bozeman, montana
Our luck with mild winter temperatures was officially over. The previous night we had driven through the closest thing to a blizzard that I have ever experienced. There had been a long, exposed stretch of road near Livingston (not too far from Bozeman) where immense winds blew snow toward our truck with such might that we could barely see past the vortex of spinning snowflakes spiraling toward the windshield. I had thanked my lucky stars that Andre was such a confident driver in all kinds of treacherous weather and that he had taken the plunge a few years back to get LASIK (which I have not and, therefore, continue to be quite blind at night).
Just as I thought we were doing pretty damn good at this whole vagabond life, Monday happened... Day four of our epic ski journey was an epic MESS. Of course, it didn't start out as a horrible, no good, rotten day. But, man, did it quickly take that sharp right turn toward Disasterville.
The temperatures during the day were supposed to land between -15 and 1 degree, so we chose to make it a travel day, no skiing. We spent the morning touring a custom fly fishing rod workshop founded by a man named Tom Morgan. Mr. Morgan, a highly skilled fly fisherman, became paralyzed from the neck down towards the middle of his life and began instructing others to craft perfect fishing rods without ever having built one with his own hands. There is a very interesting article that ESPN did on Mr. Morgan's life and passion - it is definitely worth a read. The fishing rods built at this shop are outstanding and it was quickly apparent, even to our untrained eyes, that each one was an absolute work of art.
The following morning, goose bumps covered our pale skin. They seemed to snap, crackle and pop up and down our exposed limbs. It took everything we had to crawl out of our sleeping bags and into the frosty morning air. Good thing we had a warm cup of coffee only minutes away to motivate us. Oh wait... We did NOT have a warm cup of coffee only minutes away because some genius girl (a.k.a.: me) shattered the french press the morning before while attempting to shake out the used coffee grounds (a.k.a.: hit harshly against bumper of truck). Maybe putting some oatmeal in the tin coffee mug would have a similar effect... It did not. Luckily, I am dating a coffee hound who has a very refined nose for sniffing out the local roasters and before we knew it, we were sitting inside the cozy cafe of Treeline Coffee Roasters. Crisis averted.
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| A cold, cold start to the day in Bozeman, MT |
After two cups of coffee, one double shot of espresso and lots of excited "coffee geeking" conversations between Andre and the Treeline baristas, it was time to ski Bridger Bowl. Bridger was a considerably larger resort than Red Lodge, however, it still had that "Mom 'n Pop" feel to it. One really interesting thing about Bridger is that the entire topmost stretch of skiable terrain within the resort is a beacon only area. This is a great area for expert skiers and those who are feeling ambitious enough to hike toward the untouched lines. Beacon-less, we stuck around a run called High Traverse, which quickly lived up to it's name. A couple lifts up the mountain lay this long stretch of wobbly, winding, topsy-turvy traverse. One side of this narrow path crashed up against the erupting mountainside, while the other dropped off down a steep wall to the runs below. The light was flat, the wind was harsh and the air was bitter. As I made my first nervous trek toward High Traverse, I vigorously cursed everything around me - the snow, the birds, Andre, my boots, the tiny pine needle that blew across my path. As I made my way along, I prayed that I would live to see just one more puppy in my life and I may have (ok, definitely) closed my eyes a handful of times. I finally reached Andre in one piece, breathing wildly. "Wow, that was fun! Why are you breathing so hard?" he casually exclaimed, obviously having enjoying his easy trek. "That was TERRIFYING!" I snorted back, followed by, "Let's do it again!"
We made an impressive total of two runs down the very vertical terrain of High Traverse. The snow was fantastic but it was C-O-L-D. A sign on one of the lift cabins stated that it was -6 degrees and we deduced later that the high for the entire day had only reached 0 degrees. We pushed our way into the crowded lodge for MANY warming breaks that day. We stood huddled together in a corner sipping our hot chocolate and doing some ancient ritualistic tribal-like movements in hopes of regaining feeling in our forgotten toes. We chatted with locals, exclaiming wildly that we could not believe how cold it was on this day, assuming this was a rare and very aggressive cold snap. They all responded in the same fashion, "Oh, this is nothing."
We made our way through the day by skiing two or three runs and then heading in to warm up. Over and over again until the light became too flat to make our way safely down our favorite pitches. We called it a day by wobbling in to join the four o'clock Bozeman drinking crew at a sleazy dive bar in town. The projected temperature for the night was an alarming -10 degrees. Although we love Forest, neither one of us was particularly confident that it was smart to try to tough out these kinds of temperatures. Super8 Motel to the rescue! Besides, after three days on the road (two of which were filled with sweaty skiing), it seemed like a good idea to have a warm shower and smell decent again before hunkering down on a real mattress for the night.
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| Looking down High Traverse @ Bridger Bowl |
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| Looking up High Traverse @ Bridger Bowl |
Just as I thought we were doing pretty damn good at this whole vagabond life, Monday happened... Day four of our epic ski journey was an epic MESS. Of course, it didn't start out as a horrible, no good, rotten day. But, man, did it quickly take that sharp right turn toward Disasterville.
The temperatures during the day were supposed to land between -15 and 1 degree, so we chose to make it a travel day, no skiing. We spent the morning touring a custom fly fishing rod workshop founded by a man named Tom Morgan. Mr. Morgan, a highly skilled fly fisherman, became paralyzed from the neck down towards the middle of his life and began instructing others to craft perfect fishing rods without ever having built one with his own hands. There is a very interesting article that ESPN did on Mr. Morgan's life and passion - it is definitely worth a read. The fishing rods built at this shop are outstanding and it was quickly apparent, even to our untrained eyes, that each one was an absolute work of art.
After a surprisingly wonderful and interesting tour, we chose a good looking route through Big Sky, Montana toward Driggs, Idaho and began the 3.5 hour drive. We were not going to ski Big Sky due to more obnoxious temperatures, but that was okay, plenty of great skiing was at our fingertips in the days ahead. We were happy. We were relaxed. We were holding hands as we drove and smiling stupidly as we took in the beautiful scenery. I vividly remember a moment about 2.5 hours into our drive, sun on my skin, Pat Green on the radio and Andre's hand resting on my leg. I thought to myself, absolutely nothing could ruin how happy I feel right now. And then, precisely 35.2 seconds later everything went to hell.
First came the realization that somehow Google Maps had switched our 3.5 hour route through Big Sky to a 5.5 hour route through nowhere. Now, I realize it sounds crazy that an electronic app might have "decided" that our route wasn't long or deserted enough, however, I swear, on a bed of steaming, cheesy nachos, that I did not click anything that would have changed our route. In that moment the whole atmosphere inside the truck shifted. I was sad that we missed Big Sky and feeling guilty knowing that it probably wasn't all Google's fault (malicious and devious as he may be). Andre was frustrated to be adding so much time onto an originally compact trip, as well as missing out on visiting some family in Big Sky. And the dog, well let's be honest, the only thing the dog would have opened an eye for was a piece of piping hot bacon shoved under her nose. We were trying our best to shrug off this mishap, it was an adventure after all and wrong turns were part of the package. After some moments of silence we began to come to terms with our detour and decided that we were lucky to have been pushed around by Google because it had allowed us to see the stunning mountains that stretched out in front of us. But, alas, that wasn't our only obstacle.
Next, we got hit with a road closure. As we turned onto Highway 87 (a.k.a.: the middle of nowhere), we were bombarded with road closure signs. We pulled over to look at our loathed Google Maps and weigh our options (few as they may be). We chatted with another perplexed couple in a Subaru and it was decided that we should just go for it, the road couldn't be completely closed or, if it was, it wouldn't be closed for too long. If worse came to worse, Andre and I at least had the option to pull over for the night and wait it out. However, as we continued on, co-pilot Andre researched road conditions and nightly temperatures a bit more. He discovered that the road was projected to stay closed until midnight and temperatures would fall to around -15 degrees. TURN AROUND! We needed to find a better detour, even if it was going to make our long journey even longer.
I immediately went to make a three-point u-turn (or as Andre likes to call it, "flip a bitch"). The side of the road was covered in snow but it seemed firm as I pulled around. I wasn't so lucky when I met the other side... Snow covered a ditch and I pushed Forest right down into it. As I casually moved into reverse I'm pretty sure I saw steam erupt from the top of Andre's salt and peppered head. That's when it hit me and I saw the gravity of the mistake I had made. Our 4-wheel-drive had stopped working that morning. I had stuck us in a ditch, in freezing temperatures, in the middle of nowhere. Rock bottom was calling and all I could do was sit there and think, is it really that bad? Of course it was! But my mind never first jumps to the worst case scenarios as it probably should. I was thinking about our warm sleeping bags in the back, the people I knew who were going to be following shortly behind us, and even naively thought that I could channel my inner Hulk and push the beast out. I watched, frozen in my seat, as Andre leapt around in the snow like a lunatic, throwing his favorite trucker hat into the air. Contrary to me, he jumps straight into the worst case scenario which pushes him into action instead of freezing him into a duct-taped front seat. My mind was already trying to form appropriate apologies, but what the heck is an appropriate way to say, "sorry that I got us stuck and now we might freeze." There isn't one. I finally took a deep breath and stepped outside to help just as our Subaru friends rolled up in their fancy new Forester (tow hitch included). Andre was trying to open the Thule roof box to extract tow ropes, but the lock was frozen and bent the key, almost breaking it in half. We managed to extract the tow ropes and Forest was rescued from the Ditch of Death.
We drove in silence as we detoured around Hebgen Lake. Andre had taken over the driving while I was participating in a "driving hiatus." I focused on taking pictures with my Nikon camera that I still had no idea how to use after seven years. We passed signs that read, "Night of Terror" and "The Lake that Tilted." Appropriate words to title the aggressive silence and feelings of failure that suffocated us in the truck. Dead trees with scraggly, haunting limbs erupted from the parched earth of dry lake beds. The road wound around these spooky scenes of 'what once was' and we both wondered what had happened, but still no one was willing to break the silence. We discovered later that one of the strongest earthquakes in American history hit the area in 1959. Within 40 seconds the earthquake had caused the north shore of the lake to instantly rise 8 feet while the south shore fell an equal amount. The land "tilted" 20 entire feet within those few seconds.
We drove on toward West Yellowstone where we stopped to try and solve our 4-wheel-drive problem. A "good" distraction. Andre finally got the truck to switch into 4-wheel-drive but then couldn't get it out again. It seemed safest to just leave it, at least for as long as I was around... We were trying to figure out what our next move was going to be while we felt the temperature start to drop down towards the night's low of -15 degrees. Would we have to camp in this deserted winter town? No! The road re-openned just in time and we finished an uneventful (thank goodness!) drive to Driggs, Idaho.
I immediately went to make a three-point u-turn (or as Andre likes to call it, "flip a bitch"). The side of the road was covered in snow but it seemed firm as I pulled around. I wasn't so lucky when I met the other side... Snow covered a ditch and I pushed Forest right down into it. As I casually moved into reverse I'm pretty sure I saw steam erupt from the top of Andre's salt and peppered head. That's when it hit me and I saw the gravity of the mistake I had made. Our 4-wheel-drive had stopped working that morning. I had stuck us in a ditch, in freezing temperatures, in the middle of nowhere. Rock bottom was calling and all I could do was sit there and think, is it really that bad? Of course it was! But my mind never first jumps to the worst case scenarios as it probably should. I was thinking about our warm sleeping bags in the back, the people I knew who were going to be following shortly behind us, and even naively thought that I could channel my inner Hulk and push the beast out. I watched, frozen in my seat, as Andre leapt around in the snow like a lunatic, throwing his favorite trucker hat into the air. Contrary to me, he jumps straight into the worst case scenario which pushes him into action instead of freezing him into a duct-taped front seat. My mind was already trying to form appropriate apologies, but what the heck is an appropriate way to say, "sorry that I got us stuck and now we might freeze." There isn't one. I finally took a deep breath and stepped outside to help just as our Subaru friends rolled up in their fancy new Forester (tow hitch included). Andre was trying to open the Thule roof box to extract tow ropes, but the lock was frozen and bent the key, almost breaking it in half. We managed to extract the tow ropes and Forest was rescued from the Ditch of Death.
We drove in silence as we detoured around Hebgen Lake. Andre had taken over the driving while I was participating in a "driving hiatus." I focused on taking pictures with my Nikon camera that I still had no idea how to use after seven years. We passed signs that read, "Night of Terror" and "The Lake that Tilted." Appropriate words to title the aggressive silence and feelings of failure that suffocated us in the truck. Dead trees with scraggly, haunting limbs erupted from the parched earth of dry lake beds. The road wound around these spooky scenes of 'what once was' and we both wondered what had happened, but still no one was willing to break the silence. We discovered later that one of the strongest earthquakes in American history hit the area in 1959. Within 40 seconds the earthquake had caused the north shore of the lake to instantly rise 8 feet while the south shore fell an equal amount. The land "tilted" 20 entire feet within those few seconds.
We drove on toward West Yellowstone where we stopped to try and solve our 4-wheel-drive problem. A "good" distraction. Andre finally got the truck to switch into 4-wheel-drive but then couldn't get it out again. It seemed safest to just leave it, at least for as long as I was around... We were trying to figure out what our next move was going to be while we felt the temperature start to drop down towards the night's low of -15 degrees. Would we have to camp in this deserted winter town? No! The road re-openned just in time and we finished an uneventful (thank goodness!) drive to Driggs, Idaho.
We booked a room at Nancy's Guest Haus where 60-year-old stuffed animals lined the walls and covered the dressers. I was not excited to fall asleep to dozens of plastic eyes staring at me, but at least we would be warm. We managed to finish our horrible, no good, rotten day on a high note: cuddled together in the booth of a Thai restaurant, Andre whispering sweet nothings in my ear that sounded a lot like, "I'll drive tomorrow."
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