Baby girls who aren't so baby or girly.

Cecily perched on the ridge above Ipasha Glacier. Mt. Merritt is in the background. 

     Cool shot eh? We started the day off by hiking the six miles from Flattop Campground to 50 Mtn campground. It rained on us pretty much the whole way. It was one of those days where we were cold and wet, but if we kept moving we stayed warm enough. It's a matter of trying to judge whether or not you'll have enough energy to make it to camp without stopping to refuel because if you do you'll have to pull out more clothes and change and take up time. It was only six miles and. . . well, if you backpack you know.  It was a pretty hike but kinda miserable. Worth it though.
     When we pulled into camp we could see nicer weather headed our direction. We had a break in the rain so we set up our tent and parked our overnight packs inside to stay dry (minus food). We went down and cooked lunch in an empty food prep area while we waited for the sun to show up. The plan was to eat and get in a nap before we took off. Because of the time frame we were looking at I talked Cecily into not taking the nap (which was really for me anyway) and we headed straight out. We hiked up to the Sue Lake overlook to see what we could see. Although it was a great view we actually couldn't see any glaciers and we were cliff-locked from reaching any. That kinda of sucked. I was planning on a ridge line traverse with a trail accessing it all. In my plan, we would be back to camp in a little bit of no time and have had a fairly easy day. The actual amount of effort for our afternoon was starting to soak in. I entertained the idea that we could always come back in a week but I really couldn't afford the gas, time, or supplies. We had bad weather in the line up and didn't want to waist a 3 day trip. I made up my mind and was going to have to break it to my baby girl that our day was only about half done. Back down to the main trail and south on the Highline. We entered the cirque below Cheney Glacier and climbed the 1,000 feet up to the ridge to overlook Cheney. Shale sucks!  According to J. Gordon Edwards' book "A Climbers Guide to Glacier National Park" in the 1950's you used to be able to step off the ridge and walk the glacier down to connect with the trail from Stoney Indian Pass. (You can see the amount of glacial recession here) What we found was about a 50' drop before we would have made it to the glacier. We spent the time to capture all the images I would need for the book and as I did I realized that I was going to have to convince Baby Girl that we were still going to need to climb up one more ridge. Another 1,000 feet-ish. You know what I told her? The truth. I knew she wasn't going to want to and I knew that it was going to push us close to what our physical limits were at the time so I laid it out so that she could be a part of the difficult decision. You see that face? That's her I-don't-really-want-to-because-it's-going-to-be-really-tough-but-I-know-you-won't-make-me-do-anything-that-I-can't-do-and-I-trust-you-and-am-going-to-be-tough-Dad-anyway look. Kids are tough. Don't ever shy away from challenging your kiddos to do something they think they can't. Especially when you are in it with them and you're not even sure you can. That's when they get to see what you're made of. Some people won't even challenge their kiddos to behave in the store but look at this little lady. She's going to change the world. I really mean that. Parents who won't challenge their kids are displaying their own fear for all to see. 

     Let's return from that little bit of wisdom, now. (That was a freebie by the way. The next one will cost ya.) We spotted our route and made our way up the shale. I just wanted to get to the saddle and make it over that next ridge to grab the images we needed of Ipasha. It was a little overcast but it looked like that might clear off before the sun set behind the ridge which would give us some really nice light. We turned around and realized that I needed to break out the tripod and camera again for another set of images of Cheney before we could continue. We ate a little more food for energy but that's when our water ran out. Bummer. I hate dehydration. I have some staples in my gut that make it fairly painful when I'm lacking the proper amount of water in my body. Eventually we made it to the ridge above Ipasha and the view was awesome. The sun came out just as we reached our vantage point, too. We spent about an hour as I worked the golden hour of nice, warm light.

      I posted this iPhone 5 panoramic shot to Osprey's timeline which nabbed me a like from their team. The sun set as we trekked back to camp. When we dragged our butts into the now brimming campground I told Cecily to grab our water bottle from the tent and meet me at the food prep area. After a 14 hour hike/scramble, I was spent. Some guy asked me how I was doing. I almost gave him the quick dismissal of a "pretty good" but I realized that It was fairly obvious that I wasn't fine. I was really tired, so that's what I told him. I think he could tell, so he asked where I had been. I told him. There were about 20 people in the food prep area and they all seemed to be paying attention as I laid out the days' trek to him. Everyone seemed interested and it was a great chance to get the word out about my project to 20 or so folks that I knew would be genuinely interested in my project and book. As I finished up, Cecily came running down the trail and tripped over her own worn out, skinny bird legs. Everyone gasped and before I could ask if she was OK, she peeped out a weary but typically chipper, "I'm OK". There was a unified sigh of relief behind me as my baby girl snuggled up beside me to warm up and get in a quick reassurance from me that she actually was okay. I could see that much in her glance up at me. About then a gal named Jennifer from Glacier Guides asked if Cecily had gone all that way with me. My chest puffed up a couple of inches as I replied. The four or five guys that had graciously made room for us to plop our tired backsides down started asking more questions as they checked their manhood next to this 50-pound, girl. Anyway . . . that was a great day!