It was four a.m. and a rubescent blush was sitting like a halo just above the sharp silhouette of mountains to the east. That seemed appropriate enough for Independence Day. I told my wife that I would probably not push for the pass, as she was handing me a cup of coffee. She simply said: “You always push for the pass.” Hmmm. Maybe. 

The Storm Lake hike over in the Anaconda Mountains starts about eight miles down a dirt road. After a few miles it becomes an utterly ruined, deeply rutted, road. (For those who need to know: Yes; Much rougher than the Fairy Lake Road over in the Bridger Range.)

An old wooden bridge lies cloaked in cold shadow at about the six-mile mark. I roll across and hold my breath as my vehicle drops into large pools of icy water before climbing out across broken teeth of stone. The sky is getting brighter. The forest is not.

A moose larger than my car suddenly careens onto the road, all legs and muzzle. He pounds the dirt road and clobbers askew just in front of me. He is trying so desperately to track straight, but apparently that is the only direction his legs will not go. He wobbles from side to side like an alien spaceship from an old Sci-Fi film with a faulty gyroscope.

His heavy head sways back and forth like a broken pendulum. His ears stick out like bent airhorns. There is nothing apportioned correctly on this massive, anatomically challenged body. Yet he exudes power. Raw, ferocious power. He finally jumps through a black hole in the forest wall and disappears into another universe.

No need for more coffee. I am wide awake now.

At about the seven-mile mark, I stop. The rocks jutting up before me resemble a tank trap. I flip the car around, nose it into pine trees and park it in a dent of earth. It is freezing as I trek the last mile of road, up through the forest. Everything lies cold and dormant. Shards of yellow sunlight are trying to drip down from the top of evergreens way up high; but they do not seem to get very far. Soon I hear a chattering stream. It gets colder.

I come out of the woods breathing hard and stand alone at the very edge of Storm Lake. For a moment I think I can hear that moose running up behind me. Thump/THUmp/THUMP. Then I realize that it is my own heart trying to keep pace with my legs and flooding my ears in protest at 8400 feet.


The sun edges up behind me. I stand and watch as this world of muted shadows begins to glow. The soaring mountain walls surrounding the lake become suffused in intense flames of burnt orange and coils of yellow chiffon. This golden elixir flows off gigantic mountain flanks and spills directly into this exquisite lake. With a touch of flame, the entire lake suddenly illuminates in a stunning reflection of soaring mountains. With a flash, the entire scene now sits directly on the lake in front of me. It is a tableau of absolute perfection. Two identical universes are sitting side by side, and I experience them both. The whole scene is so achingly beautiful and so fragile I dare not breathe.

Montana. Most people can only dream about such a cobalt sky. A sky full of shuttling clouds that will soon fill with sunshine and radiate warmth and promise, and a profound peacefulness. But right here, in moments just like this, I do not need to dream about it. I experience Montana to the core of my being. She etches herself right onto my soul. Montana will mark you for life. It is all so majestic. And necessary.

Deep in the back of my mind stir the words, penned in 1931, of celebrated English poet and children’s author Eleanor Farjeon: “Morning has Broken Like the First Morning...” Those lyrics would later be immortalized for my entire generation by Cat Stevens. She wrote that song, and he sang it, as a hymn. How wholly appropriate that now seems. The morning becomes a prayer.

The air is so still and crystalline and brittle. All known color is at maximum saturation. Not one more drop can be added. Not one more brush stroke earned.

Nothing stirs. Not even time.

I might have been wearing a Mona Lisa smile as a tear slid from the corner of my eye.

This must be what redemption looks like.

Sometimes you just need to take the first step towards Heaven to believe.

I traverse alongside the shoreline to the far western end, where mountains intersect and a stream full of snow melt is feeding the lake. I rock hop across reflections of snow-clad mountains and the trail immediately heads up through an old growth forest. Ancient trees lie where they fell long ago all along this path. Avalanche territory. They wear heavy mantles of dark green moss and are slowly melting back into this good earth. Entering the Anaconda Pintler Wilderness, I hit the first set of switchbacks. These take me up to a sublime mountain meadow which lies easy in the morning sun at the base of snow drenched mountains. A gentle corkscrew of rock climbs up and around this bright green glade before bringing me to the second set of switchbacks. There is a lot of snow on this portion of trail as I climb out of the tree line and up to Storm Lake Pass at roughly 9200 feet. Looking east I can clearly see Storm Lake, far below, winking blue.

This vantage point is spectacular. I am surrounded by a sea of mountains. And choices. There are no right-angles here. All is curvature and juxtaposition. I follow the rock trail west towards the higher Goats Flat Pass. (As my dear wife knew I would.) The rock trail tightens up here, but this second Pass is calling me into a whole new world. The Continental Divide crosses the top of Goats Pass. That is reason enough to go.

This is a steep-walled basin with a massive rock wall to my right and extremely deep drop-offs to my left. I slow down and follow the curvature of the earth higher. About halfway around this cirque of glacial rock my path becomes blocked by snow. A lot of it. I chip each foothold into snow and ice, then slowly climb up and traverse across this section. My hands grabble with sharp broken stone the entire length.

I should have brought climbing gloves. 

I plot every step meticulously. Each step needs to be the right one. Halfway across this snow-filled section I lean hard into the rock wall and rest while warming my raw hands. Sitting 500 feet below me is another bright green meadow swimming in early morning sunlight. A large buck is standing in it; his heavy rack is cocked sideways as he looks up at me. He is curious. Me too.

After this traverse, I move up towards the final pass—and one last obstacle. More snow. Steeper this time. More ice too. Old ice.
Old ice is unpredictable. I know that. Another thing: I can now hear the wind whistling hard through the fluted rock pass above me.
I have been on this planet for 68 years, and climbing mountains for 50 of them. I give credit to others for teaching me well. My intuition has been finely honed over the decades, and it is finely calibrated to that “still small voice” deep within. Some call that the voice of God. I would like to think so.

So: Here’s the thing. Every cell in my body told me not to take that next step. Every lesson ever learned. Every voice ever listened to. Every scintilla of objective and empirical evidence made the case both plain and completely irrefutable.

“Do NOT take that next step.” The universe had spoken. God had whispered. There was nothing to be gained by going any further.
Why I took that next step will forever be a mystery to me, but what happened next was not. As I hoisted all my weight onto one foot and lifted myself firmly up onto that old ice, my foot slipped. It happened faster than light. And as I slipped towards the precipice, this elusive element called “time” stuttered and coalesced, and then exploded in one final agonizing second. There was no back up plan. Or rope. Or ice pick. There was only 500 feet of free-fall twelve inches away. Then nine inches. Then six.

Then, unexpectedly, and just as suddenly, everything froze: my foot on that old ice. The blood in my veins. My very next thought. Even that large buck down in the rich green meadow. Time paused.

I somehow imagine that Angels were holding their breath.

I know I was.

I was so delicately balanced, on just one foot, way up on one last glistening diamond point, where the physics of sunlight on melting ice and the shadow of faith had all converged at this one precise moment in the universe. I do not know why my foot stopped sliding. We do not always get the answers we seek. Mysteries abound.

I willed myself to be completely weightless. I so longed to be the wind, strong and invisible. Imperceptibly, I eased myself backwards ever so slowly off that high, icy perch until, finally, my free-hanging foot tentatively touched a tiny piece of the rich, luxurious, earth left behind me. My heart gushed a full measured beat. I was still not breathing.

Sometimes we don’t get the consequences we deserve. That’s called Grace, I suppose. I hunkered down on that cold, stony ledge for what seemed like a very long time. The wind was shrieking now. I carefully reassessed everything. As I looked up, I noticed a very thin ridgeline of exposed rock precariously cutting through the snow and ice about ten feet above me. It was barely noticeable but I should have seen it sooner. How often we miss the obvious—climbing up onto that ridge was a tricky maneuver, but it worked.

Coming over Goats Pass was like entering a completely different planet. It was still hard winter up here on the tundra, and she was roaring like a freight train. I painfully crossed the top of this frozen world and was soon looking down onto remote Seymour Lake. That would be a journey for another time. At one point I hunkered down behind a large boulder to get out of the Arctic gale. A single flower was pushing up through the frozen earth. It was not plausible that this fragile splash of bright color could survive in this harsh environment. But here we were.

In Montana we take none of this beauty for granted. We are shadows passing through a land of singular and breathtaking beauty. Here, we can step up and away from the valleys and the familiar. We leave that which is tame far below, and embrace that which is not. We savor both: this wilderness that surrounds us, and the wilderness which encompasses our soul. It is a unique, priceless experience, and it is increasingly rare. 

The people that came before us were determined, and fiercely independent.

They had their dreams too. They were not afraid to do hard things, and neither are we.

I think that is exactly why we choose to live here.

Famed Kiowa poet M. Scott Momaday reminds us that: “The West is a Dream.”

And this is mine.