day 44: whitefish, MT

i don't know exactly what to report: we've been up on the mountain. yesterday, tom and i have crossed the continental divide at logan's pass in glacier national park. in all, we spent 3 spectacular days in glacier: we have looked out over the crystal surface of st. mary's lake and seen rocks thrown up and worn down by time staring back. we have seen the clear teal tint of glacial silt in the cold rush of the melt, and we have dipped our hands in it, washed our faces in its purifying spray. we have seen a baby mountain goat not bigger than a toy poodle lunching on a shrub.

when the pioneers arrived, this must have seemed the promised land. and only 200 years after lewis and clark trod by, that promise is almost wasted: consequent to our global climate catastrophe, scientists predict that the slow, majestic, stone-crushing glaciers we saw yesterday will be gone by 2030, spilled out into the slush of memory.