Trail talk

"You're coming back already?" the man asked. He sounded like my old man. Like someone who had sent me out to go get a job and I had failed miserably at the task.

I put my head down and kept walking.

"What," he said. "You can't talk?"

I walked by him. Yes, I can talk, I thought. I just don't want to talk to you. In fact, it's early in the morning and I don't want to talk to anybody, OK mister? Now just go on your hike and leave me alone.

This year, more than any other, folks just seem to want to talk. Especially while they're hiking in Glacier. I guess I'm spoiled. I'm used to being alone.

Now, don't get me wrong, I love to talk, too, but I simply don't want to say hello to every Tom, Dick and Jane coming down the trail.

Especially when the trail is crowded. The other day, I'll bet you I said hello or at least mumbled something two hundred times while hiking the Highline Trail.

The trail was the busiest I've ever seen it. There was basically a line of people going from Logan Pass to Granite Park. Three mountain goats led the way—a nanny, her kid and a yearling. Even the nanny was grumpy. Once I got too close just trying to get around her, and she lowered her head to spear me.

I've never seen a goat that grumpy, and I've spent a lot of time with a lot of goats. (That doesn't sound good, does it? Don't read that sentence out loud to your kids.)

But back to this crowd. Everybody that went by said hi or thanks or or how ya doin' or where you from or good morning or excuse me. It was like I'd walked into a place called Politeville and there was no escape.

HihowdyhihowayadointopofthemorningandthisismywifeAliceand isn'tthisgreatdandyday.

Good grief.

So about six miles into Politeville, I bailed into the rocks.

That's right. It was 90-plus degrees, and I found a slope with no live trees and went straight down into a nasty rock pile. I tried to take a nap, but there were these huge black flies buzzing around my head and ants crawling up my legs.

The big black flies didn't bite, and they were actually quite pretty (well, as pretty as a big fat black fly can be).

So I sat up and went farther down into the rocks hoping to see some pikas. Pikas are my favorite rodent. They're small, but they have big round ears. They don't hibernate like those wussy marmots and ground squirrels. They build big nests out of grass under the biggest rocks in the rock piles, and then they tough out Glacier's nasty winters.

That's my kind of living.

Sure enough, a bunch of them wanted to know what a stinky grumpy photographer was doing in their rock pile, so they came to investigate.

Eeeeep! They'd squeal when I pointed the camera at them. Then they'd dash under the rocks.

After a few hours of this the day was becoming evening, so I climbed back up to my favorite trail, and the place was a ghost town.

Politeville had been vacated. It's not polite to miss supper.

I saw exactly six people on the entire hike home. Three of them were goats.

That's the way I like it.

How you doing? Fine, just fine. Beautiful evening here in Glacier. Loving every minute of it. Have a good night.