"Personal Travelogues" by mrclay2000

Otherwise, despite all my former criticism on Cades Cove, its present aspect resolved itself into a pleasant realm of peace. The drive had now reached a quiet hillock, where over the intervening thicket of lifeless trees, the distant mountain ridge figured as a thoughtless shadow, its outline momentarily defined by a distant play of lightning. The only signs of movement in view, the charges overhead had captured not only my attention, but the notice of a solitary man outside his truck. With his arms folded, standing on a single leg with the other comfortably tucked behind, his eyes centered on nothing but the lights clawing through the heavens. By now at 8:52 p.m., the clouds had complete possession of the skies, and to announce the fact, strove to ignite the globe through angry discharges of lightning. A few minutes later, modest raindrops coincided with the end of my tour, as the donations box illumined in my beams.

'I think I'll be able to start a fire,' I said with a yawn, more prophetic than I realized at the time, 'but I don't know if I'll finish one.'

As I passed the ranger station in returning to the campground, the offices as expected were closed. Meanwhile, beyond a party of sorts at #B54, I pulled the car into its final berth at #B60, and with the heavens presently dry of tears, the preparations for a fire were soon underway. Flames were already brightening the rings of the Blonde Family and their neighbors, and opposite my side on the road, Mr and Mrs Caravanseray, after stretching a tarp entirely across their tent to prevent access to the merest drop, had also ignited a fire near their spacious canopy. At 9:03, with six or seven starter planks supporting a pair of thicker logs, I added my own blaze to a thriving number, and making the best of my distant bench, soon enjoyed the healing effects of the fire.

The dream, however, would soon go up in smoke. Before the atmosphere responded to the influence of the flames, the heralds overhead, long considered only for their theatrical effects, now spoke to my fire on more familiar terms. Within six minutes of its ignition, a tower of lightning cried its welcome above the surrounding trees, leaving a calling card in the form of a raindrop upon my table. This invitation to the elements soon collected momentum, and then numbers, as a series of drops began to plague my station, and moreover to extinguish my fire. By 9:10, the starters and planks were beyond my help as I sought for my own safety in the Prizm, where frightened and helpless, I watched the drowning of all the surrounding fires, and the extinction of all outdoor activity in the park.

During the advance I had ignored the recorder, an utterly inessential tool to my escape. With all my senses and energies focused on the task at hand, I could brook no interruptions. However, under a glimpse of blue sky during my frightened charge to the trailhead, I snatched up my recorder and described the horrendous tangles of cow parsnip through which I must climb “for a mile and a half.” All the while, I watched with agitated curiosity for the sign marking the final turn toward the park road. Suddenly, I rejoined the fateful Reynolds Creek Campground at 7:37, “not a moment too soon.” Its tied-off entrance, the reminder of incidents past, a chilling omen of the present, excited the terrible fear that grizzlies had closed the campground, and might be even now closing on the solitary hiker with the quivering bell.

A great dread was now upon me as I ached for safe quarters. The expected trailmarker rose just beyond the closed campground. “Thank God!” I shrilled in deep agitation. “Now I’ve got 2.5 km, about a mile and a half." Happy to be close, a jungle nonetheless separated me from the car, and the hardest climb of the park was before me. At this moment, the recorder disappeared into the camera bag, utterly silent thereafter. The trail rose swiftly, and with all the energy I could command, after a long and arduous hike of almost nineteen miles, I rose along with it.

Darkness closed around the forest, and snarled at me with the fatal breath of nightfall. All the animals I could imagine watched my frightened progress up the trail, ready to spring when my dread reached its height. As sweat burst upon my neck and brow, like an adhesive against my clothes, I pressed forward, cold and delirious. Every step carried me toward safety, yet every stumble infuriated my purpose. As the last antidote for fear, the bear bell rang louder than all the bells in Christendom.

I pressed forward, pushing up the path relentlessly. My lungs burned with the sting of the climb and my calves tightened in the surge. As much as I wanted to breathe loud and free, I wanted even more to know the clangor of the bell, to soothe the nerves which, after Reynolds Creek, imagined bears encircling my position. Each time my conscience awakened to the notion that all my footsteps hitherto had been safe and secure, I shook off the false mantle of security by bewailing my alarm through the bell.

Pausing to rest, coughing for air, I redoubled my efforts on the bell, as a counterpoise to inaction. Choking from the maddening ordeal, I pressed forward again, the best measure for safety shouldered by my relentless steps. My nerves were so fraught and my focus so narrow with the trail ahead, that if a hiker had approached or advanced from behind, I would have expired with surprise in the jungles of cow parsnip. Again I paused with my heart in my throat.

The ascent is too brutal, and my thoughts must have calm, yet the bell seems too polite to ward off the evil. I thrash it soundly, as if for disobedience. I am off again. Surely the end must come soon? Surely the highway approaches ahead, or the unseen beast at my right will pounce in the final attack? Something is there. There must be. Push forward Mike, and you shall find safety. Threaten with the whistle, break the bell, raise the dead — you must get through.

No, the task is too great, I cannot bear it. I will succumb to the trail and the scavenging beasts. The hike was beautiful, but I must have repose. Let me lie down.

The forest is a terrible sea of ebony. As my footsteps grow faint, and my spirit hungry for freedom and safety, the trail rises abruptly, along with my spirits as I sense the approaching highway. Some zigzags, a small switchback, and a small group of vehicles soon appear in view. It is over, and I am safe! The recorder captures my triumph. “Uhhh!” groaned I, happy and exhausted. “Back to the parking lot, back to the car, 8:05. Ohhhh! That was grueling! It was actually 2 km from the break-off — oh, grueling! Never again do I start a hike that long at 11:30!"

Through the simple doorway of its plain facade, I happened to step inside the opulent interior of San Carlo al Corso. Besides myself there were two others in the church, a priest and another man, seated, well-dressed, his head bowed. The priest had just leaned over the man to comfort him before standing erect and looking toward the entrance. My appearance (a tourist with camera bag) raised from the priest a smile of welcome. With this gesture I stepped forward, my neck arching up and backward at the gilt ceiling and magnificent architecture. Though dark inside I was about to attempt a full coverage with my camera, when it became fully apparent to me that the other man was crying inconsolably. He softly rocked in place, wringing his hands in abject grief, as if his heart were bursting. I, who had come to enjoy the beauty and splendor of the church, felt horribly misplaced before a supplicant who had come there for Divine healing. The difference in our circumstances struck me forcefully. The glory I had felt when entering now burned as a sense of shame. Neither I nor the camera had any business here. I turned quietly and walked straight out the door.

It was a cold night, blustery and unforgiving. Without food in many hours, my head began to pound, but my first night in Constantinople required at least a foray to the First Hill, the Blue Mosque and St Sophia. While admiring the former, a Turk paused, asking if I had been inside yet. I had not. He told me it was beautiful, and inquired of the imam whether guests were presently permitted. No. The last prayer was about to begin. Disappointed, I was invited as a consolation into their carpet shop down the street. Weary, curious and now with nothing to do, I accepted. We walked a few blocks away, and I was shown upstairs, seated, and welcomed. My ushers slipped silently out, leaving me in the possession of a long-haired gent. With the help of another man, the next hour formed a parade of carpet and industry lore, the meticulous weaving and family practices, the dyes and knots and wools. My head pounded worse throughout. I showed no interest in the tea that I myself had requested, or the first two dozen carpets that they unfurled and piled on the very floor. The hereke failed to impress me. No product teased out the cash from my pockets.

I began to sense a look of impatience if not irritation from my hosts. The long-haired man drew up, his associate at his side. "Kill him," he commanded.

I gulped.

What I took as the order for my liquidation was in fact a call for the kilim, another rug, and the show went on!

It was my fifth day in the park. My first four days on Glacier's west side had used Apgar campground on the Lake McDonald shore as my homebase. This morning I had transferred camp to the east side at Rising Sun on the shore of St Mary Lake, and now I was hiking the Iceberg Lake trail from the Many Glacier hub. Signs on the MG entrance road had said not to "feed the sheep," a good indication of the presence of bighorn, the animal I had come to see. At the trailhead, a warning in orange blaze above and beyond the obligatory warning about grizzlies told that the bears "frequented the area traversed by this trail," a banner given only to their most notorious haunts.

An hour into the hike, the two people ahead of me quietly took a break and sat down. As I came up I looked beyond them and saw two bighorn rams on the hillside. My first sighting occurred quietly, yet photographers and zoom lenses shortly crowded the trail.

Some fifteen minutes after being spotted, the rams shifted position. One stepped onto a prominence and looked down at the photographers, suddenly realizing that his partner had started scampering down the mountain. He followed suit, the two bounding down in tandem on a slope impossible for the human foot. So quick had been their descent that I could barely put away the camcorder for my camera. They were now on the trail! The closest man toppled on his behind, his 300mm lens too close to the rams to get off a single shot. With just the right luck and preparation, I had a full roll ready to cover the two rams now approaching my position. Offering their profiles as they reclimbed the hill a few yards away, they ventured over the horizon and disappeared, a fleeting encounter for the camera but a permanent place in my album.

From here, Nick (VT's kaloz) guided us across the street to the Alutiiq Museum and Archeological Repository. Housed in a modern structure and unknown to my previous readings, the museum held little interest for me, but conducted by Nick’s enthusiasm as well as his purse, the three of us ventured inside. After Nick paid my two dollars admission, we learned how photography was not covered by the cost, so the one hope that supported my steps was suddenly grounded after entry. Of the museum itself we found little to bolster our expectations. Panoramic photos depicting indigenous life covered most of the walls, and the shelves were stocked with relics and tools quite paltry in comparison with the Baranov Museum. Sharing their space with silly puppets and foolish masks in the adjoining gift shop only made the holdings more ridiculous.

Had photography been openly invited, the camera would still have begged to slumber in the bag, but for all this the museum offered one lasting surprise. From the moment of our arrival, a television was playing a National Geographic special called “Kodiak: Home of the Giant Bears,” something barely noted in our ongoing mockery of the rest. Nonetheless I recognized the program from its inaugural airing, but I had been as appalled with the program's lack of bears as I was now appalled with the museum. The star of the film (as I well recollected) was a Native American born on Kodiak Island, who (like his ancestors) took a solo trek into the backcountry to fulfill a tribal custom, some right of passage or manhood, or perhaps a test of courage. In 1994 when I first viewed the film, I had no knowledge of bears or bear awareness, but I knew of Kodiak, and I viewed the man’s trek as a wilful search for his own destruction. As matters within the museum regressed, Nick spoke of introducing the curator, a Harvard graduate named Sven Haakensen, who at present was busily engaged in his office. When he appeared, I found myself face-to-face with a short man who seemed strangely familiar, when my memory and the moment collided – the curator was no other than the venturer on the film, the Kodiak native whose footsteps I would shortly follow! The scorn I had reserved for the museum now beamed into a bright smile in the presence of such a celebrity, and no sooner did I shake his hand and mention my recollection of him in the film did my mind strike upon a bold idea. Photography was impermissible within the museum, but no obstacles stood in the way of my commemorating our meeting in the form of a handshake outside. Sven, good-natured fellow that curators must be, instantly applauded this idea, when the storm of calls that suddenly pulled him away likewise robbed the billow from my sails. Our interests now elsewhere, the museum a bust, we slowly tended toward the exit and even gained the outer steps, when Sven suddenly appeared with a genuine smile. Now liberated from his office, he followed my directive to meet at the museum sign, and there we performed another tribal custom for my lens, a mark of good fellowship in a hearty handshake.