the difference between february and april?

Honeydew went out earlier this week with his best friend to survey the back 40, as we sometimes refer to the stunning St. Mary valley and eastern edge of Glacier National Park.  Obviously, it’s not actually our back 40 – as public land, it’s your back 40, too! – but sometimes I can get a little possessive.

The snow drifts are still … massive, really.  Here’s a few shots to show you the difference between February and April.

Hwy 89, just north of Divide, on February 25:

Hwy 89, just north of Divide, April 3:

Hwy 89 traffic signs, February 25:

Hwy 89 traffic signs, April 3:

Chief Mountain Highway, entrance to Glacier National Park, February 23:

Chief Mountain Highway, entrance to Glacier National Park, April 3:

Hmmmm.  Is there a difference?

2011.  Glacier County Honey Co.  All Rights Reserved.

 

what we’ll see in Glacier National Park: Climbing Divide Mountain

If you’re a regular reader, then you know that I often post photos of my frequent forays into Glacier National Park.  After all, I live just a few miles from the St. Mary, Many Glacier, and Chief Mountain entrances, and I consider the Park my greater backyard.  You can check out the “Glacier National Park” category, to the right, for the archives of “what we saw” on any given day in Glacier.

This winter … well, Glacier County declared itself to be in a state of emergency.  A tribal spokesman asserted it “the worst in 40 years.”  My own husband, who is calm and loves winter, told our almond growers down in California that it was the most extreme winter he remembered in his lifetime.  I’ve only spent 2 winters here, but I know this one to be nothing like the one before it, when I lived down the long, winding driveway at Hillhouse and didn’t know the meaning of “cabin fever.”  Currently, Hillhouse is wholly inaccessible, boasting drifts that put one at eye-level with the roofline.  And Hillhouse has vaulted ceilings.

As a result of this insanity, my trips into Glacier National Park have been … sporadic, shall we say.  Especially in light of the fact that winter began in October this year!  My recent posts have centered around snow and wind and closed roads.  Currently, Glacier is fairly inaccessible from the east.  Now, if I weren’t seven months pregnant I might consider a winter camping trip, a chance to cross country ski through the sparkling silence of the Many Glacier valley, or to snowshoe up the fabulous Going to the Sun Road.  But I am, and that’s that.  Still, I’m a little tired of posting photos of the snow and wind and drifts, and not of Glacier’s interior – though I delight in watching sunlight shatter off of icicles and I adore the way the dawn can make the mountains look like gods, platinum and alabaster and twice as big as they actually are, I am weary of winter.

And so Brother Dear and Pseudo Sista and I have talked nonstop of spring, summer, the mountains we’ll climb, the trails we’ll tackle, the backcountry meals we’ll create.  I’d be willing to bet that the first peak bagged this year will be Divide, as in every year, since it has good access and tends to melt out more quickly than the Park’s interior.  Divide’s summit, about 7300′,  forms the borderline between Glacier National Park and the Blackfeet Indian Reservation/Glacier County, great symbolism for me.  It’s not a particularly hard climb, as you can drive old logging roads to a fairly high saddle.  Which is, of course, at the same time not to say that it’s easy.  Summit views this good are never truly “easy.”

These were taken on June 25, 2006, but I can state with certainty that the views remain much the same.  Such is the beauty of a national park.

Who’s ready for summer?

2011.  Glacier County Honey Co.  All Rights Reserved.

 

fractious

Over the weekend, the roads were closed.  But all was well because I had my chocolate ice cream, my salad greens, and my husband.

On Monday, Duck Lake Road reopened but the snows returned and the winds picked back up.  Honeydew and I figured that the road would close again by mid-afternoon, so he got going.  He called me from Browning, 40 miles south, to tell me not to try to attempt to leave  unless absolutely necessary, as he’d found West Shore Road, the dirt road we live on that connects to Duck Lake Road, plugged with snow.  He’d taken his pickup through our neighbor’s pasture and over some barbed wire, and had made it out, but had doubts that I could do the same.  His attitude towards my snow driving skills would have annoyed me last winter.

Not this year.  The amount of snow and wind and bitter, bone chilling cold we have received have all contributed to my attitude change.  I did not grow up driving in the fluffy stuff.  I am not an expert, nor does it seem that I am naturally inclined to successful navigation of snow covered roads.

Tuesday, more of the same.  Duck Lake Road open, but West Shore Road plugged, no access.  Brother Dear had an appointment with a client in Cut Bank, so he took the through-the-pasture-and-over-the-barbed-wire route and made it through.

Wednesday, still no plow.  No chocolate ice cream, either.  But the sun came out and the snow settled and Brother Dear told me he thought I could make it out of the pasture.  He assured me that if I got stuck, he’d come to my rescue, and stuck his fully charged cell phone in his pocket to reassure me.  I took a deep breath and turned the key in the ignition.  And with a little gunning it, I too escaped the pasture.

Armed with a newfound confidence, I drove one handed on my way back from the post office, snapping pictures along the way.

To the left, you can see the tracks leading to the pasture.  Straight ahead is where West Shore Road should be.

Here’s the entrance to the pasture, and the barbed wire.  I’ve never purposefully driven over barbed wire before!

It is so hard to take good pictures in flat light and snow, but here’s the “route” through the pasture – I had just come off the steep part, which I used both hands to navigate.

Here’s the exit from the pasture, through our neighbors’ driveway.

And here’s a look back at West Shore Road – the tracks to the left lead off to the South Shore of Duck Lake, straight ahead is again where the road should be.

Arriving home, I called Pseudo Sista and told her that I thought our previously laid plans for dinner would still work, that the pasture-route wasn’t as bad as I had feared, that she should come on from Browning after work.

And so she did.  And she made us yummy pizza and we ate the last of the salad greens and  fell into the easy conversation that years of friendship bring to a table.

Overnight, the winds picked up a bit and more snow fell.  But the winds “only” blew about 30MPH, and I suppose I’ve become desensitized to them, after our weekend of 114MPH gusts.  At 6:30am, I checked the road report: Duck Lake Road, open.  So I figured that West Shore Road was still fine, that the tracks would have blown over but would still be solid.  A plan was formed: I have a Tahoe with good clearance.  Pseudo Sista has a Subaru, a fine car, but lacking in clearance.  I would lead the way from the Warehome to Duck Lake Road, and she would follow in my tracks, be at work by 7:30am, and all would be well with the world.

We left in the breaking daylight at 6:45a.m.  At 6:50a.m., Pseudo Sista was walking down West Shore Road to the cabin, to rouse Brother Dear from his slumber and request a tow.  And I was sitting in my Tahoe, stuck sideways in a drift.

I think cabin fever is officially settling in.  Send chocolate ice cream, greens, and backhoes.

2011.  Glacier County Honey Co. All Rights Reserved.

 

my trip to the grocery store

Now, in the “normal” realm of the blog-o-sphere (does such a realm exist?), I doubt that a trip to the grocery store is considered blog-worthy.  However, this winter has those of us on the 49th parallel in such an icy grip that what should be a routine jaunt for bread and beer has become an adventure.  As a result, I thought you might like to see what my journey to the grocery store entails these days.

First: I want to say that those of us near Babb are so very lucky to have Thronson’s General Store open this winter, Monday-Friday, for our basic grocery needs.

I am grateful to the Thronsons for staying open and therefore I try to buy at least my milk and eggs there every week.  Invariably, I also end up picking up a carton of yogurt, some vanilla puddin’ mix for rum cake, and a can of kidney beans, too, but a big grocery run is best done in Browning or Cut Bank, as each town boasts an actual grocery store.  Now, you won’t find fresh mozzarella or mangoes at either store, but that’s what Kalispell and Whitefish, 100 miles west of Browning, are for!

Browning boasts the closest grocery store to the Warehome, about a 75 mile round trip, depending on which road(s) is/are open.  Friday morning, Honeydew and I reviewed the forecast, noted the predicted gusting winds and existing heaps of sparkling snow lining Duck Lake Road and Hwy 89, and predicted that both roads would close over the weekend and that a trip to the Browning IGA was in order.  As it turned out, we were right regarding the road closure, and as I write this on Sunday afternoon, the roads are still closed.

Now, we probably have enough food stockpiled in our deep freezers, refrigerators, and pantries to last the winter through, to say nothing of a weekend, but a pregnant woman has certain needs, and mine include fresh spinach, fresh berries, fresh half-n-half, and fresh … ice cream.  It’ll’s calcium needs are skyrocketing in the 3rd trimester!  So off to Browning we went, the atmosphere in our pickup shot through with excitement: Honeydew’s, to see his beloved St. Mary valley in the sunshine.  Mine, to pick out a tempting ice cream flavor: red velvet cake? Dark chocolate truffle?  Peach?

We negotiated the first drifts of the day, which do not appear nearly as foreboding under sparkling sunshine as they do when the sky is unpolished pewter and the winds are howling like a pack of wolves.

The blacktop was in pretty good shape, all things considered, and we admired lower St. Mary Lake, Siyeh, Flatop, and Singleshot.

We took our daily detour to the post office, and I wondered aloud if mail delivery/pickup will ever be possible.  It sure would make running a mail-order business easier!  For now, I better count my blessings that we have a post office at all.  I consider it the lifeblood of the near Babb community, my portal to the outside world of Sephora, Anthropologie, and Nordstrom.

We dropped our garbage off at the dump, and debated adopting another dog.  JUST KIDDING.  Two are more than enough!  But if you need one, there are 2 good lookin’ dogs braving the negative temps with aplomb, along with a pack of non-good lookin’ dogs, too.

Finally, we got on 89S and began the trip to the grocery store in earnest.  We passed our loyal UPS driver, Harvey, whose work ethic is to be commended.

FedEx should take note, as they refuse to deliver packages to us if snow is on the ground.  So, unless you’re sending us something in July, please don’t send it FedEx.  If they do “attempt delivery,” they’ll generally just dump the package in a snowdrift near our house, anyway.  That’s hard on oranges and other Southern delicacies.  Electronics and yeast for brewing, too.  Just ask Brother Dear.

Unlike earlier this week, Hwy 89 was open, and we chugged our way up the hill to Divide Mountain, admiring the drifts on either side of the pickup.

Generally, the view into the St. Mary Valley/Logan Pass area is spectacular from this road, but the drifts are so high right now that much of the view is blocked!

Honeydew is generally pretty low key about winter, but even he kept pausing the pickup and urging me to take more pictures of the drifts, saying that it might be a while before we see them this high again.

To which I replied in my best Southern drawl, “fiiiiiiine by me!”

We stopped and chatted with the road crew, thanking them for their efforts to keep the roads open.

They’re weary of snow, too.

On the other side of Divide, the drifts were even more impressive.

As were the views south into Cut Bank Creek, Two Medicine, and the Bob Marshall Wilderness.

Forty-some miles later, we made it to Browning, where it appeared everyone in Glacier County was stocking up on groceries.

I got my spinach, my strawberries, my half-n-half, and my Truffle Shuffle ice cream.  Mmmmm.

And then we got back in the car and drove Duck Lake Road back home, making a loop of our trip.

There’s something about this stretch of road, just north of Browning, that always makes me want to roll down the window, to let my lungs expand with mountain air and dreams of possibility.  Considering that the temperatures were hovering at zero, I resisted this urge, but I always feel like I’m getting a glimpse into a future with no obstacles when I gun it down this part of Duck Lake Road.  It is a view I never tire of.

This picture is not so much out of focus as it is demonstrative of how the winds were beginning to blow as we left Browning.  The winds generally bring a new weather pattern with their power, in this case, a warm up from -30 to zero, but they also move the snow across the prairie and plug the roads with 10′ drifts, as these pictures have hopefully shown you.

Honeydew’s eagle eyes spotted a porcupine, out chewing branches in the arctic sun:

I was mighty glad our dumber-than-rocks dogs were not with us on this trip.  Pulling quills out of a hound’s nose is not my preferred way to while away an afternoon.

This is only my 2nd full winter near Babb, and so I still have much to learn about snow, and -30, and drifts, but I know enough to realize that I’m quite lucky to live on a flat dirt road also inhabited by the post master, whose presence at work is preferred by most all near Babb residents.  As a result, the county does plow my road – not frequently, and not often well, but better than this:

Our lovely friends and neighbors ranch up this road.  Do you see how the entrance is completely plugged, and the attempt to plow it abandoned?  They tell me that when the winds and the county plows combine to plug them out of their access to the highway, they “just cut across the prairie, where the winds blow most of the snow away.”  All I can say is that these fine folks are tough as nails, and Not Whiners.  I would be calling the county every hour on the hour to discuss the necessity of my yearly tax payment, if this was all I got for it.

Here’s a shot with the pickup in it, to give you an idea of just how tall the drifts along Duck Lake Road are:

Seventy-some miles later, our loop to Browning complete, the ice cream just starting to melt in the backseat, we turned back onto our road:

And it was good to be Warehome, sweet Warehome:

And that’s essentially what it’s like to get a winter ice cream craving near Babb.

2011.  Glacier County Honey Co.  All Rights Reserved.