Montana Hiking: Day 3

We began our final day in Montana with a breakfast at Feed Cafe on Main Street, where I had two of the best slabs of bacon I’ve ever tasted. The food helped erase the effects of the Montana-made Bourbon that I imbibed the night before.

After breakfast and a short nap we ventured to a different mountain range for the final hike of the trip. This was arguably the most challenging hike; it took us several hours to complete. The trek took us several thousand feet up in elevation and the temperature dropped more than twenty degrees from the start to the trail’s apex. The views were breathtaking. We almost didn’t make it to the trail due to ice and snow covering the ground near the trail’s entrance, which our rental car’s tires struggled to grip.

Though I entered Montana in the best physical condition of my life, the high altitude still taxed my lungs and the steep inclines strained my glutes. I was plenty sore and fatigued by trip’s end.

I was told to bring bear spray with me on each hike, but I forgot to buy any. Luckily we did not encounter any bears. It’s my understanding that the region has a mixture of black bears and grizzlies. You obviously don’t want to cross paths with either, but you really don’t want to cross paths with a grizzly. A male grizzly will eat its own child without remorse; it therefore would have no qualms having a human for dinner.

We finished our final day with a walk through downtown. We ventured through a few apparel stores (I just window shopped) and ate one final meal. Each of us had an “elk burger” and for each of us it was the first time eating elk meat. When in Montana, you just gotta try Elk. It’s a very lean meat and frankly I find it almost indistinguishable from bison. Maybe my tastebuds just aren’t refined enough.

I’ll miss Bozeman. The people are friendly and welcoming, and the pace of life is objectively much slower than big city life. I prefer that. My time spent in cities has convinced me that despite their conveniences, they are not natural for people to inhabit. In fact they may be detrimental to the human psyche. Murder exists almost everywhere, but it’s most prevalent in cities and extremely rare in many rural areas. Many people in cities, especially these days, have a certain angst and anxiety about them that troubles me.

I’ve read before (but cannot cite the source) that growing up in the city doubles your risk of developing schizophrenia when compared to growing up in the countryside. This does not surprise me. Nor does the detrimental mental effect that being amassed by tall buildings must have. I enjoy the conveniences of city life and have good friends that live in cities prosperously, but every convenience has its set of consequences.

I’ll conclude this blog with a dream I recently had. I don’t know what it means, but I think it’s loosely linked to my mountain trip and a cynical feeling that suffused me upon returning to the city.

In the dream, I made one last return to my old high school swimming pool. Somehow, inexplicably, there was a swimming competition being held and I was competing in it. My coach announced to a packed crowd via microphone: “We’ve managed to bring Matt back for one final race! This is your last chance to support the guy who broke every record we ever had.” I nervously prepared for a race behind the starting blocks and broke my goggles from my nervousness. Someone gave me a spare pair and I quickly broke those as well. When I finally adjusted my third pair of goggles, I realized that the pool, which was supposed to be indoors, had the opposite wall removed. The pool seemed to extend to eternity. Behind the normal length of the pool, I saw obstacle courses such as climbing ropes and white water rapids. “Obstacles courses!?” I yelled at one of my brothers. “Yeah, you didn’t know?” He said. “That’s what you have to compete with now.” I woke from the dream as I frantically tried to prep myself for a new challenge.

Yellowstone, the Bison Kingdom

My brothers and I ventured out to Yellowstone National Park at 5 am because supposedly the region’s wildlife is most active at dawn.

En route we encountered several herds of elk. Eventually we arrived at the north entrance to the park. The roads were hazardous due to snow and ice for the first few miles of driving, but eventually the snow dissipated and the weather warmed.

Beneath the ethereal beauty of the park lurks an active supervolcano, thousands of times more powerful than a normal volcano. For those fascinated by the apocalypse, an eruption of this volcano would bury much of the United States in ash and cease much of life as we know it. A permanent world of darkness would become the new normal.

And judging by how well we predict the weather on a daily basis (not all that well considering our advancements in technology), I’d venture to guess that we won’t know when this will volcano finally erupt.

I find it interesting that an organic world of water resides peacefully over constantly flowing lava. Fire and water are in permanent residence beside each other, separated by a layer of earth. They are yin and yang, order and chaos, and only a thin line exists as a barrier between the two. This line seems very breakable.

The magma that flows underneath the park is the reason for the park’s famous geysers and hot springs.

I gazed out at these geysers and steamy springs as I hiked through the park. The plumes and films of steam that the water emitted seemed to tickle the air for all of eternity. I smelled sulfur as I hiked through.

Besides the elk and bison, I saw crows much larger than I ever thought possible. Some were larger than small dogs.

The notion that I walked over an apocalyptic volcano caused a sort of calm cynicism to take over me. How small are our petty problems, and even our lives, in the grand scheme of eternity? An unforeseen burst of lava can eradicate everything. Suddenly our anxieties, like our plans, would be wiped from existence, and the erasure would not even cause a blip on the universe’s radar of significant events.

Anyways, after the park visit my brothers and I feasted at an excellent barbecue restaurant before returning to our rental home. There we sat in the hot tub and drank bourbon and mezcal for hours while gazing at the stars and talking about life.

I can only summarize this blog by writing that I hope to return here soon.