A Quiet Morning in the Gallatins

It’s 5:00 AM and the world all around me is still. I creep toward the window to see flakes of snow gently floating down onto the road outside my hotel room. The scene is reminiscent of Fall in the Appalachians where I used to sneak out the window of my parents’ home as a kid and go play on the leaf-covered driving range down the road from where I grew up. I throw on my gear, grab my pack, and disappear into the moonlight trying not to wake my roommate.

The drive is a mix of caffeine-induced anxiety and a more generalized sense of adventure as I, a Southern boy, made my way across the frozen Montanan landscape for the first time. There are cars and trucks filling the road in a massive single-file line as I make my turn onto the Gallatin Mountain Range. I leave my spot in the steam-train of vehicles to turn onto a snow-entrenched bridge and pass over the river into 2-foot snowpack. A few fishtails and a half-mile of driving down the road leads me to a mostly empty parking lot where a truck is buried up to its tire well in powder and a trailer bed has white lace tracing across its rivets like henna tattoos.

I get out of the rental and begin making my first steps along the Gallatin riverside. My snowy path forces me to trudge with the cadence of a snare drum ringing sharp but short-lived tss-s as I move forward through snow as deep as my calves. Back home a night like this would leave the river and sections of the trail as the only visible objects in the world, but the frozen path and all of the surrounding mountain range is softly illuminated under the moonlight. It’s an hour before the sun will begin to rise but I can see as clear as any day.

After a mile and a half of pushing through the snow, I reach the trailhead. A kiosk reads “Thunder Castle” and “Bear Country” just as it did back in September. The only difference is where the sign used to be perfectly set at eye-level the text now stands no higher than my nipples on top of the frozen ground hidden somewhere between my feet and the powder. I take a breath in remembrance of my first time standing here (thanks Dev from Zocalo Coffee for the suggestion) and begin making my way up the mountain.

The snowfall picked up within my first few steps almost as if the Gallatins themselves were welcoming me into their domain. I’m not accustomed to wearing sunglasses before the sun was up, but they shielded my eyes from the snow and wind. There was zero snowpack here. The trail was visible, sure, but with not a single bootprint in any direction, I was gifted the very opportunity I was hoping for; trailblazing through real powder. Some sections of the trail were elusive and would appear to be level with the other pack but instead were booby-trapped with loose powder. Twice I fell off the trail and sunk over my head in fluff where it appeared there was ground. No problems there though. A few kicks into the mountainside with my microspikes and I’d find something to grab on to.

Garnet Mountain illuminated by moonlight

The trail was readable for the most part. Closer to the summit I lost sight of it and had to wander through mounds of powder in the general ‘up’ direction until I could once again establish a hiking trail which likely hasn’t been visible in months. The circular cut in the rock came into view as I made my way through the trees atop the mountain, and in an instant, the entire valley opened up to me. It was a dynamic scene of snow pillowing against the mountains below cut through by the river; a cold, black serpent which wound itself through the Gallatins withholding life from the corpses of trees which were set ablaze last Fall. I could see the Garnet Mountain hut appearing as a mere speck against the earthen skyscrapers and mounds of fluff that sit atop the cliffs. The color contrast was even more discerning than before. Sharp, jet blacks encompassed anything resembling earth and were buried in small mountains of white. This dichotomy encompassed all that was available on the entire color spectrum, yet hidden above the whitescape were glowing hues of sharp light that reflected off the snow as the sun began to rise above the valley. The cold didn’t bite per se but instead brushed against my cheeks like the hand of a beautiful woman as we said goodbye for the last time. The world itself ran its fingers through my hair as I stood amidst complete silence and solitude. This was my moment in heaven before Gabriel escorted me from the gates. And from heaven I fell.

My way back down the mountain came and went in an instant. My swift but heavy footsteps were broken only by the vocals of Tyler Childers accented by me belting winded harmonies to the empty world around me. Surely I’m the only person for miles who even knows what a holler is, and more likely the only one who thrives on vernacular so much that I’d sing that line twice. “Days are dark // Down in the holler.” His discography has become an integral part of my life on trail, but this morning I had no one to share it with. It was myself and the great white plains waiting for me to misstep so they could swallow me whole as I plummeted into oblivion, but today we played well together and there were no great falls to be had.

Came and went the cliff’s edge I had failed to backflip on (feet of snow makes this really difficult). Came and went the rock which hangs hundreds of feet above the river. Came and went the forest. Came and went the trailhead. Came and went the riverbed now brightly illuminated by the morning sun. Came and went thousands of my bootprints from just hours before. I was following myself back to my car. A ghost of my excitement and anticipation for the summit earlier that morning, and now I was walking the same steps feeling more fulfilled than in ages. This place is special. It bares the soul to the world and strips it of unnecessity.

Next Step: Arizona Trail. March 10th