This is a reanimation of the Vicaribus blog as lived by Miro Kazakoff and Ehren Foss in 2004 and 2005. The photos may be spotty.

Why Must Miro Disrobe When Above Treeline?

Posted by ehren

We picked up Mike without incident and kept going on 2 towards Columbia Falls, and then West Glacier. After eyeing the RV parks on the way into thhe small park-edge village, we drove to the visitor's center, got maps (which were lost shortly thereafter), looked up the McDonnel lake view towards Logan Pass, and confirmed for the third or fourth time that our vehicle is not allowed on Going To The Sun Road for reasons of length, width, and public safety.

We drove back out 2 towards the KOA, but their prices were predictably astronomical, so we kept going to a hokey-looking place with a one-building "North American Wildlife Museum" in the front, also offering free wireless. Sadly, in the morning noone remembered to check out the museum, but the wireless was fantastic, as I could finally use port 22. I worked for two hours, furiously updating a maintenance contract from three months ago that just as easily could have disappered into the ether.

Mike brought major mail shipments for Miro and I, and I got a fire going with the junk 80% of it. I was very careful to not burn the bus title, freshly received from the Massachusetts Registry of Motor Vehicles after a fairly typical 6 month delay. Now I am free to register the bus somewhere else at the conclusion of the journey. Miro cooked potahtoes and big steaks on the grill. We were intent on watching the stars but dusk carried to nearly midnight, and clouds rolled in.

In the morning we lazed about but eventually got going towards the continental divide on US-2. The Glacier Park rockies are only 35 miles wide, one of the narrowest stretches of mountainous terrain along the continental divide. A pair of 15 minute construction delays slowed us down a little, including one at the pass itself where we were able to view the long, narrow railyard where the 5 locomotives responsible for dragging hundreds of tons of freight up to the divide are replaced by only two, probably just enough to keep the brakes going. By 12:30 or 1 we made East Glacier for lunch. Despite length and width restriction signs on MT-49, Annely asked around and found out from the locals that we could take it as far as Two Medicine. At the Ranger Station we received unexpected attention from the younger rangers staffing the booth (usually they have a "yeah, seen it" attitude) and one of them signed the bus "The Bald Park Ranger - Two Medicine, Glacier". We had no problem finding a camping spot large enough, despite what the visitor's center said, though traffic along the loop went the wrong way for us to angle our large bank of windows up the valley.

By 2 we were hiking, I think all expected it to be a short recreational venture, at first to a minor waterfall a little over a mile from the campground entrance, but then we kept going to another trailhead 3k distant, then another waterfall 2k after that, and then -- why not? -- climbed another 3.5k to Cobalt Lake. On the way we enjoyed trying to knock one another off a swinging suspension bridge over one of the rivers, saw many wildflowers of the large white and small yellow varieties, and climbed around 1,300 feet of elevation. By Cobalt Lake we were almost out of water, of course. The moquistoes were thick as thieves, about 30 of them left a ring of itchy bumps along the line of my hat.

Something about high altitude causes Miro to demand that he be photographed while traipsing around naked as a jaybird. I declined to 'capture the moment', opting instead to take a more absurd picture of Mike taking a picture of Naked Miro with a delicately placed treetrunk. The sunnier original is from a mountaintop in Santa Barbara.

All along the path big, white 'bear grass' flowers were in bloom. By 8 we were down from the mountains, I started another fire for corn, chicken, onions, and broccoli (prepared by Chef Kaz), and we sat around it, numb from the hike, for not quite as long as yesterday.

I made the declaration yesterday that one day this weekend I'd need to work full-time, and the other day I'd be hellbent on climbing a mountain to the top. That no trails in the park achieve summits is a minor inconvenience. While I'm not sore from yesterday, I figured it would be good to rest a day before attempting a high-altitude scramble. It's beautifully sunny today, which is frustrating.

And now I'm sitting here trying to get started on work, a mountain range just above the top edge of my laptop in this view, Miro and Annely have gone off to climb Dawson's Pass, and Mike has also gone for a hike ("I think there's a handicapped trail somewhere that I could do." Argh. There's a reason cubicles aren't designed to look like this.