Cutoff score.

It is perhaps a strange correlation of the topography, climate, and access in this part of the country that skiing in the summer is often much better than it is in the winter. Suddenly, come mid-June, terrain that entailed a long day of hiking is now a two-hour traipse away. Even as the skiable terrain shrinks to a relative handful of at-elevation bowls with favorable aspect, the opportunities are as tantalizing as ever. And it's so seemingly easy. A good day's work is done by noon, meaning lazy hours of poring over the landscape to find the next day's task. And perhaps a book and a home-made candy bar and an airy bivouac.

(Day One: Waiting for clouds to break on the Walton Lake Cirque, Clearwater Mountains, June 23)

I'm having trouble finding ski partners these days. My main one is off-line for a few more years.

Others are not too keen to wake up at 4:30 and climb a mountain. The polite late-night text message replies of a few months ago are now rather abrupt. Yet, the season dwindles. This is a moment that does not return. At a party last weekend someone asked how feasible it would be to ski year-round. Totally feasible, but at what cost? There are glaciers just 30 or so air miles north of Missoula, but it’s a full day of off-trail ‘shwacking to get to them. Why not just go to Idaho and take it easy?

(Blue skies reveal a 100-mile panorama, Clearwater Mountains with the Selway beyond, June 23)

(Day Two: Clearwater Mountains, June 24)

A vacation’s been booked: biking, islands, Trader Joe’s, etc., etc. Family weekends which do not include visiting mountaintops are planned. Because you once did not know when things were to end you began to think of this “as an inexhaustible well. Yet everything happens only a certain number of times, and a very small number, really.” The season that once seemed limitless now has a very real end.

(Transition platform)

So the question is: this weekend, Glacier or Missoula?

The sports page.

If your newspaper is like mine, the sports page is probably full of stories about college basketball, Nascar, and American Legion ball leagues. As a former reporter of 14 years, I know that a lot of what ends up in the newspaper is there for convenience sake – it’s easy news to get. While I don’t subscribe to the current fad of criticizing newspapers, I do think the sports page has room for improvement; what’s there generally appeals to a very narrow range of readers and has questionable news value.

(A clear day descent from Lindy Peak, June 16)

This is too bad, especially in a place like Montana where on any given Sunday there are hordes of people engaged in pursuits that would leave your average ball player begging for mercy, but they are doing it alone, or in a small team using bikes, boards, boots, or boats. Many of these are significant achievements but never make it into news unless someone dies, sets a record, or writes a book.

(East face of the Mission.)

This guy from down the valley does a lot of awesome stuff, including this one-day traverse of the Rattlesnake Mountains

(You have a baby! In a bar!)

I used to work with Jill, and have to say I was surprised when I saw she was doing things like 400-mile unsupported desert mountain bike rides and 100-mile Arctic rides on specially-made fat bikes.

This guy from Revelstoke last year climbed 2,000,000 vertical feet – then skied down it all, too. When he got to thinking about his impact on the environment, he decided to bike, not drive , to the trailheads.

The Bob Marshall in Montana is America’s second largest wilderness area. Chenault designed a race where contestants start on one side of the wilderness and finish on the other. How they navigate the 150 or so miles in between is up to them.

(Father's Day ride to Garnet ghost town.)

This guy climbed and skied Abiathar in Yellowstone National Park. Nuff said.

I found this blog this spring looking for information on a peak in the Bitterroot. This guy climbed and skied Sky Pilot in 4 hours roundtrip. Not a big deal until you know that guidebooks say it’s a two-day outing.

I guess the Alaskans will always put us to shame; this account of a recent crossing of a range on the Alaska-Canada border, from sea-level to summit, is gripping if for nothing else than its nonchalance.

Heck, and those are just the ones who blog about it.

‘A Montana summer’; a ‘Couzy-shaped hole’

Last week I skied with a guy from Colorado who said he was spending a few months here to, among other things, enjoy ‘a Montana summer’. While I’m partial to winter, of course, the Montana summer does have its charms: glistening snowfields, ambling grizzlies, wide rivers, green hills, etc., etc. With barely six hours a day of darkness, there’s also an incredible motivation to get out and enjoy it all. The other week, in Seattle, I was talking to a couple of PhDs about Montana. One in particular had not, I take it, had much opportunity to venture outside of Washington, D.C., and it was an interesting exercise to try and explain the vastness of the sweeping landscape, the unimpeded access, and the human place in it all. It’s harder still to explain to someone not familiar with the concept that the only true obstacle to overcome is your ability and motivation.

Motivation on Heart Lake, in a range some call the northern Bitterroot and others call the Stateline, June 9: low clouds and sideways snow.

Couzy, the plot hound, did not make it. We had her euthanized last week.

Couzy was an artifact of our last nine years. We got her from the pound in Haywood County a few weeks after our marriage and a few days before her prior-scheduled euthanasia. The state dog of North Carolina was bred to hunt bears, but judging by the fact that Couzy was scared of her own dim reflection on the stainless steel refrigerator, she was probably not of much use to hunters. We named her after Jean Couzy, a French mountaineer who was a member of Maurice Herzog’s famed first ascent of Annapurna. Such provenance did not wear off: she was afraid of leashes and not much of a socializer. She was also, I take it, subject at one point to a lot of abuse, judging by the way she would cower if we made any sudden moves.

We shuttled her to obedience school, which was interesting but of little practical value. Due to her propensity to both run away when off leash and attack other dogs when on leash she rarely went on hikes or to the dog park. We took her to Oregon and Canada but left her behind on other trips.

She started limping in January, and in March we found out why: bone cancer. Her death leaves the house with a sort of Couzy-shaped hole, which is to say a small, mostly unobtrusive hole, but one which is there nonetheless.

Alien technology.

On the rare nights that I cannot fall asleep I listen to AM radio. Lately it's been that old racist curmudgeon Michael Savage, who when he is not berating Mexicans, Arabs, and 'Socialists' can actually be kind of eloquent. Years ago I listened to a show whose announcer said he was located in a bunker in the Nevada desert and who discussed government conspiracies and UFO sightings, in that order. For some reason, I have always remembered something that he said about technology: that all of the great advancements of our era -- the cell phone, the fax machine, the GPS -- were courtesy of alien technology pirated from government-captured UFOs.

(June 2: returning to the scene on St. Mary)

Last week, after my stupid and epic afternoon of lost navigation on the side of St. Mary Peak, I went and dropped $170 on a Garmin eTrex 20 GPS. The eTrex 20 is one model up from the most basic GPS, and while I would have been fine with the cheapie the allure of a color screen was just too great. When I got home and opened the box Laura took one look at it and said, Well that looks like it will be a fun new toy. And she's right, sort of: thanks to triangulation from a passel of overhead satellites I am able, with two pushes of a button, to know my average moving speed and elevation profile and determine the exact size of the lot our home sits on.

OK, true. But it's also a fascinating and highly accurate way to plot routes and marks. On Saturday, descending St. Mary (again) in a storm, rather than wonder if I was too high or too low in my traverse, I simply whipped the wallet-sized unit out and saw I was about 100 feet too far east. On Sunday, skiing Lolo Peak, Eric and Greg left their hiking boots in a tree at the snowline; it seemed like an obvious spot on the way up but was simply a tree lost in the forest on the way down. Thinking we had passed them, I turned the GPS on and turned around, bushwacked 50 yards uphill, and walked straight to the shoes. Pretty cool, that alien technology.

(Looking for shoes on Lolo)

It was interesting to get into the mountains after three weeks away and see the changes spring is bringing. The snow level is creeping up, but snowpacks up high are still good and deep. The mountains picked up more than a foot last weekend and some more during the week. We've had a spate of awful weather, which means I turned attention to the backyard:

This time I paid good money for someone to break up and haul away a stupid old sidewalk in the backyard, then made four trips to bring back two tons of cobblestone pavers (matches the driveway!). Two days later: back aching, walk and patio done.

Express bus to Chinatown.

A few weeks ago, work asked me to go to Seattle for a conference. My first reaction was, But that's right in the middle of ski season!

Seattle is the Big City of Choice for most Missoulians. I've only used it before as a gateway to the Cascades and Canada, but found it was fun in its own right. The city has dense and varied neighborhoods which are great for walking (and walking was about the only thing I could afford to do there). It was fascinating to get on a bus at University Station downtown surrounded by men and women in business suits, and get off three stops later in Chinatown, the only whitey in sight.

The occasion was annual meeting of the Council of Science Editors. The three-day meeting, held at the Sheraton downtown, was the first time in ages I've met with a group of work peers. The industry is primarily concentrated in Washington, D.C. While I did meet attendees from Nigeria, Nepal, Mexico, and Ethiopia, the crowd was decidedly institutional, and held a provincial view of the rest of the world. Coming from Montana, and mixing with such a group -- well, it was interesting to see so many career-focused go-getters, let's put it that way. Most of the people I talked to had, it turns out, heard of Montana, but were quite surprised to learn that there was a science journal there (probably about the reaction I would have if I met someone from Indiana who said they like to climb mountains). Anyway, I was there to learn, and I let people talk about themselves, and mostly when I asked what it was like to live in Baltimore (or Arlington, Alexandria, D.C., etc.) people began by talking about their commutes.

(View from the 21st floor of the Sheraton: not Missoula.)

In three days I estimate I walked 25 miles. I hiked up and around Beacon Hill and Coleman Park. I drank my body weight in coffee. I ate four bánh mì (Vietnamese sandwiches--frikkin awesome). I fended off a homeless person on Capitol Hill. I had an engaging talk with a girl about something besides babies and avalanche conditions. I actually got on a bus and asked the driver, 'Does this go to Chinatown?'. I found that the best mocha latte in Seattle is actually no better than the best mocha latte in Missoula, although in Seattle you drink it in a cool converted warehouse and pay 50 cents more for the 16-ounce size than you do in Montana.

(Looks better, but tastes the same.)

Watching big city traffic puts me in a trance: probably what it's like when Seattlites go camping and stare into the campfire.

Or is it? Is this what people in Seattle think of when they think of Montana? These billboards are everywhere in Seattle.

So ended three days in The Big City. I planned to walk around more downtown and go to Queen Anne, a historic neighborhood. But, of course, it began to rain. I trooped out to the airport on the cool light rail, only to have the sun come out. Anyway, I never get tired of watching departure boards and taxiways.

Up, down, lost.

I reached the first substantial snowdrift on St. Mary Lookout Road at about 6,000 feet early Saturday morning. In my experience it’s easier to park and hike than it is to mess around with shovels, ropes, and low range just on the off chance of driving another half-mile, so I simply geared up and was bushwhacking uphill before 7 am. I summitted St. Mary by 10:45, made two runs by 11:45, and by noon had eaten lunch and was ready for the descent. Plenty of time to get lost.

Before moving to Montana I’d only occasionally worried about becoming “lost”, but something about the dearth of trails and traffic and the extent of thick low-elevation forests here has changed that. I’ve been disoriented and wandering several times the past few years, mostly in the Bitterroot, but also in places like the Scapegoat. Problems with route finding are compounded in the spring when early morning ascents on frozen snow surfaces leave nary a print.

And so it was on Saturday. The descent from St. Mary is tricky because it involves a long, annoying traverse below the main summit ridge. I traversed hard to the skier’s left and wound up on a very steep slope. Looking down I could see a road I assumed was the Lookout Road above where I had parked. I took a visual fix on it before it disappeared into thick forest. The topography bent, however, and fell into narrow ravines, variable snow conditions, and thick downfall. I removed my skis and struggled downhill for more than two hours before finding a slope that had been logged at one point. Knowing that where there is logging there are roads, I followed the logged area straight downhill to the road … which turned out not to have been used in years. I walked the road each way but could only guess on my location. Occasional glimpses to the valley still far below were scenic but of little practical assistance. Not wanting to get more lost, I did what I am sure Lewis and Clark would have done if only they had thought of it: I called the sheriff.

One surprising feature of the mountains here is that you can often ping four bars even on the remotest summit, and since I had been suspecting for several seasons that I would eventually get lost, injured, or otherwise worked, last summer I programmed into my phone the dispatch numbers for various county sheriffs’ offices. Ravalli County dispatch answered after three rings and advised me to call 911. I did, and the same dispatcher answered, but using Enhanced 911 technology was able to pinpoint my location in less than 1 minute. “Well it looks like you are on a road,” the dispatcher said. I was indeed. She gave me rough directions: walk west, then south, then east. I did, and was dumbfounded when after just 35 minutes of power striding I emerged from the forest right at the truck’s passenger door.

I called dispatch back to tell them they would not, after all, need to search for me, peeled off my disgusting ski pants and socks, and drove down the mountain.

And then we celebrated Mother’s Day.

'Objectives'.

There are a few phrases that skiers, hikers, climbers, and others use that bug me. The worst is 'meadow skipping'. This is a phrase used by skiers to describe short, safe, low-angle runs often taken when the avalanche danger is high, but when I hear it I can't help but think that the skiers are a bunch of fairies dressed in renaissance garb. The other is 'objective'. This means 'goal' to everyone else, but when a climber uses it he is generally implying that he is going to climb and ski something most other people only read about in ski magazines. I usually hear this used in forums or at parties and rarely ever do I see that the 'objective' was obtained; I can only use when I'm talking in my head and then only as irony. A much-maligned phrase that I do like, however, is 'dawn patrol'. This means being on the mountain before the sun comes up. I know, it makes me sound like some sort of Israeli commando when I use it, but I do like to wake up early.

Whatever. No one in these parts has been doing any of this lately. Missoulians are notorious late sleepers, for starters, and we are at the time of year when there is not a well-defined sunrise. The sky brightens north of northwest near 5 am and grows brighter further to the south. But that's only if you can actually get a reading on the sun. We're in our usual monsoon season here, where May can have as much snow as February, and clouds and storm have been the rule.

And that has knocked out any sort of 'objective'-making. I'll admit that some hardy souls do it, but it's pretty hard to ski anything big in a raging May snowstorm. So the 'objectives' have been more like, Well, let's see how far we get. Not that far. And the meadows? Melted out. And then of course once I'm off the mountain the sun comes out, and people go to the park.