Next Flood

May 22^nd

I’m back in West Glacier, listening to Paul play his mandolin after a long day of driving and more prep work. There’s something about bluegrass that sounds so good when you’re up here. I give it a lot of shit back home, where all the trustafarian (spelling?) neo-hippies over play live albums and have their banjos alone in the corner of their house on their way to becoming miss and mister Missoula… I really don’t mind it, and it’s actually growing on me.

I cut up 210 more feet of barbed wire this afternoon and started preparing our field repair bags for the season. All 18 of them include a jar of nails, staples, yellow markers, tree number tags and a fence tool, and it will be added to our already heavy packs.

I was wrong when I though there would be nothing to do before the field season. Everyday I get more things to put on my to do list: test gear, finish repair bags, another mile to go on the barbed wire and then wrap the wire to put in our backpacks.

I can’t get over the fact that this summer is going to be intense, and it looks like the nice weather is going to end, onwards to flood season.

May 24^rd

It’s getting close. Thursday, I’ll be off to the Cabinet/ Yaak to kick of the new project in that ecosystem to see if grizzlies still live in the traditional habitat. It will be a nine day hitch with Ken Honeycutt, who’ll be leaving the amphibian crew to join me. We’ll be based out of the Troy, Mont. Ranger Station, taking day hikes into the mountains, which is good, because the forcast looks to be rainy, very rainy. They’re expecting over an inch for Thursday.

The Flathead area papers have been covering flood watches constantly. The only thing that may contend with the number of front page stories is Obama and Israel’s Netanyahu trading punches on a peace deal and of course, wolves. The entire state is covered in water. 50 miles of Interstate 90 has been closed outside Billings for floods and even Missoula has daily flood watches.

Today, was the first day of no sunshine, but the temperature was still pleasant, and that made the wire cutting comfortable to say the least. My hands are beat up from those damn barbs. Almost every snip recoils back into my fingers and wrists, but I’m making progress. I’m done with my first coil (1,320 ft.). There’s still a long way to go. I’ve been constantly doing prep work, but more keeps getting added. The dilemna has shifted from there's nothign to do, to can I actually finish all of this in time for training June 10th?  

The eight hour day also included finishing the repair kits and started printing field envelopes for the bear hair samples.

I’m still looking forward to training, so everyone can get here. It’s still quite lonely in the House of Many Doors. Paul was here last night, but left for Missoula. It sure aint the same as the constant traffic I’m used to, running through the 831.

Tonight, I think I’m getting out. I’m sick of PBR and reading every night. Vancouver has a chance to clinch a spot in the Stanly Cup Finals, so I think a trip into Whitefish is in order.

Cheers,

Beaz_

Carry Me Home

What am I doing?! I'm back in Missoula, already?

I found out at 5 pm that it was the weekend. Last summer I worked nine day hitches with five days off in between, but I guess early season work schedules the typical five day work week. I weighed the pros and cons of staying in the cabin and working over the weekend, but my sister's coming home from school, and I'd rather not slay my hands on anymore barbed wire. I could use the break.

My first two days were as monotonous as I expected. The first task consisted of cutting 2,600 yellow markers into 2" x 1.5" rectangles, and if that wasn't slow enough, I now have to cut 1.5 miles of barbed wire into 1 ft. Amy, the project manager, asked with a laugh if I got my tetanus shot, and I found out soon that it was not a laughing matter. As soon as she walked away I gashed my finger and had to make my usual make-shift bandage of paper towel and hockey tape. And a few feet of wire later I look like I'm a cutter with a nice slice in the wrist.

But the work will pay off. Amy's hinting that I will be able to do an early season hitch into the temperate rainforest of the Cabinet/ Yaak range outside Libby before the rest of the interns arrive the second week of June. Although I will have to carry the barbed wire and yellow markers I'm chopping up at the moment and nail them into the trees.

Next week will be long with a lot more pre work to be done, but I'm looking forward to it. I've also been talking to the leaders of the project, and they've given me the go ahead to work on my long-

form feature documentary on the Bear Crew. I don't think I understand how much work there is to be done to produce a documentary but oh well, I think it's what I want to do with my degree sometime in the future. So might as well start now.

Well, now that I'm home, I should get off here and do something. My room's replacement Clare Stolberg and I need to do some more rum drankin', too bad it's not Bundaberg. Yes, Michael Capozzoli, withdrawals indeed. Sailor Jerry will have to do.

cheerio,

Beaz_

Sun in an Empty Room

Yeah, you could say I'm back in Glacier Park. I’m in bed, reading by the light of my headlamp as Paul, from the Amphib Crew, is strumming his mandolin along with the light bluegrass coming from the old boom box in the other room.

It’s quiet around here. The “House of Many Doors” Bear Crew coined (eight of ‘em) only hosts three of us, and tomorrow Paul and Amphib Crew leader, Blake, will be leaving. Tomorrow, I also uncover what I will be doing for the next month, as the flooding Flathead River and snow packed mountain passes prohibits us from anywhere above 4,000 ft in the park.

But you can feel the May sun warming up West Glacier. There were only a few lightly scattered clouds and highs made it to above 70 degrees. I took a five mile bike ride into Apgar and Lake McDonald on a mountain bike that is in desperate need of a tune up. Apparently, the day the Bio Techs left last year a snow storm covered it, and snow remained until last week. So I had to pump its tires and only take it at cruising speed, so the rusted chain wouldn’t break off.

The park’s roads were virtually empty, and the only disturbance to the quiet village was the few employees preparing to open their shop doors this weekend. Oh, and of course the Floridians with their stealth black Hummer that passed me on Highway 2.

I’m told May plays tricks on the park. The sun shines all day, and the wildlife sing and play as if it’s late July, but come June, the rains will come. Hopefully these are lies, because I’m enjoying the spring weather. It’s something we never experienced last May and June.

But if the warm weather comes too soon, it’s obvious that there will be serious consequences. There are places in the park list 800 percent above average snowpack, and the places that read only 200 percent, may usually have 150 inches at this point, but now have 300, so it’s all relative. Looking from the southern shores of lake McDonald, you can see the pure white peaks of Brown, Clements and Stanton, which circle the lake. It’s gorgeous, yet intimidating, thinking ahead to what the summer will hold. I only have a couple weeks before I’ll be crossing creeks and rivers flooding their banks and hiking into those passes that are impenetrable until late July and August.

Folks around here are already comparing the winter to 1994, and I guess they still talk a lot about that winter.

All I know is that tomorrow will tell what this month holds. I have the whole cabin, little responsibility and days to relax and clear my head from last semester, although I’m already thinking about journalism. Nerding out.



Cheerio,

Beaz_

gone to earth

"I don't want to be a guru or a kung fu master or a spiritual dictator. I don't want to become a sorcerer or learn the zen of archery or mediate or align my charkas or uncover incarnations. I am after something else entirely, but it's not in the Yellow Pages or anywhere else I can uncover."

This is an excerpt from Ishmael by Daniel Quinn, a novel of socratic dialogue between a man and a gorilla named Ishmael, about man's struggle of conquering the Earth and its potential consequences in doing so. But this quote has some personal meaning, as I look into this summer.

I hereby pick up where I left off last summer after trekking through the savannah and rainforests of Oz and the backcountry of Glacier Park, hopefully with less drunken rants.
There's no Bundaberg in the States; I'm still having withdrawals.

I'm now a senior. And I know I'm not the only one with the future on my mind. It's graduation at the university, and countless classmates, friends and people I have never met are leaving the confines of the learning institution we call college. Onwards to some unknown adventure or planned career. Some have gained tools for tomorrow, and others, I'm not sure how they managed to walk this afternoon and earn a diploma.

But who am I to talk? I still have another year to survive.

I completed the most difficult year of school. Not because of the intensity of the work load. It was a constant battle between motivation and apathy; the will to get the degree or ditching life in Missoula for some metaphysical odyssey. But I'm glad I made it. This semester reminded me of why I am here, and I'm on my way to becoming a journalist, for reasons I'm not quite sure.

I don't want to work for a daily, a weekly, radio or television broadcast. I don't want to write about politics, the environment, city council or culture all the time; only sometimes. I don't want to corrupt or lose myself in the system, but I want to be successful. Some days I love this town, others I wish I will never set sight on it again.
It's a recipe for a fence-sitter.
and I'll have to deal with it.

I leave Tuesday for West Glacier with nothing but pockets of unanswered questions. Who and what will I meet? Where will I live? Holy shit I'm not packed or have my supplies: will I get that done in time? What will I be doing? What happens if I'm being stalked by a cougar or am face to face with a Grizzly?

I'm not ready. I haven't done anything but stress and study and write and pass and fail, drink and be awkward. I am not in shape or know what poisonous plants, unpredictable weather or hungry animal I'll encounter. And for some reason I don't care. I don't want to know until it happens.

I'm currently finishing my last weekend working the job I've had since I was 15. I will no longer be cursing every mall walker, teenie bopper, obnoxious employee from down the corridor who walks in and looks at the TV in the floor and say "WOW-WEE! look at that TV in the ground," or order energy drinks or ask me why I don't have American Football playing on the plasma screen. I will not have to eat Subway, Noodle Express or Hoagieville or sit inside this shop when the sun is shining outside, and all I have are fluorescent lights sapping my soul and blinding my eyes.
I am now an editor at the school newspaper and a U.S. Geologic Survey intern.

This is where I'll be writing my thoughts, my opinions, my rants about where I'll be this summer. A summer of hiking miles and miles, observing plants, animals and nature of one of the most pristine parks in the world, and it's in my backyard.

This is my intro with sappy words and no interesting content, so here's a photo that's nice to look at.

cheers,


beaz_