Terran Greenfield

About a year back, my brother and I decided that we should take time off of home education to go and see the world. Initially, our plan was Europe: lovely Scotland and Ireland, but soon realized after the lamentable events of the attempted assassination on former President Trump’s life, that there were enough twisted and encouraged people here in America to impede our way home, and decided to instead see the great National Parks. Living up north, we resolved to begin with Glacier, and make our way eastbound, and down, to Wyoming, Montana, South Dakota, and, eventually D.C.

Our first long drive from home was sentimental. I pushed down some early homesickness with a podcast on the Wendigo, and, some of C.S. Lewi’s “Out of the Silent Planet“. We stopped by a spring halfway through to fill up on ten gallons of water. I’m not sure how many people know that there’s free, clean, spring water all around America you can just take. Awfully convenient for us guys on a budget. We camped below Blanckenship Bridge, 15 minutes from Glacier’s west entrance, again, for free. It’s called dispersed camping, and we’ll be doing it a lot on our trip. We enjoyed a cold, but delicious dinner of roasted chicken and thawed out, frozen Kodiak waffles, and I prophesy this cheap meal will be a cornerstone in our lengthy trip East. For the two of us, it was essentially 7 bucks, and about 40 grams of protein.

Waking up, our first activity was guessing where these great mountains of Glacier were, and how they were so effectively hidden from us. I still marvel at how the sheer grandeur and majesty of these mountains could hide at all. We took the “Going to the Sun Road” up the mountainsides to reach Logan Pass, and take on a 14 mile trek. After spending a half-hour trying, and barely missing, to get a parking spot, we retreated back down the mountain and parked roadside to a small, dried-up creek/waterfall that climbed up and out of sight. The rocks had formed mismanaged steps of various sizes that we stumbled up to reach the Highline Trail. We’d cut a mile out of it by getting on the trail this way, and cost ourselves a lot of cherished oxygen at this altitude, but had achieved our mission: We were on the trail. The rest of the afternoon was spent walking, talking, and singing the occasional song that came to mind on the hike. It was a great experience, and I got my fill for life of groundhogs and squirrels.

With very weary legs, we went back to camp, had our fill of chicken and waffles, and rested our bodies. The next day, we decided on hiking Avalanche Lake, which happened on a whim, but was one of our best choices. The place is gorgeous, with twin waterfalls, a lake as smooth and glassy as a mirror, and a rich mountain scape that wheels upwards to the sky in a race to Heaven. In a word: epic. We waded into the lake and had our lunch on two rocks poking out of the icy, shallow water. By the time we were back at camp, the heat of the day was in full swing, and we took a swim in the Flathead River running by our camp. Tonights menu: rice, beef tips, and gravy with a waterbottle full of spring water.

Mounrfully, we decided we had to get some real work done, and drove to the nearest public library. Call it exploitation, but we sat there for about five hours, charging all our batteries, electronics, and headphones. This was also where we got our first bothersome incident. For context, we run a card game company, and as the artist, I use a drawing tablet to get my work done. It was forgotten. Hundreds of miles from home, I did what I could on the sketch. Still, praise God for public libraries.

Here’s some pictures from Glacier:

Views from Highline:

Avalanche Lake: