The garden is put to bed, the pantry full of salsas, sauces, jams and relishes, and the freezer full of antelope, and Christmas come and gone.  With the new year only a few days away, it is time for some quiet reflection on this past year—the experiences we harvested, the images preserved, not on film, but in pixels.

In January Candace and I sold the art center and I built (or I should say, Ted built) a little studio at home where I can look out on the backwoods as I work and  avoid going into town for days at a time. I think of it as my exploritorium—a place where I can feed my curiosity, learn and spend even more time exploring in the woods.

And then last summer Ted and I embarked on a new journey, though in many ways it felt like a return to one of the best parts of our past.  We became volunteer wilderness rangers in Glacier National Park.  While Ted was a backcountry ranger 30years ago, first at Kintla Lake in the northwest corner of the park and then at Walton on the southern tip along the Middle Fork, this time we were stationed in a part of the park we had never gotten a chance to explore—the Belly River in the northeast corner.  For a week or two every month from May through September we hiked the 6 miles in to the Belly River Ranger station and assisted the two full time rangers—Tracey Wiese and Bruce Carter—by patrolling the trails, checking campsites, talking to visitors and doing weed surveys and maintenance. 

First of all, if you haven’t backpacked in 30 years it is quite a reckoning to realize that you just aren’t as young and fit as you used to be.  Thankfully we were assigned a cabin to stay in so we didn’t have pack in a tent and all our cooking gear.  We even got our food packed in once the station received their stock—two pack mules and a horse.

The Belly River is a many storied place and unique in its remoteness.  Few visitors come to the Belly River—the limited number of campsites are by permit only the trailhead takes off from the Canadian border, a long    mile drive from the nearest “tourist” destination of Many Glacier, so day hikers are a rare phenomena.  We do get a lot of Continental Divide hikers on the last leg of their phenomenal 3,000 mile journey from the Mexican border, but they are a different breed from the typical tourist in Glacier.  And we are looking forward to returning this summer to continue the adventure.

So, with my new home studio and a whole new world in the Belly River to explore in the coming year, I am restarting my blog as a way to reflect on and deepen my experiences in the natural world and to record whatever I may discover.  I hope you’ll join me on my explorations and share whatever wonders you may find in the coming year.