I took a little hike yesterday. It is the kind of hike that when I was a teenager I might have hesitated to call it a hike. It is just a walk in the mountains. There is a trail that runs from the Palisades Campground near Red Lodge up to the Ski Resort on Red Lodge Mountain. It follows a babbling and rushing little creek. In my memory it is not terribly steep, but rather a gentle walk. In the 1920’s and 1930’s, before the ski resort was developed and before the paved road up to the ski lifts was built, there was quite a bit of mining activity, or at least exploration, in the area. Red Lodge is mostly known for coal mining. There are remnants of mining activity in the hills across the creek from town. People who know the area know the story of the Smith Mine disaster, the worst coal mining disaster in the state of Montana. On February 27, 1943, 77 miners were working underground when an explosion ripped through the mine near Bearcreek. Only three miners escaped. 74 are buried together in the underground chambers where they died.

The explorations on Red Lodge Mountain, however, were not for coal, of which there were abundant veins lower down. They were test holes and shafts dug in hope that gold or silver might be found. As far as I know none of those tests turned into actual mines, though there were active mines in other similar drainages. There is an active mine that has pierced all the way through the mountain between the Stillwater and East Boulder drainages. On Red Lodge Mountain, however, I don’t think anyone ever struck it rich. Nonetheless there were explorations and an old jeep trail wandered up the mountain that I assume was cleared by miners and carried things to and from the test holes. It is that old jeep trail that now is closed to motorized vehicles and is a trail up to the ski resort reserved for those who want to hike the two and a half miles through the forest alongside the creek.

Less than half way up the trail I had to admit that I am no longer a teenager. I also had to admit to myself that I have become a flatlander. Living at sea level has made my lungs a bit lazy, I guess. I kept running out of breath and at one point I was stopping every hundred paces or so to catch my breath. Actually hiking became easier once I admitted to myself that I needed to stop. I would walk a ways and when my breathing became labored, I simply stopped and caught my breath. I had no schedule to keep. And I was alone. That is one thing about hiking in Montana. You can usually have the entire trail to yourself. I had taken the appropriate precautions. I had told Susan where I was hiking. I clipped a key ring to a metal water bottle to serve as a bear bell. It is a good time of the year to be bear smart. Although it feels like summer, the bears know that fall is coming and they are consuming as many calories as possible in preparation for a long winter’s sleep. They are in no mood to deal with dumb tourists. Although this feels like home country to me, I realize that I am but a tourist in the high country these days, stopping every little while just to catch my breath.

I am happy where I now live. I love the Cascade mountains. They are high and beautiful and have glacier-topped mountains. No matter how much I admire the mountains of my adopted home, however, there is and always will be something special about the Rocky Mountains to me. The spine of two continents, running from the Arctic Ocean to the tip of South America, the mighty mountains have a quality all their own. Having grown up on the east slope, I am at home in the dry lower country that is quickly transformed as you walk uphill. It doesn’t take a scientist to declare that the sagebrush valley is an entirely different climactic zone from the tree-shaded slopes. I’m sure it was a full ten degrees cooler on the trail than it was in town.

One of the things I have always loved about Red Lodge is that it makes it easy to get away from the heat of the Yellowstone Valley. When we were going to school in Billings, we knew we could get away from the city heat by going up to Red Lodge. There is no mystery in my mind why we chose to come to Red Lodge for our honeymoon.

As I walked I made up a little speech that I imagined I might give in case I met another hiker on the trail while going up. I would say something like, “Please pass on by. I’m doing fine. I’m just going slow for two reasons. One is that I’m 70 years old and do everything slower than when I was a teenager. The other is that I live at sea level and I haven’t adjusted to the altitude.” Of course I didn’t run into any others on the trail and if I had they likely would not have been the least bit interested in why I was walking slowly. They would have been happy to simply go on their way.

It isn’t that other hikers are rude. They definitely are not. But we all take to the trail in part because we treasure solitude. My hike gave me a couple of hours to just be by myself with my thoughts, surrounded by beauty. 10,000 butterflies danced before me on the wildflowers, The creek sang is happy song for me. The trees whispered thoughts that are imperceptible to beings that live only a century or less. Of course I wasn’t alone. The deer simply stayed out of sight. The birds called out a warning. And if there was a bear on the mountain, it was far more interested in salmonberries than me and it kept its distance.

I suppose that were I to spend a few weeks here I would acclimate to the elevation. I hope that is the case. But for now, I’m retired and I’m not as young as I once was. That is just fine with me. I’ll go slowly uphill and down. There is still much beauty to see simply by parking the car and walking the trail.