive it had to be twenty-and-five mile if it were a foot. And such is the story I’m sticking to. So it was with this elk hunting hell-fest fresh in mind that I considered keenly Bill’s invite to cross-country skiing. Reluctantly, I agreed.

The day begun with bright and blue skies as we lit out heavenward to Chief Joseph Pass some 7,500-foot up in these Bitterroot Mountains. The trail to it provided ample time to contemplate the multitude of mishaps that might befall in this powdery white wilderness. Like many, I suppose, it is not the actual doing, but the imagining of it that prevents us from taking first step toward the ne’er-to-fore attempted. And so I envisioned (yet somewhat exaggerated) terrible tumble down slippery slope and over mountain’s edge never to be recovered from below. Broken and bruised body buried under snow, encircled by snarling wolves as they approach the pudgy banquet that is my immobile being. Mountain Lion pouncing from perch on branch above, teeth crunching my bones as I yell to friend Bill to go on without me and save yourself. 

I come back to reality upon arrival at destination.

Or perhaps it was the biting 11-degree temperature nipping at my face there at mountain’s peak. At such temperature, moisture in air will freeze, sending tiny and glittering ice crystals to skitter about upon breeze. It was, I must admit, breath-stealing beautiful. So we geared up, strapped them planks to foot and headed off into this wonderland. Knowing well my own inadequacies, I took to slowly inching onward across them slick trails for the entire fifteen-mile slide to the warming hut. (Friend Bill said it were just a half-mile, but I had learnt not to trust his judgment of distance from previous elk hunt.)

In the midst of our trek, crossing the Great Divide and sliding along at my own languorous pace, I was at last able to see this event for what it was. And it was spectacular. Every tree branch was holding great, pillowy puffs of fresh-fallen snow.

Distant mountain ranges peaked over pines to reveal visions ne’er to be forgotten.

Them dancing ice crystals sailed through air with their sparkle and shine. 

And so eventually we made our return to trail head (thirty-mile round trip were it a foot) and by then pain to shoulder and back come a’calling.

But it was well soothed with friend Bill’s cognac that he had on hand, and I counted burning muscle on the plus side as I had not been devoured by wolf nor broke bone in tumble. I was grateful for Bill’s invite. And, too, for them that are the Bitterroot Cross County Ski Club, bitterrootxcskiclub.net, for they do masterful work keeping wintery trails groomed and ready for novice such as I and experienced such as friend Bill. As we sat there sipping them warming spirits, I could not imagine a place I’d prefer to have been these past and pleasing moments than atop that mountain and so surrounded by the Great Creator’s artistry with whites and greens and blues. I have not died today. And that is a fine thing. Yours truly…