There are waterfalls running down the bowl into the lake in at least three different places, and even across the length of the lake the din of the tumbling water is a constant presence. While we were hiking it was cloudy and humid, but the clouds cleared a bit while we were at the lake.

There were two chipmunks there that have been completely habituated to people because moronic tourists feed them, so they were climbing all over the rocks we were sitting on, and even climbed on us a bit. Ran over our shoes a few times and once one chipmunk was so bold as to climb up on my leg. Cute, but creepy too; I’d prefer not to get rabies, thanks. Peanut thought it was the funniest thing, of course. When I was very little I called chipmunks “dirt mice” and perhaps we will continue that tradition with Peanut.

There was a beautiful Steller’s Jay flying around the lakeshore while we were there, too, and Big Country got a nice photo of it perched on a beached log.

We typically only hike to Avalanche Lake once a year, or not even that often, because it’s overrun with people, being one of the most popular hikes in the park, and today we saw a whole lot of people. But we enjoyed the hike anyway, and started keeping a tally of the number of people who commented on Peanut’s backpack being the way to hike, as opposed to using one’s legs.

On the drive to the lake and back, of course, there were thousands of beargrass (Xerophyllum tenax) blooms in their ghostly glory to be seen through the pine trees. Beargrass bloom in 5- to 7-year cycles, and in clusters. This year is already a great beargrass year; I saw more beargrass today than I have since I first moved to Montana in 2009 (which was also a great beargrass year). And in doing a little beargrass research, I discovered that beargrass is in important part of the fire ecology in alpine regions; the rhizome roots of beargrass aren’t killed by the fire, which allows the plant to bloom again after fire sweeps the area, clearing dead foliage. Beargrass is a lovely plant (don’t pick the blooms! the plant won’t ever bloom again if you do!), and I love seeing the milky flowers contrasting against the dark trunks of the trees.

Here’s my mom (left), yours truly (middle), and my sister (right) at the overlook of the waterfall. Family resemblance?

And here are my boys in the same spot. What lovely boys they are, too.

Somebody let a prankster loose with a permanent marker on the trail, and that person had all sorts of funny things to say (including ridiculous bovine-themed haikus). This is one example.

It’s a very easy trail, but a very beautiful one too. I love the hush of cedar grove, the humidity those trees create beneath their canopies, the sound of birdsong from branches distant.

A few weeks ago I went on a great walk with my friend Flannery. We explored an old homestead (now vacation rental), and enjoyed a wonderful walk through big meadows and beside still-white mountains. We watched a herd of elk move across the meadow and into the trees.

Those peaks never fail to amaze me. What beautiful mountains. Those white peaks in their imposing, monumental, wind-swept, snow-covered splendor. I run out of adjectives every time. I think there are just some things that language cannot describe. Some things are just meant to be gawked at, to be enjoyed on a primal level. To be connected to as a child of this planet connects to the earth.

Turning around from the mountains, you can see that this valley has experienced fire. Fire is good for forests. It rejuvenates the land, and did you know for many pine cones to germinate they need to be burned? Fire is part of the ecosystem here. It’s always painful to think about how might those burnt forests must have been, though, when all that remains is charred lodgepole trunks. Someday again, there will be forest.

And even though this part of the world can be very remote, it is also touched by humanity. This was a homestead, many years ago. A family struggled to make a living here through winters harsh and howling, through summers bright and bountiful. Hard people making a hard way, but in one of the most magnificent places on the planet. That family still owns the property, by the way. The homestead has made way for a vacation rental now, but at least the place is still enjoyed and that view is still appreciated. I will always wish that the land were still worked, but that isn’t this piece of land’s destiny, at least not right now.

For now, this wagon will gather moss and make for pretty lawn art. The wheels will sink into ruts and eventually the earth will reclaim the wooden spokes and the iron rims. Everything in this life is eventually reclaimed, you know. The earth is one heck of a great recycler.

After our walk, we retired to Flannery’s rented summer cabin. Like all cabins in this part of the world, there’s no electricity save for generators. Heat comes from the wood stove which comes from the wood you chopped and split. Chopping wood is great fun, great exercise, and I can’t say enough about its virtues. Go chop some wood, people.

We were also warmed by some strong coffee spiked with whiskey and with excruciatingly rich chocolate cake Flannery baked. Flannery is a world-class baker, after all.

We followed our chocolate snack with some gypsy stew, bread, and wine for dinner, eaten by candlelight (because there’s no electricity, remember?).

While I obviously enjoy the perks of electricity, I do love getting away from it too. I think there’s something in all of us that yearns for the simplicity of a life lived close to the earth, and without distractions like television and Internet. Of course that simple life did lack things like coffee, easily procured beautiful yarn, and blogs. And I would greatly miss those things.

It’s about balance people. Do some soul balancing and get outside. There is a big, beautiful world out there for exploring. The Internet will be there when you get back, but the glaciers will be gone if you tarry too long at your computer screen.

Here’s my boys at St. Mary Falls. Jonathan was pretty into watching the waterfall. This was a good hike for us. It ended up being about three miles round-trip, which is about six miles too short for Shawn and I, but a good length for our little Peanut. Next summer we’re planning to do some longer hikes with him.

St. Mary Falls sure is beautiful. For a waaaaay better photo, check this out.

We didn’t quite make it to Virginia Falls, but we did spend a nice fifteen minutes hanging out on the rocks on an unnamed cascade along Virginia Creek.

After the hike, we drove home over the Going-to-the-Sun Road (we’d taken Marias Pass on the way to the east side). Here’s the view from almost on top of Logan Pass, looking east.

Of course the menfolk began the camping trip with the necessary task of building the fire (and also spent the rest of the evening doing the unnecessary task of tinkering with the fire constantly… if I’ve learned anything in my life, it’s that Nebraska men are stubborn and ornery and you can’t tell ‘em a thing, so tinker on, boys!)

My mother-in-law, my son, and I had the important task of managing the fire building.

This photo was clearly taken BEFORE trying to sleep in a tent with a baby. We were happier campers in the evening than in the morning (though it was still fun, regardless).

Dinner was delicious. Can’t beat a Nebraska steak.

Here’s my husband in his natural habitat: Enjoying whiskey by the fire while camping.

After dinner we put Jonathan down to sleep in the tent. We put our sleeping bags on either side of the little nest we made for Jonathan out of blankets and quilts. I wasn’t comfortable putting him in a sleeping bag because I didn’t want him to scoot down inside it and have trouble breathing. Shawn and I knew it would be an interesting night, though, because the three of us don’t sleep well in the same room, er, tent. Jonathan has never shared a room with us, so we tend to wake each other up when we share a room.

As I always do when camping, I purposefully didn’t drink much water so I wouldn’t have to get up and go to the bathroom in the middle of the night. I always get creeped out at night when camping, though it’s a bit silly to think I’m safer in the tent than outside of it. If the bear wants to eat me, he’ll just come in the tent to get me. Alas, that little avoid going to the bathroom plan failed. Jonathan woke up about 3 a.m. and had to be nursed back to sleep. And then of course I had to go to the bathroom. But my thoughtful husband kindly set off the car alarm on accident and scared all of the critters in a 10-mile radius away so it was safe to stumble down to the vault toilet. He also woke the entire campground, I think. Though come morning we overheard the camp host berating some Australians (yes, they had the flag) for leaving their food outside all night (that’s pretty idiotic in bear/cougar/wolf country), and decided we saved the Australians from being some bear’s midnight snack.

Jonathan woke back up about 6 a.m. screaming and again we awoke the entire campground (I’m sorry!). As you can see from the picture below I’m not quite as happy a camper as I was the night before. Jonathan, however, is his smiley self.

So that was our camping trip. We are looking forward to camping with our son in the future, but I think we’re going to wait another year or two for the next trip.

We took Jonathan on his first hike in Glacier National Park this past weekend. First we drove most of the way up the Going-to-the-Sun Road. The photo above is of Bird Woman Falls. The photo below is of Haystack Falls, another waterfall along the route.

We wanted to go to the top, to Logan Pass, and look around for a while at all the snow still up there, but with the construction we ended up just sitting for a while in an enormous line of cars before we said to heck with it. That’s how it rolls when you’ve got a baby who is hungry and who doesn’t want to be in his car seat anymore. So, improvising, we decided to go on a hike instead. We are trying to get Jonathan used to being in the backpack. We are doing this by taking longer and longer hikes with him, working him up to being in the backpack for a few hours at a time.

We decided to do the Johns Lake hike. It’s short and sweet and it did seem like the perfect amount of time for our son. At the beginning of the hike we could tell he was very interested in all the trees. It occurred to us that while walking through the trees is completely quotidian to us, to Jonathan is was an entirely new experience. Would that I could approach things with such wonder with more frequency in my own life. Having a baby certainly helps with that! We hiked to the lake and kept going to the underpass that goes under Going-to-the-Sun Road and comes out along McDonald Creek.

Remember to wonder, people. Look at something you’ve seen before with new eyes, the eyes of an infant. Contemplate something average in your life and make it wonderful. It’s a refreshing experience.

Of course he loved it. See? What a happy boy. We think he enjoyed seeing the lake. He’s really started to LOOK at things, to take them in. It’s a very cool thing to watch him learn.

While we were there, I snapped this photo of two tree swallows hanging out by the lake.

Today Jonathan will be baptized into the United Methodist Church. Though I want Jonathan to someday make his own decisions about his relationship with God, he will be raised in the church. I will give him the jumping off point, and he can find his own spot to land. Our pastor suggested we get some water from a local body of water (northwest Montana is a lake district) that holds special significance. So of course we chose Bowman. We filled a mason jar with water flowing from the lake into Bowman Creek, at the lake’s end and the creek’s beginning. We are passing on the significance of this place to our son, but want him to experience his own journey. We are the lake, he is the creek.

Shawn and I decided that we’re going to start an annual camping trip with our children (yes, we’re planning on another kiddo… but not for a while so don’t get all excited!) at Bowman Lake. We want to share that special place with them. Of course we’ll go other places in Glacier Park, but we’ll always visit Bowman (how convenient that the Polebridge Merc and its amazing huckleberry turnovers are on the way!). Shawn and I want to teach our children to be stewards of the land. We want them to feel the same sense of wonder we do in the forests of Glacier National Park, and in the grasslands of Nebraska. We hope to teach our children that they are a part of the world, unique and wonderful, but also tiny, ethereal, and only existing but a moment in the grand stretch of time.

But moving on… a few weeks ago now I had the opportunity to go on a snowshoe hike on the Apgar Lookout trail in Glacier National Park with Ryan Alford, publisher of Snowshoe Magazine.

Here are some gals we met on the trail. They came over from Browning (though they have scads of snow in East Glacier) for a day hike. We also saw another couple. And, sssshhh, don’t tell, but we didn’t make it to the top. Neither did anybody else we saw that day. I’ll blame it on the “considerable avalanche danger” and just plain wussing out (hey! the snow was like waist deep even with snowshoes!). But enough about me, let’s talk about some snowshoes.

I was handed a pair of snowshoes by the lovely Hilary at Outside Media (She said “test drive?”.  I said “yes, please!”). Easton Artica Hike snowshoes to be exact, a pair that won’t hit the market until 2012.

First of all, I’ve noticed a trend. Women’s snowshoes are pink. Metallic magenta to be exact. Not that I have a problem with that, nope not at all. But I guess pink is the new… pink? Anyway, I traded my Atlas Elektra 11 Series snowshoes (you guessed it… also pink) for a date with the Artica pair.

The first thing I noticed (besides the color) was the articulating frame. Is it just me, or are you wondering why no one else thought of this sooner? Pretty dang bright whoever thought that up. The frame of each snowshoe is actually two pieces held together in the front and back, which allows the snowshoe a little more “give” and “twist,” easing up the pressure on knees and ankles.

I also noticed (especially when we were descending a 45-degree ridge) the crampon under the heel for that “aggressive rear traction” Easton Mountain Products touts. Worked like a dream on some slippery snow (soft powdery snow on top of a slick layer… hence the “considerable avalanche danger” warning) and got me down the hill way faster than I would have otherwise been comfortable (yes, I’m poky). The flotation on the Artica shoes was great.

I had no trouble with the decking, but Ryan did. He wore a pair of men’s Artica Hike snowshoes and his decking actually tore on the test run. Not a terrible tear, but something I’d be hopping mad about if it happened to me and I’d paid for the ‘shoes.

I loved the binding. My feet didn’t move at all, letting the snowshoes do the work for me and saving me energy. That’s my big gripe with my Elektras — my feet are always coming loose. I think the fact that the cinch is made from fabric and not plastic really helps. It doesn’t slide on itself so easily.

A bell/whistle of the snowshoes were the front crampons. Instead of just one single crampon, each ‘shoe has a split crampon that pivots, allowing more traction on one side of the ‘shoe than the other. Nifty, but I didn’t notice a difference from my regular M1-A1 crampons. Perhaps if we’d had more sloped terrain to walk along instead of up and down I would have noticed.

Did I mention that the snowshoes are 80 percent recyclable? As a person who considers herself very eco-conscious and “green,” it’s important to me that what waste I produce doesn’t sit in a dump for half-life of uranium (which is like 4 billion years if you’re wondering). Although I don’t know why exactly you’d want to recycle your snowshoes — in my experience they last a long time. Or if they wear out, you toss ‘em in the garage for 50 years, then take ‘em to an antique store and make more money on ‘em than you paid in the first place!

Really, I had just three problems with the Artica snowshoes.

1.) Didn’t solve my “snowshoe hip” problem. By about five miles into the nine-mile hike my hips were definitely starting to smart. My Elektra snowshoes don’t solve this problem either. I’d be tempted to say it’s just me, but I know lots of women with “snowshoe hip” issues. Easton attempts to solve this problem with snowshoes that curve in, becoming thinner, in the back. This keeps the shoes from knocking together and helps prevent a person from walking like they just got off a 10-mile trail ride on a fat horse. However, my “snowshoe hip” issues persist.

2.) Weight. The 7075 aluminum frame was a bit on the heavy side. Definitely felt heavier than my Elektras and that made a lot of difference when we were going up a 45-degree hill.

3.) My biggest problem? Giving them back. Wish I could’ve kept ‘em forever! I tried to tell Hilary they were going to a good home, but no, Backpacker Magazine or some such rooks had to take ‘em next.

Alright, this post is getting near epically long, so I’ll keep it brief. Just one more shout-out to this baby:

(This photo either screams “product placement!” or it’s nifty and artsy… you choose.)

I took my brand new Hydro Flask water bottle with me on the snowshoe hike. I’ve always been a Nalgene fan, but I’ve got to hand it to my bright orange buddy here, Hydro Flask has got me converted. While Nalgene holds more water (and it went on the hike too, holding water), the orange water bottle above got filled with steaming hot chocolate at 8 a.m. And was still mostly warm at noon. Did I mention it was -7 degrees outside? So cold my Nalgene’s lid froze shut. And started forming ice cubes. The Hydro Flask kept the hot chocolate not hot, but at least warm until lunch time when I appreciated the sugar rush and the warmth. And I like that it’s orange. For someone as clumsy as me, it’s good to know that if I dropped it in a snowdrift, I’d be able to find it!

Oh, and MAJOR props to Hydro Flask for its fivepercentback.org initiative. Hydro Flask donates 5 percent of every sale to the non-profit of your choice when you enter the code on the sticker on the bottom of the water bottle. My choice? Well, I vacillated between NPR (since Congress seems hell-bent on getting rid of it and everything else good in life) and the American Hiking Society. But since I recently donated to NPR, I chose the Hiking Society. Got to support the good things in life!

All-in-all, a day well spent. The snow was luscious and powdery, the skies brilliantly blue, the company good.

Note: I wasn’t paid or perk’d for testing the snowshoes or water bottle and writing this blog post. Just my honest-to-goodness opinions in the name of awesome snowshoeing!

And I’ve got to say that I’m pretty darn proud of this picture. I love the play of tree shadows on the undulating, untouched snow. There wasn’t a whole lot of color in the photo to begin with so I took it to black and white. I think I just might get this one framed. We were snowshoeing along the Apgar Lookout trail (more coming on that in the next day or two!) and one of the other people on the trip remarked at how much he loved the look of the untouched snow. Certainly gorgeous.

Here is a view of the Canyon, as well as Columbia and Teakettle mountains (on the left and right respectively). The clouds moved in a bit, which was a bummer since it was all blue, sunny skies until we reached the summit, but thankfully the ceiling was high and I still got some great shots.

Here’s a view of some Great Bear Wilderness peaks with partial snow ghosts in the foreground. The views from the summit of Desert Mountain were spectacular. There’s a reason the snowmobile ride up there is called “the poor man’s helicopter.”

Glacier National Park peaks in the distance.