We Stood on the edge of a cliff, nothing but air between our backs and the valley far below. It was one of three valleys that spread out from where we stood at the top of Siyeh pass. we swung our arms around each others shoulders gently, we stood on a small(ish) ledge and didn’t want to lose our balance. Another hiker took a few pics for us as we stood there in the strong wind at over 8,000 feet above sea level. getting there was an accomplishment we are both still proud of, yet we were only halfway through that day’s journey.
With the wind in our faces we hiked on, over the edge of the world into an alpine valley. I don’t remember the name but it will always be paradise valley to me. Sexton glacier hangs from the rock on one side of the valley as you make your way over the edge to more switchbacks through barren rock. at this point in early July snow still covered a decent portion of the trail and we lost it. we ended up going cross country back and forth looking for it for a mile or more, crossing the snowmelt streams several times until we finally saw the trail on the opposite side of the valley from where we were. at that point we had two options, cross the creek we were standing next to or backtrack a long ways to go around the cliffs. I was surprised when Joe just went for it. He has a moderate fear of heights and the creek dropped into a waterfall just two feet from where we crossed. it turns out that he didn’t notice the precipitous drop until we were already on the other side! It wasn’t really dangerous, large rocks were well placed for a hop across the small creek but if you look to the right as you go it is a long way down.
Siyeh Pass trail is really well designed. It is a good long day hike meant to last five or six hours. with our little detour it took us nearly eight. By the time we found the trail again my energy had begun to wane. We still had two and a half more hours of trail before we could catch the shuttle back to our car. As we marched down the hill, the flowers came back and the rock changed from brownish yellow to red. The creek grew from a trickle to a decent flow to a rushing cascade and dumped over a wonderful fall into a mesmerizingly blue pool. The trail revealed something new and beautiful just in time to quell my rising irritation that it hadn’t ended yet. In the final section we walked through a recent burn zone, blackend and dead trees in a sea of multicolored flowers. Surreal is the only world I can come up with to describe it. We exited the trail and got to the shuttle stop just as it was pulling up. There was no better way to end the day.
We left St. Paul around 1 o’clock on a Thursday afternoon. Joe took the first leg of the drive, a boring 5 hours to Fargo where we stopped for gas and wondered why there was an alien themed restaurant in a somewhat sleepy northern prairie town with no history of ufos that we were aware of. We left fargo quickly, we had no reason not to. We still had about 13 hours to go to get to our first camping spot. The road slowly, mostly imperceptibly, climbed upward towards the rocky mountains a thousand miles to the west. A couple of hours past Fargo we realized we could make it to Theodore Roosevelt National Park, a ripple in the grasslands of North Dakota, by sunset. It would be our first taste of the grandeur we would experience on our trip. Joe bumped up the speed on the cruise control. It was 5 mph but it was enough to ensure we had some time to experience Joe’s first national park while we still had some light. The first visions of anything interesting began to pop out of the earth in shades of white and red not far from the park. It was nearing sunset when we pulled off the highway to take a gander. Sagebrush, cacti and not much else was all that would grow in the rock and dust of this northern extension of the more famous Badlands one state south.
We stood at the rim of the canyon, though that doesn’t feel like the right word, neither does valley. The land just falls away from the rolling grasses of the dry upland prairie into a wash of many shaded dusty rock formations. Formations sculpted by wind, rain and the cycle of freeze and thaw that happens in these latitudes. It is stark and ugly and strikingly beautiful if you know you don’t have to try and survive there.
We walked along the rim, legs needing a stretch after so long in the car. Finding a trailhead sign that told of a 45 minute walk, we bounded down into it, excited to start our first hike.
Theodore Rosevelt National Park is difficult to describe and pictures don’t do it justice. Compared to the midwestern forests and fields I come from it just looks weird. Little nubs of rock sticking up out of more rock. Bands of different shades of stone, speaking of the eons that shaped these lands. Layer upon layer laid down over millennia that are now being worn away by a different but no less powerful and relentless force of nature. I will say it again. It is ugly land if you have to try to eke out an existence on it, beautiful if you don’t.
The last of the days light had passed as we entered Montana on the interstate. Around Glendive we turned north, headed for Wolf Point and US Hwy 2 where our westward heading would resume. The long straight road rolled on and on into the darkness. We saw nearly as many deer as cars that night and had quite a scare when a Great Snowy Owl swooped down in front of the car looking for its next meal. I had never seen one before and was amazed by the breadth of its wingspan. Somewhere around one in the morning there was a white horse standing at a country intersection with bit still in its mouth and a rope hanging to the ground. After being on the road for over twelve hours it was quite a sight, almost ghostly. A couple miles down there road there was a group of tribal police officers gathered under a light at a power station so we pulled over to inform them of the lonesome horse. It must have been a regular occurrence around those parts because the cop that approached us and listened politely to our story turned and yelled to the others “who’s on horse duty?”. Without another word to us he walked away. Joe and I glanced at each other, shrugged and decided to get back on our way.
Very little of that eighteen plus hour drive was really noteworthy. There was loud music to stave off tiredness, lots of brake checks for deer at the side of the road, an owl and a horse. Spending an hour in Theodore Roosevelt National Park was a nice little break in the monotony of the drive and a really cool taste of what America’s national parks have to offer for Joe, it was his first. Eighteen hours in a car over mostly flat grasslands would have been supremely boring if it wasn’t the start of an adventure. The excitement and anticipation for what was to come elevated everything. That is really what road trips are all about, especially epics like the one we had just started.
It was my turn at the wheel when the sun began to rise. We had yet to see a real hint of the mountains other than the rolling hills that we had entered in the last bit of darkness. the sun was finally lightning the way ahead when I caught my first glimpse of them. It was hard not to wake Joe but I wanted his first view of the rockies to be as impressive as it could be. it was nearly an hour before the mountains were close enough for me to poke him awake.
“Joe, wake up”
“hmm? wha?”
“look” I said as I pointed out the windshield.
It took a moment before the view before him really registered. He glanced at me and did an exaggerated double take as his jaw dropped. We had some great moments on that trip but this was my favorite. Being able to share the experience and witness my friends’ awe is something that I think of often, it always brings a smile to my face and a warmth to my soul.
The fog of weariness dissipated some for the rest of the drive into the park. It was replaced by a magical halo of incredible views and anticipation. we saw our first moose and her calf crossing the road and then a herd of Bison, or so I thought. The Bison turned out to be cattle. That wasn’t the only misidentification I would make from a distance in the coming week.
The rest of that day is a haze. We set up camp and did a six mile hike down along a river to two waterfalls. We were tired from 18 hours on the road and lack of sleep but also exhilarated. Neither of us had done hikes in a place like this. We had to shake off the irritation that comes with our physical state. At one point early in the hike, Joe was struggling with the tall grass and overhanging branches, cursing them out and just generally being annoyed. Then he stopped mid trail and shouted “Enough!”. That was the end of his annoyance and the beginning of something else for him. For Joe the annoyance was in his inability to be in control of the natural world around him. My annoyances were far worse. Mine stemmed from the fact that I couldn’t control my companions mindstate. that would manifest itself on the day we left Glacier for our next stop and mine would last longer. That part of the story is for another day.
After what we thought was a false start at Siyeh Bend (that trail would have led us to where we wanted to go) we started up the Piegan Pass trail towards the turn off for Siyeh Pass. It’s a moderately strenuous trail heading up hill over several miles of very pleasant forest with small meadows interspersed. The air was warm and the pine scent on the breeze was crisp. not much to see for the first couple of miles but trees and trail. We stopped for a snack at the intersection of the Piegan Pass and Siyeh Pass trails, a slight air of disappointment starting to seep in. We were expecting incomparable views and thus far it had been a nice uphill walk in the woods. the disappointment lasted about 20 more minutes until we crested a hill and Preston Park stretched out before us. We learned something on the top of that little hill, turn around every once in a while. Behind us was a beautiful pyramid of a mountain that we hadn’t even noticed.
Preston park is an alpine meadow that holds a glacier and 2 small lakes. A grizzly had been seen by one of the lakes just a few minutes before we started to walk through, though we didn’t catch a glimpse of it. The wildflowers were in bloom, we walked a trail through swathes of yellow, white, purple blue and green. We lingered there for a while, exploring the lakeshore and basking in the sun, it was much cooler here than at the trailhead.
The trail left Preston Park aggressively. The steep uphill slope turned into switchbacks. Lots of them. Twice on the way up towards the pass we thought we were nearing the top when the trail decided to round a bend and reveal more switchbacks. Around the midway point Joe had stopped to wipe sweat from his eyes, I took a quick snapshot of him. That pic is an endless source of amusement for me. I send it to him at least twice a year with a caption that always says something like “Remember when you cried on the mountain?”
the wind started to howl as we topped the pass. there were a few people there, we had seen them on the trail ahead of us. We made a little small talk and a lot of googly eyes at the views while passing cameras back and forth for pictures. Siyeh Pass was the only summit we hiked on our ten day trip. Fittingly it was also the highpoint of a great adventure.