Remembering Back and Straining Forward

On Friday, August 23, Greg and I hiked up Reese Creek.  We started at the northern border to Yellowstone National Park on Old Yellowstone Trail.  That's where there's a road there that goes up Electric Peak to Malcolm Forbe's old cabin.

The hike was very enjoyable, and Greg and I hiked 3.8 miles up the creek into Yellowstone Park and returned the same way we came.  We saw a lot of evidence of bear activity, and enjoyed the wandering stream.

A pronghorn buck watches Greg and I as we hike toward Reese Creek.

This is an old wheel from a cart or wagon near Reese Creek inside Yellowstone Park.  It's probably from the old coal mining days.

Electric Creek, a creek that runs into Reese Creek

A very tall cottonwood tree near Electric Creek

A flame skimmer dragonfly near Reese Creek

Along the hike, I was brought back to a time about 30 years ago.  Back when I was a little kid, I remember dad and mom taking us up to Forbes Cabin along that old road that Greg and I started our hike from.  Dad was the caretaker for the cabin before it was purchased by Royal Teton Ranch (Church Universal and Triumphant).

Myself and my brother Scott sit on the porch at Forbes Cabin in July 1984. (Photo by Sam)

Forbes Cabin in August 1984 (Photo by Sam)

Going through dad's old photo albums, I occasionally see a picture of billionaire Malcolm Forbes.  I never met him, but my dad did.

Malcolm Forbes (publisher of Forbes Magazine) and my Dad in front of Mr. Forbes' private airplane on August 11, 1983 (Photo taken on Sam's camera, unknown photographer)

Apparently, Mr. Forbes went to that cabin about once a year, sometimes with motorcycles.  When I was a boy, my dad or our family would go up to the cabin about once a week and cut wood, have picnics, and take care of the cabin.  The cabin is only a short hike from the Yellowstone National Park border, which is clearly marked.

Since Royal Teton Ranch has owned the property, I have been up to the place once, in 2008 when I hiked up to the summit of Electric Peak for my second time.  I went with Adam and Aleŝ, two really good buddies.  Forbes Cabin was the starting point for our hike.  We had to park the car about a quarter of a mile away from the cabin.

If you remember from the blog I wrote on MySpace that long ago, we got stuck up there because my car battery died.  We were rescued by a forest ranger, and then a couple days later my family went up to get my Blazer.

I would put up a link to that blog, but since MySpace has so dramatically changed, I no longer have access to the blog until they provide some sort of download tool.

So much had changed up there since I was a little kid!  Between the 1990s and 2008, there was a forest fire which destroyed the forest around the cabin.  At this point there are only a bunch of stumps and dead trees surrounding the area.  At least the cabin, the guest cabin, and the stable were protected from the fire.  At the time I wished that Royal Teton Ranch had done a better job taking care of the cabin.  There were some glaring maintenance issues that my family and I noticed when we were there.

Regardless, I experienced a lot of nostalgia when I went up there with Adam and Aleŝ back in 2008.

Aleŝ takes a photo of the stable from Forbes Cabin. (Photo by Adam 7/25/2008)

Forbes Cabin (Photo by Jean 7/27/2008)

The tool shed and barbecue grill at Forbes Cabin (Photo by Jean 7/27/2008)

Behind the guest cabin the burned forest is so visible.  (Photo by Jean 7/27/2008)

The stable and corral below Forbes Cabin (photo by Jean 7/27/2008)

By the way, I'd like to congratulate Aleŝ and his bride on their recent wedding!  I'm very happy for the two of them and wish them all of life's best.

Today the cabin is called Eagle's Nest and is a nice vacation rental.  Last time I spoke with Royal Teton Ranch about the property last year, they were very concerned about the possibility of another wildfire being started by vehicles with catalytic converters and so they wouldn't let me up there to see the outside of the property.  They didn't ask what model, make, or year my vehicle was (that actually makes a difference with wildfires caused by catalytic converters, by the way).  Apparently, they even required fire prevention methods when guests went up to the cabin.  They seemed a bit paranoid, but experiences like this from Church Universal and Triumphant aren't unusual, and I should have expected it.

So when I was hiking with Greg a month ago, I remembered my experiences on Electric Peak.  My family would hike to the two lakes (ponds, really) in the area occasionally.  We always walked to the spring that fed the cabin its ice cold fresh water when we went to the cabin.  The views from the balcony of the cabin were magnificent, giving a full view of Gardiner Basin.  Wildlife was prevalent there, with most of the animals that I enjoy to see in Yellowstone Park.  Dad or one of us boys would check for dead mice in our extensive mouse trap line under the cabin.  I remember playing in the yard in front of the cabin, looking for bugs near the trees next to the cabin and looking over the cliff nearby when my parents would supervise.

There have been so many changes between then and now.  Sometimes it feels like I can almost grasp those "good old days," and wonder what happened.

I grew up.

Those simple pleasures back then occurred because a good opportunity was presented to my dad.  How, in general, opportunities come isn't always so simple, or even predictable.  Even revisiting those days at the cabin has proven to be not so simple.

That opportunity was temporal.  Life is constantly changing, and so are our opportunities.  But when we find a good one, isn't it our way to hold on to it for as long as we can?  When those opportunities finally die out, it's only then when we think about those being "the good old days."  I think this applies to a whole range of things: a beloved spouse or mother who's passed away, a good job, or living in a certain place for example.

We kind of turn nostalgia on its head when we face bad or difficult times.  We say, "I wish we were back then when..." not even thinking about the troubles we faced during those times.  Much of the time, our troubles push us to the next big opportunity that we don't even see yet.  We can't even imagine what that opportunity would look like because we seem to be in the shadow of our troubles.

Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already arrived at my goal, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me. Brothers and sisters, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus. All of us, then, who are mature should take such a view of things. And if on some point you think differently, that too God will make clear to you. Only let us live up to what we have already attained. (Php 3:12-16 NIV)

I'm looking forward to finding the next good opportunity.  Who knows what tomorrow will bring?

D's Day Off

This summer I made friends with a girl from Jamaica.  She, like many other people who come to work in Gardiner for the summer, is part of a college program that allows her to come to the United States to work during the summer.  D worked really hard this summer at four or five different jobs without a day off for about three months.

Being in this town for nine years, I've seen how foreign workers get burned out from working when they don't give any time to themselves.  I really encouraged D to take a day off and see Yellowstone Park before she left for Jamaica.  Many people come to Yellowstone for three or four days with their families on a vacation, and for those people, it is usually the only time during their lives that they actually see the world's first national park.  She was working here for an entire summer, and still hadn't seen it!

On September 1, D and I drove in Yellowstone Park and saw all the main places before she had to fly back to Jamaica on September 6.  It was her first real day off for the whole summer.  We saw Liberty Cap in Mammoth, Petrified Tree near Tower Junction, Dunraven Pass, Lower Falls, Mud Volcano (which recently had opened after recent fires), Yellowstone Lake, Old Faithful, and Midway Geyser Basin.  The day was very full, but we had a lot of fun together.

A really beautiful formation at Palette Springs in Mammoth

The Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone, seen from the brink of Lower Falls

Three trumpeter swans float along the Yellowstone River.

Beautiful colors stream from Excelsior Geyser Crater.

D at Grand Prismatic Spring

I was impressed with a blog I recently read, which was written by a friend who went to Angola with me.  She wrote about singleness and relationships, and made this bold statement about committed Christian men: "I don’t just mean that he wears a 'true love waits' purity ring.. I mean that this guy FIGHTS for your purity."  I think that statement applies to both people in romantic relationships and those who are completely single like myself.

This summer, D and I hung out a bit and worked together.  In this small town of Gardiner, I could tell that there were people who questioned my integrity, but I felt obligated to protect D's purity.  She's engaged to a man back in Jamaica she loves with all her heart, and yet she still came to Montana, separated from the one she loves.  If I were in her position, I would want the same sort of respect for my relationship that I was committed to giving D.  During her adventure in the US, she knew I would fight for her purity, and for that of her fiancé's as well!

So many people get caught up in romantic relationships that they forget that friendship is important too!  So many people of the world say, "A guy and a girl can't be friends without having sex."  I say that if you love Jesus with all your heart, you better be able to answer, "Yes, they can!"  Regardless of whatever situation we are in, we ought to protect the purity of relationships that we are in, and relationships that other people are in.

I had a lot of fun with D this summer, and it was a real pleasure to get to know her.  I even got to chat a little with her fiancé!  Even better, they both got to see Jesus in me, and I sent her back with a couple Bibles—one for herself, and one for a friend of her's in Jamaica.  She's going to always have memories of a quirky Godly friend who made sure she saw Yellowstone before she went back home to the arms of the guy she dreams of.

Solfatara Trail

That's kind of a funny name for a trail, isn't it?  According to Merriam-Webster, solfatara is "a volcanic area or vent that yields only hot vapors and sulfurous gas."  The beginning of Solfatara Trail tended to have only fumaroles, and it started on the north side of Roaring Mountain, an area well-known to be solfatara.

Solfatara along the Solfatara Trail

Amphitheater Springs has a lot of solfatara too.

Tony and I hiked on that trail for about 15 miles on August 24.  Along the trail, we saw the fumaroles near the beginning, but then soon we saw that the trail followed a power line for several miles.  The area was heavily burned during the 1988 fire and many of the trees are less than 25 years old.  Being that young, the forest tended to be pretty thick too.  Along the trail, obsidian was strewn everywhere.  Jean would have been in heaven just seeing all that volcanic glass.  As well, geyserite was very common in the area.

Eventually we got the the Whiterock Springs area.  It seemed like a funny name since the volcanic landscape was actually reddish in color.  I guess that speaks to the constantly changing nature of Yellowstone Park's thermal features.  The hot pools of water smelled very similar to those in the Mud Volcano Area.  We had to cross some wood across a thermal runoff area that was bubbling from underground.  It didn't appear to be very dangerous, but I didn't really want to see how far down the mud in the runoff went down.

The Whiterock Springs area

The thermal runoff that went between hot springs

While hiking, Tony and I didn't see very much wildlife.  We saw four sandhill cranes, and a coyote who didn't want to stick around the area.

If you look closely, you can see a sandhill crane walking at the base of the trees.

After walking through a big, beautiful meadow, we got to the opposite end of the Solfatara Trail, at the Norris campground.  We ate lunch there and headed back the same way we came.  On the way back, we walked off-trail to Lake of Woods, a nice little lake with a lot of lily pads.

The hill behind Lake of the Woods is called The Landmark.

I hadn't ever hiked this far before, and I felt pretty proud of myself.  Besides that, I didn't even feel sore the next day!  I guess I'm in decent shape for hiking!