Barry's big adventure

Barry's back from her Woman in the Wilderness adventure, and she has some tales to tell.

Here is Part 1.

Hiking Daddy



I was about to travel 2,500 miles to have a face-to-face meeting with a man I knew only from the Internet. I didn’t know what he looked like; only that he drove an orange, 25-year-old VW camping van upon which he occasionally made his own repairs. He touted himself as a 73-year old Canadian ex-hiker who knew the park like the back of his hand – Glacier National Park that is, nestled along the Canadian border in Montana, and it was only a short ride from his home. So, he said he would meet me there – no, better yet – he would get there before me at 5 a.m. then get in line for the daily hiking permit lottery and try to get me the hike of my dreams. And then he wanted to take me for a ride.

Who knew it would ever come to this when “Old_Hiker” responded to a question I posted on a Glacier hiking bulletin board site months ago. I was interested in a particular off-trail route known as “Floral Park” which had been outlined briefly in Backpacker magazine. They described it was a pleasant and little known alternative to the crowded trails in the park. Hey, I like getting away from the crowds! In fact, I like to get away from pretty much everyone, which is why I hike alone. That’s right, a woman in the wilderness totally alone with all the bears and mountain lions and crazed rapist ax-murderers just waiting to get at her. I enjoy it – so shoot me. This would be my third big trip. I’d hiked the Sierras and the Tetons successfully on my own and had decided that solo was the only way – in fact the best way – to go. My reasoning is simple; there is no group dynamic to cloud my decision-making process. No one to say, “Hey, we can do it!” when I get an intuition that things just aren’t right. No one to disappoint but myself when I bail on a climb because of the weather, my perceived abilities or just on a hunch. And that’s the way I like it. Seems safer if you ask me, and so far I have been right.

And so it was a sunny blue-sky day when the free Glacier shuttle dumped me off in the St. Mary Visitor’s Center parking lot and I spotted the orange van with a human silhouette inside. As I approached I could see the figure sitting, hunched over a book through the large open side door. I was leaning my shoulder and the heft of my enormous backpack against the side of the van before he noticed me, “Barry!!” and he leaped out of the van and threw his arms around me.

Hiking Daddy was also known as John Lethbridge, happily married with beloved kids and grandkids. Nearly as much as these, he loved his mountains. He had hiked Glacier Park extensively in his day and had posted a plethora of photos and descriptions of many routes on the Internet. He no longer did long hikes but instead enjoyed helping others with their great wilderness ambitions. He was a wealth of information and he was my personal concierge this summer.

The only thing that had me a little concerned was that John thought everything was easy. He was fond of writing, “It’s not that bad,” or “You’ll be surprised how easy it is to get around in the park” then he’d add a counter note like, “If it’s too steep you can pull your pack up behind you on a rope.” Pull my pack behind me on a rope? Are you serious? Partly he was testing me and I rose to the challenge, “No problem,” I’d reply, “I’d much prefer this kind of thing to stampeding with the herds on the main trail!” I charted his wild routes on my topo map and even challenged him on areas I thought were dubious. He’d send me scary pictures of gnarled rock and glaciers and I’d go on Google Earth 3D and get right down there and position myself where he was and snap the same shot. He liked playing the game and so did I. He also had convinced me that Big Brother would be watching me at all times in this park. “The rangers have a lookout on Logan Pass and can watch you the whole way” he said, causing a near abortion of my trip. I freaked. Big Brother in the wilderness? But he convinced me that they only wanted to know if I made it through o.k. and it was all for my own good, so our conversations continued for months, right up until the day I was to leave.

And so that is how I came to be standing in front of a uniformed backcountry permit ranger on this fine August day in Montana with John Lethbridge vouching for me, “No problem. She’s hiked with me before.” I was applying for a week long, mostly off-trail, fairly unknown route of sizeable magnitude requiring route-finding and bushwhacking and they gave it to me like a lark. With John by my side I didn’t even have to watch the bear movie or list my next-of-kin. It all seemed too easy. Way too easy to be sent out there all alone with the bears and mountain lions and crazed rapist ax-murderers.

“Let me show you around!” John jeered with a smile as we left the visitor’s center before noon with the sacred permit in-hand. This little piece of paper stated that tomorrow night I would be camping on the side of a mountain somewhere near a glacier far, far away from any trail or any body – almost incomprehensible, but I would think about that later. For now, we both piled into the front seats of the old VW and were soon tooling down the road past endless fields of golden grass and barbed wire. John pointed out and named all the mountaintops behind mountaintops, which cropped up right out of the golden plains. He showed me extensive areas of burnt, toothpick-like trees from a big fire 2 years ago. He pulled into a turnoff with a fine view of the mountains in the distance; this was his favorite car camping spot. We stopped at a local roadside café and ate our hamburgers while perched on barstools and we left with 2 hefty slices of their famous “razzleberry” pie, wrapped in cellophane on paper plates. We explored 2 “outfitting” shops, a grocery store and a gas station looking for the proper fuel for my tiny camp stove. Then – what I should have known to be inevitable – happened. We got into the van and there were no gears to be found. Well, maybe second… good thing we’re facing downhill in the parking lot! Then the big admission, “I had a little car trouble this morning…”






Things seemed fine for a bit, but then, at a stop sign, it happened again. So we rolled over into a parking lot in front of some really large, concrete tee-pees – presumably for hire as truly local flavor hotel rooms – and John rolled up his sleeves and slid under the car. “The mechanic who fixed this earlier today just tightened this nut and…” I was becoming concerned. Apparently, it was only through a twist of fate that he was able to meet me at all that day. Very early in the morning the thing had acted up not far from the park and through the advice of some locals he found a mechanic who was not only an early riser, but who came to him and performed the miracle of tightening the secret nut and all was well with the world! “Put it in first gear!” John barked form under the van. The stick shift was moving, as if by some ghost, and I grabbed the knob and gently pushed it forward. “That’s good!” I heard from under the floorboards. A little more jostling of the gearshift and then he appeared, upright and with blackened, greasy hands, “Let’s give it a try!” and he climbed in. Heading down a slope, he managed to find third gear. “Keep going!” I yelled as we crossed the parking lot, “There’s no one coming this way!” and soon we were heading down the main road towards the sainted mechanic’s home and away from the lonely mountaintop that had my name on it for tomorrow night.

It was about 4 p.m. when, still in third gear, we pulled into the dirt and gravel driveway. The mechanic’s home appeared to be an old turquoise bus with a sort of wooden shack built onto it. As we walked up to the dwelling, we passed several cars in various states of disrepair, piles of tangled barbed wire, a stack of boards and fence posts and some unidentifiable, rusted machinery scattered about. The door to the shack was padlocked.





By pushing the VW’s passenger seat forward and swinging it around a secret little toolbox was revealed underneath. Full of multi-colored screwdrivers, wrenches and pliers, John dug in and grabbed a handful of tools along with a small butter tub full of nuts and bolts. He spread a black plastic trash bag on the gravel and disappeared under the van once again. This time he was there for nearly an hour, jostling the stick shift back and forth to no avail. We agreed it was definitely time for pie.



He fired up the little stove, boiled a pot of water and carefully placed tea bags in 2 well used mismatched plastic cups. We enjoyed the famous razzelberry pie with tea, he on the sofa and me in the reversed passenger seat, straddling the secret toolbox. 6:00 and still no mechanic. We took a stroll across the street, down along a little pond. A group of native American cowboys wearing baseball caps – real cowboys with stiff ropes hanging on their saddle horns – rode by on horses, “Woop! Woop!” Back at the van, we shared our life stories until dusk. Over a cup of hot cocoa John admitted that he secretly wanted to get rid of the old van anyway. It was time for something more reliable. Maybe he would just leave it here tomorrow and hitchhike home. As for me, the next day I had a mountain to climb and it was nowhere in sight.

Once the sun dipped behind the hill, the temperature plummeted and I was made fun of for piling on layer after layer of fleece. John pushed on the roof of the van and it popped up, revealing an upper bunk. “I can’t get up there any more, so it’s yours.” I was soon in my sleeping bag, fleece and all and John down below in sheets and a comforter.

The night was dazzlingly clear and cold. At some point I heard the cowboys pass by again, clippity clomp. I imagined that they had been out there under the stars rounding up cattle all night, wooping and laughing and doing what cowboys do. At 1:00 the magical sound of a car coming up the driveway woke us both, though not a word was said. It passed us slowly then went on up to the turquoise bus, a door slammed and it quickly turned around and left.

In the morning John said that someone had come during the night looking for the absent mechanic. I suggested that the mechanic had been dropped off after a long evening. When I asked if he had heard the cowboys coming home from a long night on the range he said that they were most likely only returning from a long night at the local tavern. So much for the romantic version.

I may have been wrong about the cowboys, but by 8:30 the mechanic was soon walking out his driveway in the morning mist towards us and the poor old van. I was packing up my backpack as the 2 men discussed their next move. The mechanic offered to drive me to the park once he had the van fixed, but who knew when that would be? So I said goodbye to John, offered him some cash, which he wouldn’t accept, stepped 50 feet from the van to main road and put my thumb up. I figured with a backpack it would be easy. There was a car every 3 or 4 minutes. Some SUV’s full of families going to the park and some farmers in pick-up trucks, but no one gave me mercy. The mechanic was under the van. I shuffled in the dusty gravel in the warm morning sun as car after car passed me by. Next thing I knew the orange van was coming toward me, “Get in!” John grinned and I opened the sliding side door, threw my backpack in and hopped in the front seat. John searched for gears; no first gear. No second. False alarm! Another hug goodbye and the mechanic was under the van once again and I was back at the pavement with my thumb up.

10 minutes later the van was moving again. Unbelievable! I hopped in and this time we had first gear, third gear and fourth. Very doable. I said “Go straight for home! The mechanic will take me to the park!” But John headed south toward the park entrance, determined to get me going on the arduous route I had spent so many months training for.

With some very careful shifting, we made it to the visitor’s center and I got out in front of the Shuttle stop. We said our final goodbyes and I watched as Hiking Daddy slowly and deliberately shifted through the unique gear pattern and the old orange van made its way toward Canada.