The Damn Bridge
Inspired by events in
Glacier National Park, which resides on the unceded land of the Niitsítpiis-stahkoii (Blackfoot) Nation and the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes of the Flathead Nation
After a mile and a half and a thousand vertical feet of running, I come to a river crossing. It’s June after the biggest winter in twenty years, so it’s no surprise that the water is flowing over the parts of the rocks with long-established lichen. The clarity of the water is what you’d expect from the glaciers this park is named for. The ones that will no longer be here ten years from now.
This trail is springy and made from decades of human feet compressing pine needles into loam that sounds hollow when struck just so. It’s a defined path that leads here to this swollen creek, across which there is no clear crossing. I find this odd for a moment because it’s a popular trail in a popular National Park and heaven knows Americans don’t like getting their feet wet when visiting spectacular natural scenery. Remember this; we’ll be back to that thought in a snap.
“Onward. I take fifty audibly squishy steps and then glance towards the river, and laugh out loud. ”
I investigate a tenth of a mile upstream to see if there’s another place to cross but no dice. I look down at my feet encased in low-profile running shoes. This trail is only six miles total, I think to myself. It will be good practice for running in wet feet when I don’t have a choice. In the space of a paragraph, I have become one of those people I just mocked.
Soaked feet it is.
I know it will be cold (snowmelt and all) but it still shocks as the water burbles over my ankle and fills my shoe. Now the challenge is not slipping on all that lichen that might as well be coated in soap. I take twenty careful steps across a distance that would normally take five, make it to the other bank and dump out as much accumulated water as I can.
Onward. I take fifty audibly squishy steps and then glance towards the river. I laugh out loud.
There’s a bridge, and it’s a big one. If someone had been giving directions they would have said “you can’t miss it” and they would be right. It’s two large logs wide with the tops sheared off to make for easier walking. Two people could walk side by side holding hands. It’s a good three feet above the running water. I completely missed it.
I was busy looking at the ground to ensure I wouldn’t fall. It was a successful strategy because I didn’t trip. But that also meant I didn’t see the easy way across.
Sometimes you do have to dunk your feet, try and stay balanced, and resign yourself to some discomfort.
But sometimes there’s a goddamn bridge. There’s an easy way if only you raise your eyes to look.
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