Fall Colors

Weather has not been good for hiking in the high country for nearly a week.  Clouds hang over the peaks and rain often falls in the valleys.  I am holed up in Whitefish, committed for at least a month here to get the off-season rate.  Most of the tourist businesses are closed now, and they are even removing the bridges on some of the hiking trails so winter avalanches will not destroy them.  I have the next three days to get into those areas while bridges still swing across the deep canyons.  Tomorrow I plan to go up there, because the forecast is only mildly bad.      

If you thought I was headed for the edge of sanity by coming here at this time of year, I’m beginning to agree.  But insanity has no limits, and I have plenty of treks in mind the lower country if those mysterious rocky heights close their doors.  I can only visit when they invite me.

For example, there is a ski area just outside of Whitefish.  Yesterday I trekked there, heading up a trail called Danny On.  I hoped for fall colors, photogenic bears, and something else I can’t describe.  I could not have been more pleased with the outcome.

Soon after leaving the trailhead, I looked down on “The Village.”  Its several hotels and restaurants will thrive with skiers about two months from now.  Today, you might be able to see my white jeep as one of a dozen or so parked cars.  

As I climb higher, Whitefish Lake and the town of Whitefish become distant scenery, giving way to the colors close at hand.

Where the trail crossed a ski run, the cleared land is home for bushes and small trees.  They shine with reds, yellows, and pinks, as the cold of fall replaces their flowers of summer.  All of the bushes, no matter their species, seem to gleam in the prospect of being buried under ten feet of snow.  It’s like a little death for them, buried all winter.

I wonder if they will feel the vibrating skis above them or hear the shouts of winter visitors.  Theirs is to stay where they are and seemingly to rejoice, not despair.  Brilliant now, in total darkness through winter, waiting for spring.  And spring, I wish I could see them then.

Today, the sun came through gaps in storm clouds sometimes, and I was allowed the brilliant pictures you see here.  But often the clouds were dark, and their edges allowed rainbows for brief moments.

The trees in these north mountains know about winter.  Their tops are pointed, their branches short and sloping downward.  To spread like a magnolia would be to fall apart when the snow and wind come.

This tree and I met for the first time today but we know each other.  We both start with the letter, “S.”  We both love this place; and we are both alone.

This moose was not photogenic, but ran from me.  Why do they run?  He weighs four times as much as I, and he has that in-charge look in his eye.  Why do I scare them off?

Finally I reach the top where a warm retreat awaits with coffee, and a ride back down if I choose.  They keep the lift running in summer, mostly for mountain bikers.  Here you see a bicycle riding up, to be ridden down by some dare devil.  

I rode the chair lift down, a fifteen-minute ride, compared to the three hours it took me to hike up.