Saturday, July 18 Bad News From Home

It was an early a.m. at the Parker tent city.





I got up at 6:10 and there were lots of people up and about already. Deb was an angel and had a coffeepot on a timer so there was hot coffee when we woke up!

It was time to say some goodbyes – the Stewarts and Johnson and others were headed back to MN, Heather to Oregon and many of us back to the park.  Bill, Kathy, Jason, Dan, Bruce and I reconvened at Montana Coffee Traders in Columbia Falls for a delicious breakfast.  I'd heard great things about this place but had never been there.  The coffee was indeed fabulous and the food was pretty good too.  Then it was time to head to West Glacier to meet up with the people from The Glacier Fund, who were coordinating the tree planting.



We met at park headquarters (where I'd never been), divided into fewer cars and headed up to the Loop, a spot on Going To The Sun Road.  The Loop trail leads to Granite Park Chalet.  That is where we were going to be planting trees.

The trees we were planting were purchased by many of us in memory of Miranda, a friend who tragically lost her battle with leukemia at the young age of 27.  Jason, her husband, was with us and had coordinated this so some of the trees could be planted when many of us were in the park.

Kathy, Rebecca and I stopped at the bathrooms before heading up and were stopped by a volunteer who wanted to ask us some questions about the park and our use of the shuttle system, etc.  One question was "are you here with friends or family?".  We, of course, answered "friends who are LIKE family".

We got shovels, pails and trees

and headed the short distance up the Loop trail to our planting site.  They had chosen this spot not knowing that Miranda's favorite mountain in the park was Heaven's Peak, a prominent landmark in this section of the park.  You can see it looming above the area where the trees were planted (and behind me in the above photo).

I had a tree to plant so I dug the hole, planted the tree

and filled it in and then we got some sticks and mulch to put around the top.  Someone took the pails to the stream  for water.

We then tied our orange "Miranda ribbons" on some of the trees.  You may have noticed the orange ribbon on some of the pictures of my backpack.  When I was looking for a new daypack before my Arizona trip last winter, Jason sent me Miranda's new pack that she had never been able to use.  I wanted to have something on it to honor and remember her and he suggested something orange, she had always wished there was more recognition of leukemia.  So just like there is everything "pink" for breast cancer, orange is the color for leukemia.  It seemed fitting to tie this gently on some of the trees, both in her honor and also so we can be sure to find them again.

Jason and his tree:

We took more pictures and then headed down the trail, and I intend to go back next week to water my tree again.  This was a very emotional experience for me, more-so than I had expected.  I kept thinking about how she should be here with all of us having a great time in this place that she loved.  I hope the tree I planted in her memory will thrive and grow and be there for many, many years to come.  I will be visiting it on every trip I take to the park.

Kathy, Bill, Val and John then went to hike Apgar Lookout.  I've hiked it before and needed to do laundry before heading to the north fork.  So I went to the laundromat in West Glacier.  I met a gypsy...a man from Germany who introduced himself as "a gypsy"...he's been traveling around the US in his VW van (brought from Germany) for a few years.  He was filling up his many, many water jugs while washing his clothes.  Nice guy...HE should have a blog.  I then met the hiking group at the trailhead and Bill and I were going to head up to the North Fork.  I got a call from home...Marc and the kids had come home to find Hayden unresponsive in her kennel.  I gave them instructions for the emergency vet and, hoping everything would be ok, we headed up the North Fork Road.  We stopped a few times to call and get updates.  At the Polebridge Mercantile I called again and by then they were at the emergency clinic.  After talking to them and to Marc, I knew it was extremely serious and I needed to be in phone range, which the North Fork isn't (not where we were headed).  So we decided to head back to West Glacier.  We picked up pizza to go on the way.  We stayed at Glacier Campground...a very nice, wooded campground...plenty of room for two tents.  I'd camp there again, definitely.