Lake McDonald

Tomorrow I will talk with Dave, landlord and nice guy, at the Whitefish Motel.  I will give him my departure day and discuss details of my leaving and returning my security deposit.  Negotiation will go as business goes with men—the real and the imaginary, the dollars and the metaphor.   

I come to wilderness like Glacier Park to escape civilization, a revolting frustration, relieved by the aesthetic wonders that trump the minor hardships and risks involved in getting to wild places.  But rain in the last four days has kept me in the lowland.  The peaks are hidden in clouds, and the road through the Park is closed with ice.  

While waiting for aesthetic wonders to become available in the highland, I visit the semi-wilderness of Lake McDonald, an easily accessible place in the Park that I can get to in the rain.  And even here I can view rocks thought to be some two billion years old.   

On the pier at Apgar, I stand where boats crowded in summer, now closed for the winter.  Stark gray sky and water, rain falling, as if loneliness is all that remains.  

Hike along the shore and feel the transition between summer and winter—the clutter of tourists past, the deep snow to come.  Back in my room, I look at the pictures and wonder at how bright they are.  Was I darkened with depression, and only thought the scenes were darker?  Or is my camera more optimistic than I am.  

Imagine a glacier so big that it dug this lake 470 feet deep, then melted and left a pile of debris on which I stand.