Nothing But Love :: golf blogger

The Truth About Glacier National Park

I was at the airport in Kalispell, Montana. The plane arrived at Gate 2. Gate 3 is next to Gate 2. Gate 1 ... passengers get out on the runway, and they walk in the back door, near where I was by the baggage carousel for all one arriving flights.

A jazz music festival was to begin October 5, which was still a few days off. These two guys, with their three cases ... I'm sure they had Fenders because that was the shape of the cases, the long rectangular cases, one of them aluminum, the other two, cloth-covered, kind of like Jackal had ... they had a few days to check out the venues and practice, sound checks, with some time to see the sights, whatever those might be. I already knew from all the signs on the way to the baggage claim area that bears are dangerous and that very few flights arrive and depart the Glacier International Airport.

As we waited for our luggage, I asked one guy about the aluminum case. It seemed slightly longer than the standard guitar case. Maybe, it was for a Fender bass or whatever. I was right. It was "whatever." Lazzeroni 7.82 Warbird ... "headed for the back country ... for elk," he told me.

I'm of the belief that all citizens of Montana are required to carry guns. I didn't research this; it is only the impression I get from the gun selling places on every street corner. They all drink espresso, too. I didn't research this, either; it is only the impression I get from the drive-up espresso stands every 500 feet or so. These two things are, in my mind, a lethal combination.

So, when everyone we encountered told us, in fact, demanded that we must, while we were in the area, drive the Going-to-the-Sun Road in the Glacier National Park, we paid heed. Several of them told us flat out that they'd kill us if we didn't make the drive, specifically saying we needn't even leave the car, spying my lovely wife's walking stick. I suppose that on the technical side of things, they didn't really say that they'd kill us ... they said it would be "a crime;" and since it's legal in Montana to shoot in self-defense if offended, I'm pretty much on the mark there. Others said that the fall foliage was beautiful and oh-so-colorful.

Nobody told us the truth.

But I will reveal the truth to you, shattering the conspiracy of silence among all those we encountered, subjecting myself to certain scrutiny by those charged with maintaining confidentiality and, if I ever return to Montana, much worse than simple scrutiny.

Remember as you are cruising on the Going-to-the-Sun Road at the posted 40 mile-per-hour speed limit that you are in an area under the control of the United States government and that you will not have been given all of the data necessary to make a fully-informed decision before you began on your beautiful, breath-taking journey to Logan Pass, which was unfortunately closed for the season on September 18th, which the uniformed woman at the entrance only told you after you shelled out 25 of your hard-earned American dollars, giving you the privilege to see the natural beauty on your drive on the Going-to-the-Sun Road.

On the Going-to-the-Sun Road, there are large parking areas on the sides of the roadway with invitations to stop and look, lulling you into a false sense of security on your way to the ultimate destination of orgasmic beauty, Logan Pass.

Nobody told us the truth.

Do not be deceived by the outward modern, state-of-the-art, clean appearance of the restrooms that you may require in your journey on the Going-to-the-Sun Road. After all, the 25-dollar "access fee" you paid funded these fine facilities, as pronounced by the prominent plaque on the building's freshly stained rough-hewn siding. I didn't find that the need to go inside had arisen. I left that to another. I was thirsty and thought it odd that there was no water fountain out front. Information related to me supports the conclusion that you will find no running water inside. You draw your own conclusion about the federal water-less restrooms and whether you desire to avail yourself of the non-state-of-the-art facilities at your hotel, motel, or Burger King before you enter the park and before you begin the final ascent on the Going-to-the-Sun Road to the Logan Pass because just past the restroom facility is the "Loop," a classic Grand Prix of Monaco hairpin turn, which puts you on the half of the road away from the mountain's rock face.

Nobody told us the truth.

You will know the truth.

You realize as you make the turn and pass the parking lot for the observation area, where a guy from Maine is taking pictures of himself with his fancy tri-podded, timered camera against the beautiful backdrop of fall foliage of the glorious Aspen trees and evergreens blanketing the mountainside that the view in the other direction, toward Logan Pass, doesn't make for the same photographic beauty. The center line of the road at this point is double yellow, probably a foot or so wide. I tell you this because until this point, you really haven't appreciated the well-paved, 40-mile-an-hour Going-to-the-Sun Road; and I want you to remember that you were deceived. It was part of a parlor trick that brought you willingly to this point.

There's nothing in the literature that uniformed federal agent handed over to you at the park entrance that gives you the information you will find here. Artists use the tool known as "perspective" to show things receding into the distance. Close your eyes for a moment and imagine, if you will, a road in the yellow wood, the one less traveled, receding into the distance, almost to a point, but not quite to a point. And there's a double yellow line in the middle of your road. Close your fucking eyes right now and imagine it!

You recall the road getting narrower and narrower? That's what happens to the Going-to-the-Sun Road. It gets narrower and narrower and narrower, until your hands have tightened on the steering wheel, bending it out of round. You pray that you will not get the hiccups because, to your right, on the other side of your car's passenger side door, manufactured from a one-eighth-thick piece of galvanized steel, that barely holds your passenger inside your car, is the edge of the crumbling roadway, portions of which cascade down the 9,000-foot vertical drop to the little, tiny creek below.

But you needn't worry. Because you are safe. After all, the United States government operates and maintains this park. That's what they want you to believe.

Nobody told us the truth.

Sure, rocks, hewn from the mountain, one foot wide by two feet long by six inches high, laid out neatly along the road's edge, encourage you to travel onward toward the Sun, trapping you into believing that if your path should waiver ever so slightly to the right, the blocks of rock will save you from the 9,000-foot plummet over the precipice (from the Latin praecipitium, meaning "abrupt descent"). Of course, you cannot steer a course to the left across the double yellow line. You will lose a battle with the huge 4x4 pick-up trucks coming down the mountainside, claiming more than their fair share of the double yellow line.

You notice your hands becoming numb, one with the quivering steering wheel; and you become aware that your passenger, sitting just an eighth of an inch from the precipice of death, marked every few yards by those slabs of stone, looking like grave markers from those that have not made it in the last 75 years, since the Going-to-the-Sun Road opened, is whimpering, tears coursing down her cheeks, words being choked, but sounding like "turn around, turn around," eyes wild with fear, not looking to the right, but seeing anyway, hands clutching the Nissan Sentra's dashboard, creating handholds where there were none before you began your insane journey, for which you paid the last $25 you will ever spend in the life you once knew.

And then you see them up ahead on the right, bright in the afternoon light, where the low slabs of stone should be. Familiar objects. Three orange cones. Your mind races. You fight to believe that the road crumbled a bit and the low slabs of stone slid off the road, just below the field of your vision. You fight to drive back the insanity invading the borders of your mind, but the vision of your Nissan Sentra plummeting over the edge of the road blossoms from inside your mind.

Dare you peek over the side as you approach the orange cones to see where the unfortunate soul who lost the struggle ended the journey on the Going-to-the-Sun Road? You feel the steering wheel pulling to the right ... or is it in your mind? You step on the brake pedal to slow even more, but dare you stop your forward progress toward the summit? Is that really ice and snow on the mountain across the valley? Is there snow and ice ahead? The specter of your car, brakes on, sliding down the roadway toward certain death races through and hides in one of the recesses of your mind, orange cones erected there to warn you to stay away. There, up ahead, is a place for sightseers to pull over. Can you take a chance and steer the car into that small, narrow parking place?

On the brink of madness, you become aware of the whimpering, the crying, the incoherent rambling of your passenger, whose head is now in her hands; and your thoughts turn to history. She would have been the first of the Donner party to go ... and a willing volunteer, at that. You decide to risk your own sanity, having abandoned any thought of your passenger's, the shell of a woman you once knew, and decide to pull into the six foot wide, fifteen foot long observation post.

"I'm pulling into this parking spot and stopping the car," you announce, knowing that veering ever so slightly to the right toward certain death, no matter how slowly, will cause your companion, "companion" because this is not any person you know, to go over the brink and, perhaps, never recover.

"No, no, no ... No, turn ... turn ... turn," she whispers, hoarse with whimpering, tears still silently falling on her shuddering breasts, having lost all hope of ever seeing her children in this lifetime, the Byrds tune creeping into your mind, serving as a reminder that there is a time to die.

"I need to do this ... to turn around," you whisper, not 100% certain you can execute a U-turn, whether legal or not, knowing that if you have to back up to do so ... well, that would be a very, very bad thing. You most gingerly move the wheel clockwise ever so slightly, not able to feel the wheel, slightly bent at 9 and 3, where you've been death-gripping it; and the car, unexpectedly and miraculously obeying the laws of physics, creeps to the right. You straighten the direction of the creeping car with a silent prayer to your personal god, ever aware of the whimpering and crying next to you, seemingly amplified by the sheer rock wall to your left climbing up and over the other side of the roadway, your path back to sanity. You press on the brake pedal. You fear the worst, but can feel some relief because the car stops on the outcropping of rock and crumbling asphalt masquerading as a parking spot to observe the natural beauty about which you have heard. The natural beauty ... you decide, logic and good sense having abandoned you several miles ago, to get out of the car to take some photos and notice a yellow sign with the black shadow figure of a pick-up truck being struck by falling rocks.

She screams, shattering any illusion you may have had that you will make it either ahead to Logan Pass or back, "WHAT ARE YOU DOING? DON'T MOVE! GET BACK IN THE CAR! PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE ... BEFORE YOU FALL OVER THE EDGE!" Her screams, the sign, the crumbling roadway, the yellow lines to oblivion winding around the final bend in the Going-to-the-Fucking-Sun Road ... you back away from the champagne-colored Nissan Sentra with Idaho plates, just in case the parking space should break away, making a 9,000 foot free fall, taking Aspens and evergreens with it. And you force your hands to move, to snap the final photos of your life, not sure the natural beauty will be clear, hands tingling, shoulders hurting, legs wobbly.

You slip back into the car, telling her to get ahold of herself, jam the car into "D," step on the gas, and turn the wheel counter-clockwise, trying to get more than the 2 1/2 turns, power steering hissing at you, the wall at the other edge of the road looming ahead. You could make it ... you might make it ... fuck it if you don't ... drive through it if you have to. You let the wheel spin back, having missed the wall by inches, probably violating all kinds of federal laws in the process ... you are headed back down, the perpendicular drop now on your left, separated now by eight or seven or six feet, magnitudes more than on the drive up, and the sheer rock wall from which the roadway was carved, millions of tons of rock hanging overhead, over which you have no control. And that, as you ride the brake down the mountainside, the "Loop" coming up, is somehow comforting.

Nobody told us the truth.

Posted by Bill at October 9, 2006 04:57 PM