February in Montana. We have had some really incredible weather- warm, sunny days, cold nights; the snow is fast and its time to get out and see some different places other than our old beat. So, Emily and I packed up and headed to the North entrance of Yellowstone Park. To get there, if one could fly, it would only be about 40 miles at best, but over some giant mountains. By car, we had to drive 120 miles, first north to Bozeman, than east to Livingston, than south down Paradise Valley to Gardiner Montana, the Northern gateway to the Park. The drive was dark and gloomy this day, much like weather that is reminiscent of New England. It was warm and balmy, mild with big snowflakes falling on occasion. As we entered the Livingston area, the wind was blowing hard as usual. Livingston is at the junction of the mountains and the plains, so there are is a pressure difference that causes high winds. Tractor-trailers sometimes are blown over and off the I-90. We turned onto route 89 towards Paradise Valley and the snow fell harder as we approached the narrowing that the Yellowstone River has cut through limestone walls. The drive was beautiful in a non-scenic way. We could not see the mountains to the left nor right; the snow hid all except the field of winter crops. Everything was monochromatic and blurry.
Paradise Valley is a strange valley. It is developed in a scattered way; houses and farms are plopped down wherever the acreage was parceled with no rhyme nor reason. There are few trees, mostly fields, and what trees there are most likely are cottonwoods or junipers along the river. This makes the housing seem so obvious, obtuse, and unplanned. It is like a junkyard of human habitation. We wondered how these people live… then we noticed the satellite antennas abounding. The river the whole time winds through in a serpentine way with massive blocks of ice jammed against the banks. I commented to Emily that there will be a surprise on the way back through this valley if the weather clears, for once it does, the majesty of the Absoroka Mountains is stunning. They are jagged peaks covered with tall conifer trees, high meadows, and plenty of angular talus rocks.
We decided early on in the day to break down the drive and stop at a hot spring resort called Chico so we could soak our skied-out legs before heading on. In the back of my mind I had a hike planned, but would wait before suggesting it to Emily. We turned off and head over the Yellowstone towards Chico, past a settlement of strewn-about trailer homes, barbwire fences demarking boundaries, plastic bags stretched out in the wind clinging to the barbs. One area was quadranted off with a perimeter of old trailers lined up end to end. Where there were gaps, someone chinked them with whatever junk they could find: old refrigerators, sheet metal roofing, even an old plow blade. Whoever owned this property made it known you were not welcome. We drove down the long access road towards the mountains where Chico lies beneath. I informed Emily as to what to expect at Chico. It has a place in history for sure. Once it was a saloon, where a cowboy could soak his tired saddle-sore ass, drink from the saloon, and get a whore. Today it is a therapeutic resort with a day spa and masseuses. I warned Emily that that doesn’t mean that this place is hygienic or sterile…but nonetheless the water is true geothermal mineral ‘hot Wada’ as they say at Chico. On arriving, the new buildings that have been installed to add to Chico’s ‘grandeur’ are formula lodgey things, but cheaply constructed. Out here in Montana there is truly the modern formula for lodges: use a bunch of whole trees, saw them up into lengths and plaster them up to what is cheap stick framed, lackluster modern, ill thought-out ranch-like dark, viewless, boxes. The actual old saloon and Chico Hotel are more honest; they too are cheaply constructed of old hewn planks and timbers, but without the airs of being high end and ‘simulacratic’ bullshitting undertones.
We entered the main lobby of Chico. The lady behind the desk, a narrow lady, wrinkled, with spectacles fitting for her personality, you know the rectangular ones that the wearer looks over the top of in a bitchy kind of a way. Well, she didn’t look at us once. She had her phone headset on and glared at the computer and lodging book She didn’t say a word even on the phone, wouldn’t look up at us… so I sat down on a plush couch as if I had lived there forever. Emily wandered around the main desk looking for information and trying to put out the vibe of a customer needing help. In the back room, another chunky woman worked the phone and didn’t glance up. After about 10 minutes, a cook came out of the dinning area, he looked at me slouched on the sofa, looked at Emily looking through brochures at the check-in desk, saw the old, wrinkled bitch staring at her computer, looked into the back room behind the check in desk and could see chubby working the phone. It was clear that he had seen this before: people waiting, waiting, and no help. He asked me if we were staying the night, no we are not, so he walked off. We got the point; those that come to use the hot spring pool are not worth waiting on. We finally had the chance to pay our $6.50 apiece and were pointed towards to door out of the Inn to a covered walkway to the Saloon entrance where we were told to show the barman our pass. He pushed a buzzer that let us through a door to the pools. I figured that they must have had problems with drunken cowboys letting themselves into the pool without paying.
The pool area itself is a very odd construct. It is open to the outside (above), but closed in by buildings made of cheap texture 1-11 paneling. The whole thing brought together by a dark green trim and green metal roofing that had a barbed wire look- sharp, jagged edged (I wouldn’t climb over it). The men’s and women’s rooms are at the other end of the two pools. Signs around the pools remind the bather of Montana state rules about bathing in public pools: that you shouldn’t drink alcohol nor have heart problems, and if you do, 15 minutes max in the hot water. Also if you have open sores, you shouldn’t use the pool. Another sign read, “Welcome to our ool. Notice that there is no P in it …we would like to keep it that way.”
Emily and I made our way to the changing rooms at the end of the pools, on the way stepping over bathers’ fruity alcoholic drinks in plastic cups. Several couples were embracing and floating drunkenly, lethargically in the mist of steaming waters. On entering the changing area, I remembered on a past visit that it had been remodeled and that I thought at the time it looked like a cheap job and wondered what kind of glue they use to paste up the plastic paneling. The rooms themselves were made mostly of mold, mildew, and grime at that time. Well, it smelled in there like old times; one big changing room, floor of a dirty concrete, walls, yes, plastic sloughing off, benches made of some material I recognize from I think dock and ramp prefab outfits. I didn’t sit to change, but stood, removing each article of clothing and neatly rolling them up and stowing in my bag, which you are reminded by a sign that the Chico management posted, “We are not responsible for stolen items. Please use 50 cent lockers around pool.” I also remembered the Montana rules and regulations about public pools and entered the shower, to clean off my filthy body before entering the pool. The shower seemed like the kind of place that you might contract legionnaires disease, or at least a bad case of athlete’s foot or planter warts…. I was glad I brought my sandals.
I entered the pool before Emily. She was still in the changing room enjoying her shower. Once you enter the pool of unchlorinated hot mineral water, your body just instantly relaxes no matter how nervous or spooked you may be. Emily came out of the women’s room with an expression of fright that I knew would disappear once she entered the pool. She had on her black bikini bathing suit and looked out of place in an athletic way amongst the beached walruses sipping drinks and floating wrapped in those colored float tubes. We relaxed and swam to the saloon end where the ‘hotter’ pool and the buzzer for a take out window for alcoholic drinks are located. We drank water from our bottle that we brought; Chico was not going to make a killing on us- we are ‘cheap athletes.’ We soaked for about an hour and a half and in that time our fellow bathers drank what we figured was enough to stop the heart. It was time to go. On leaving through the dark dank saloon, I could still smell tobacco smoke of the yesteryears before the new age liberals had it all shut down. I glanced at the patrons slumped over what I imagined were shots of whiskey and draft beers…only imagined…more likely bud light in a can.
We both breathed a sigh of relief as we walked back out into the Montana open air. Chico had a closed, claustrophobic kind of uncanny, perverted feel to it and it felt liberating to leave. I suggested a hike up a canyon nearby to shake off the musty feel and Emily agreed. We drove out of Chico the back way. The dirt road, the cattle fencing, and the rustic nature of the place really make you feel like you are in Montana. The turn we are to take is marked by a friendly brown forest service sign, so we took a left and drove up a narrow dirt road, covered with a hardened ice, in between small cabins and humble homes, then along a small river flowing over jumbled river rocks. The canyon is steep on both sides with scree slopes and juniper trees flowing up and up. Along the narrow road are gnarled aspen trees and piles of stones left behind by barge dredge machines. These machines were used in this river drainage long ago. They dig a hole, which fills with the river flow then they float and dig ahead sifting the material for ore. On and on they go making a huge mess of piled river rock…. A wasteland for years after…snakes love these places in the summer.
We made some sandwiches and ate them sitting in the car while looking way up the canyon. The snow is falling on the steep craggy mountainside above, but a light rain where we are parked. We are ready to hike and I don’t feel a need to wear winter boots for there is just a small amount of snow on the ground, a change from the Big sky area where you have no business hiking without ski, snow shoe, or at least winter boots. We start walking up the road, someone had driven a truck, someone had driven a snowmobile up the center, and we walked the ruts. We notice an aspen tree scarred by a bear that had clawed its soft bark away. It is quiet, there is little wind, the sky is gray, and snowflakes fall as we go higher. Along the road, rock sloughs down off the slopes into the road. We see small snow avalanches of what I call cinnamon swirls: snowballs that roll down the hill and roll into our feet. We look up- not a friendly place to hike up, so we stick to the road. The trees are lodge pole, Douglas fir, hemlock, and the mountain behind is crazy-looking steep jagged rocks coated with a sticky snow. The river gurgles along. We wonder why the forest service has needed to pound metal stakes with signs denoting that forest service land is beyond them. Who would care? No one could hike these slopes nor are there resources there that anyone would want. We didn’t even see an animal other than a few lonely birds and one tree squirrel that angrily scolded us. As we walk higher, the snow gets a little deeper, but the road is well packed by the snowmobile track. We cross the river over a culvert that is 6 ft in diameter and made of ½” steel riveted tube that was roughly cut off at one end by a torch. Emily wondered why anyone would go through the effort to place this here and as we climb this road, which is cleaved into the scree slopes, I wonder too. Some desperate skiers had traveled the climbing pass road. I couldn’t imagine their descent- lots of rock debris had fallen onto the snow on the road and the road itself allowed no room for error. To one side, a steep drop down into the river far down below. We hiked up and up until we were in a cresting notch between the ramparts of the crazy, craggy mountains. We paused and Emily ate some snow, not much though. Then we headed down, down, back through the canyon.
Back at the car we headed on our way. Back by Chico, there where more cars and mostly trucks now, working day was over I guess. We drove back out onto the highway, hardly any traffic, snow now lifting. I told Emily about the CUT or Church of the Universal Triumphant. It has its compound in the area and I guess after the new millennium when the apocalypse never happened, membership died off. They had built, from what I have heard, underground bunker houses filled with supplies and such, in case the world went crazy. Now they are selling off pieces of property to whoever will buy some. The Park actually is lined up to buy a piece from CUT to allow the bison a corridor out of the park and onto grazing land. I hear it’s a bum deal and that the bison wont use it anyway- ‘prolly’ freaked out by the CUT, too. We passed a bunch of elk and then on to Yankee Jim Canyon where they do some white water rafting in summer. The Yellowstone River is the longest undamed river left in the USA. I hear 500 miles long before a dam.
We finally get to Gardiner and are welcomed by White-tailed deer on the road, beside the road, and in folks’ yards, even on their doorsteps getting a little supper. We pull into the local grocery store and I get a much needed six pack. Beer prices were a bit high, but the locals were nice and everyone that I saw in the store looked me directly in the eye and nodded; a change from Big Sky where the Elite Wealthy don’t see well. We drove a block to our destination lodging that Emily had set up by phone that day. Cabins on the River they were advertised. We spied the sign and low in behold there they were right on the main drag. Emily told me to pull down in behind. On driving in, there were two bucks snoring in the driveway. No one was here yet even though the sun had gone down. There was a pen next to the cabins where a goose and some deer were hanging out. The cabins were in a row, more like an extruded cabin, each with one window on a small porch. They were the color yellow, kind of giving it a feminine touch on the outside.
Emily went to find the proprietor. I cracked open a beer in the car and looked out towards the park and the dusk sky glowing a bit, mountains far off, and the river way down below. It looked hard to get down there. I noticed that Emily had found a lady, the owner I assumed, and first she showed Emily, their pride and joy: the deer, the goose, and the hot tub platform that over looks them. She opened the tub up, steam rose, and I saw her fiddling with the knobs. Emily was looking at the deer. She loves animals. So, I took this meant that our accommodations were marginal since viewing them came last. Emily was shown in. The manager with her frosted blonde hair left us to sort things out. On entering the cabin, it was small, and not feminine, a brownish shag rug, not a window to see this river, but instead, a nice TV and with a satellite system too! There were also amenities like a microwave, a coffee maker, and a refrigerator… I stowed my beer away. What do you expect for 50 bucks a night? I wasn’t complaining. Emily was paying. We were going to the park first thing in the morning and sleeping and some satellite TV were in between that. So, we settled in. Emily heated up some left over spaghetti in the microwave while I tried to figure out the dish thing. There we laid ….I clicked through infinite stations, mostly buying channels or sports networks that were payperview. Oh, and soft porn channels that were payperview at $11.56 a channel…Debby does Dallas and such…. You would have to be pretty desperate. At this time laying back I noticed the manly fishing paraphernalia on the walls. They seemed to be made by some guy that was a store clerk that had always wanted to be a wood worker. Plywood stencil cutouts of a ‘German brown’ trout. Even in the bathroom, a toilet paper dispenser that was modeled after a fishing reel. I noticed the joinery was lacking and that a hot glue gun was the attachment system. Well, it wasn’t but about 8 pm when the neighbor, the guy that I guess rents the cabin right next door, roared in with his must have been Dodge Ram truck, dual exhaust. We kind of had an idea that the room next to us was rented ‘by the week’ because there was a propane barbeque grill on the deck. Cigarette smoke started to fill our room as soon as he slammed his door and then we noticed our room had a door to his and the seal was not very good. I kind of have allergies to cigarette smoke and Emily detected that the night might turn sour after my first sneeze. She quickly got up and turned on the air conditioner. The smoke blew about so she opened the door and checked on the deer. All in all I slept ok, the baseboard electric heat is kind of hard on the nostrils, though.
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