project with power wheelbarrows, backaches heal and arms revert to noodles.
In my midtwenties, growing strong, I couldnât foresee the aches and cracks and surgeries and convalescence that would come, couldnât know that time and labor would do the same thing to my body that it had to others, older or longer at work than I. But I was learning a lesson Iâd carry with me through the invincible periods and the hobbled-up times, one of the many things manual labor taught me that my library self did not know. I learned that my body can do good work. That if I am patient, if I note its limits, tend its frailties, and push past them when I have the hunch itâs right, my body is not just a partner I can trust. Itâs actually me. Both a tool and a home.
Cassie taught me the Montana Cowgirlâs Mating Song while hiking up the Sperry Hill in the heat. A perfect tune for the Dew Drop Inn or Packerâs Roost, hereâs how it goes: tip back your head and shake your hair loose down your neck. Hands on slightly cocked hips. Now, tap the rhythm with your foot, a horseâs drumming canter, and sing loud in a monotone, raising the last syllable an octave: âGet it up, get it in, get it out, donât muss my hair-doooooo!â Go find a dance floor and try it. If that doesnât get you bum rushed in a cowboy bar, nothing will.
Glacier has about 725 miles of trails, many more than most national parks, but almost three hundred fewer than the peak 1,000-plus miles of the parkâs early years, before the road, when most visitors traveled by foot or horseback. In those days, the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) and local wilderness rangers and explorers built the trails network fast and furious, with painstaking artistry in some places and get-âer-done, bare-bones efforts in others.
The old-time rangers also did trailwork, which back then consisted of roaming with an axe or crosscut and blazing trail or clearing blowdown. Nowadays, miles of trails and constant use mean that trail crews do very little new construction; our bread-and-butter work is drainage and tread maintenance, brushing, and logging out winterfall. But once in a while, a washout or flood or persistent beaver colony would require a reroute, and out would come the dusty survey toolsâthe Abney level, the grade stake, the clinometerâand the trail crew would put in new alignment.
Neither Cassie nor I had ever surveyed trail when our foreman gave us a perfunctory tutorial and sent us up the trail to Gunsight Pass. When we zeroed out our clinometers outside the cabin, Cassie saw my eyebrows and I saw the spot where the top of her hair puffed up from her head. Out on the trail, trying to tie in a switchback corner with the prevailing grade of the miles of trail above and below, 12 percent was harder to manage than weâd guessed. We spent hours peering through the clinometer, one-eyed, while the other person tried to hold the stake and mark the spot and keep blowing dust out of her eyes. The alignment finally staked with wobbly pin flags in talus, we grubbed in the working tread, whipping up a cloud of fine dust that didnât settle until we left the site each day. Our eyebrows were devilish, skin two shades darkened and powdery to the touch, white T-shirts striped with sweaty dirt rings, lips chapped and sore.
At the end of the hitch, we hiked the finished trail. Halos of dust floated up from our feet. The grade was steeper than weâd meant it to be. Maybe our âzero groundâ hadnât been level at all, or the clinometer got dropped and knocked out of whack, or one of us read the degrees instead of percent, so the finished product was somewhere between the 5 percent of a wheelchair ramp and the 32 percent of the upper Cutbank Pass section, an ancient Blackfoot thoroughfare and a calf burner for any hiker, even Max. Next time, we swore, weâd be better at the survey part, having learned from a mistake
In my midtwenties, growing strong, I couldnât foresee the aches and cracks and surgeries and convalescence that would come, couldnât know that time and labor would do the same thing to my body that it had to others, older or longer at work than I. But I was learning a lesson Iâd carry with me through the invincible periods and the hobbled-up times, one of the many things manual labor taught me that my library self did not know. I learned that my body can do good work. That if I am patient, if I note its limits, tend its frailties, and push past them when I have the hunch itâs right, my body is not just a partner I can trust. Itâs actually me. Both a tool and a home.
Cassie taught me the Montana Cowgirlâs Mating Song while hiking up the Sperry Hill in the heat. A perfect tune for the Dew Drop Inn or Packerâs Roost, hereâs how it goes: tip back your head and shake your hair loose down your neck. Hands on slightly cocked hips. Now, tap the rhythm with your foot, a horseâs drumming canter, and sing loud in a monotone, raising the last syllable an octave: âGet it up, get it in, get it out, donât muss my hair-doooooo!â Go find a dance floor and try it. If that doesnât get you bum rushed in a cowboy bar, nothing will.
Glacier has about 725 miles of trails, many more than most national parks, but almost three hundred fewer than the peak 1,000-plus miles of the parkâs early years, before the road, when most visitors traveled by foot or horseback. In those days, the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) and local wilderness rangers and explorers built the trails network fast and furious, with painstaking artistry in some places and get-âer-done, bare-bones efforts in others.
The old-time rangers also did trailwork, which back then consisted of roaming with an axe or crosscut and blazing trail or clearing blowdown. Nowadays, miles of trails and constant use mean that trail crews do very little new construction; our bread-and-butter work is drainage and tread maintenance, brushing, and logging out winterfall. But once in a while, a washout or flood or persistent beaver colony would require a reroute, and out would come the dusty survey toolsâthe Abney level, the grade stake, the clinometerâand the trail crew would put in new alignment.
Neither Cassie nor I had ever surveyed trail when our foreman gave us a perfunctory tutorial and sent us up the trail to Gunsight Pass. When we zeroed out our clinometers outside the cabin, Cassie saw my eyebrows and I saw the spot where the top of her hair puffed up from her head. Out on the trail, trying to tie in a switchback corner with the prevailing grade of the miles of trail above and below, 12 percent was harder to manage than weâd guessed. We spent hours peering through the clinometer, one-eyed, while the other person tried to hold the stake and mark the spot and keep blowing dust out of her eyes. The alignment finally staked with wobbly pin flags in talus, we grubbed in the working tread, whipping up a cloud of fine dust that didnât settle until we left the site each day. Our eyebrows were devilish, skin two shades darkened and powdery to the touch, white T-shirts striped with sweaty dirt rings, lips chapped and sore.
At the end of the hitch, we hiked the finished trail. Halos of dust floated up from our feet. The grade was steeper than weâd meant it to be. Maybe our âzero groundâ hadnât been level at all, or the clinometer got dropped and knocked out of whack, or one of us read the degrees instead of percent, so the finished product was somewhere between the 5 percent of a wheelchair ramp and the 32 percent of the upper Cutbank Pass section, an ancient Blackfoot thoroughfare and a calf burner for any hiker, even Max. Next time, we swore, weâd be better at the survey part, having learned from a mistake
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