“I enjoyed your article so much that I just now read it in its entirety
over the phone to my parents, J. Gordon Edwards and Alice Edwards. We
all enjoyed it very much. It's an interesting and very entertaining
account.

The pictures are also great.”

Naturally I was delighted , and not a little humbled since I had taken minor exception to one of his route descriptions in another article about climbing Grinnell Point. Fortunately I had accorded him due respect in both articles, and plugged his book, and hopefully no offense was taken.
J. Gordon Edwards passed away at age 84 last week, while climbing Divide Mountain on Glacier’s eastern boundary south of St. Mary. According to the Great Falls Tribune article that alerted me to his death, Jane Edwards is quoted “He picked a beautiful place to die. It was right above a quarry with a beautiful view of the upper and lower valleys.” Glacier’s head ranger Steve Frye, a close friend of Gordon’s said “If you had to script Gordon’s last few hours, I suspect there wouldn’t be a much better script than what played out.” Tribune associate editor Tom Kotynski had climbed and hiked with the Edwards, and saw them that morning at Logan Pass as they dropped off Jane to co-lead a group hike/climb of Mount Cannon. He says Gordon had “rock star status” amongst the Glacier hiking fraternity. Deservedly so, and I think it’s fantastic that he was still bagging peaks on rugged off-trail routes at an age when many consider themselves lucky to just still be breathing. In fact, in Kotynski’s accompanying photo of the Edwards at Snow Moon Lake near Many Glacier in 2002, they both look like they could easily be in their 50’s! What an inspiration….. Incidentally, that hike is a challenge for someone half the Edwards’ age. According to Gordon’s book, of the two possible routes, the High Traverse consists of “1.5 miles from the Many Glacier Hotel, none of it by human trail. Elevation gained is about 1800 vertical feet. Class 2 and 3 all the way, unless the trail is blocked by steep snowbanks. (This route should not be attempted before July 4 unless the climbers are carrying ice axes and know how to use them.)” Then there’s the “Bushwhack Route” described as “much less scenic” requiring steep uphill bushwhacking. No, we’re not talking about some casual stroll along the lake. I’ve fought my way through enough brush and deadfall that the “Bushwhack Route” holds no interest whatsoever, and have no doubt that the High Traverse route will give one pause in a few spots. I may have to find out on an upcoming trip to Glacier.... For that matter, another phrase from the review of that climb has given me many chuckles over the years. He describes the ascent and descent through a bunch of loose rock as the “Dread Scree Strolls”, a phrase I use whenever opportunity presents.
My other regular source for Glacier happenings is the Hungry Horse News. Long-time columnist and bona-fide Flathead character Gordon Ostrom will undoubtedly have a column about Edwards. Incidentally, Ostrom is another remarkable mountaineer, among numerous other things, whose “Glacier’s Secrets” books are a must-read for anyone remotely interested in Glacier Park. The Hungry Horse News is a weekly, and the current one only has brief mention of Edward’s passing. I’m sure the next issue will be most interesting….
So, another legend has passed, but lives on in the legacy he gave us with his writings. Divide Mountain towers above the St. Mary valley, and I’m sure a lot of folks will think of Gordon whenever they look up at it. He was a terrific inspiration, and even if you can’t visit Glacier, if you’re a fan of wild places you should read his book. He bequeathed the copyright to the Glacier National History Association, and the book is published by Falcon Press. I highly recommend getting a copy, as Gordon’s store of knowledge is an incredible resource.
Hike on, Gordon…..

<this entry is excerpted from an e-mail to a buddy, so please excuse the conversational tone....>

Well, I had an interesting Friday evening. Kinda too doggone interesting, actually.... Took a long-delayed scouting trip up where we did some of our elk hunting last fall, to where the griz drank my whiskey. They trapped a grizzly near the mouth of <deleted, I'm secretive about hunting spots> Cr this spring, that was getting into some lambs and chickens, & transplanted him to Yellowstone, so I optimistically thought maybe my bear problems were over in that neighborhood.
No such luck.... Ran into just a heck of a big bruin on my way in, and am now in complete agreement with Meriwether Lewis; "I find that the curiossity of our party is pretty well satisfyed with rispect to this anamal."
Cody's landscaping job has temporarily turned into full-time haying, so he was unavailable. I'd been plotting this trip since last winter, but something was always coming up to prevent it, and I'm too darn secretive to take anybody else up in there, so headed out solo. Was watching for bear tracks all the way in, & fairly relieved at their absense. I just kinda had a feeling, though....
There's a couple of creek crossings about four miles in, and in the mud at one of them was just a BIG honking rear print! I was going to measure & take pictures on the way out, but the horses had obliterated it. I'm telling you, though.... I bet it was ten inches long. And there's the claw marks from the front prints climbing up on the way out the other side, all just fresh as can be. Not good....
So we rode about a hundred yards down the trail, and came over a little rise, and there's Mr. Griz, about sixty yards off the trail. I was real glad I wasn't hiking at that point! About a half mile back, we'd passed a cow & calf moose at about the same distance. The horses were interested, although didn't bat an eye, but man, they didn't like that bear at all! My saddle horse jumped uphill and was sort of doing the running in place thing, with the two packhorses doing laps around us. Fortunately the bear was departing poste haste in the opposite direction. Impressively wide across the stern, and deep chocolate brown color are the only points that stuck with me from about a two-second evaluation.
I got the horses all pointed in the same direction again, and about a hundred yards up the trail decided I should crank a round off from Cody's 45/70 (glad he urged me to take it), just as sort of a statement of technological superiority and firepower ;-). Got off Lexi, and man, there's just blood all over. She must have whacked a front foot on a stump or rock, and put a cut about 1 1/4" long right above her hoof, & was bleeding just profusely. Just a lovely situation....
Tried to stem it with a handful of grass, but that only got me bloody too. I've carried a horse first-aid pouch for years without needing it, and of course it was packed away in a manty. But, I couldn't just let her bleed like that so had to unpack one horse & spread the manty on the trail, all the time expecting the bear to show up & reclaim his territory. Got the blood flow slowed down to steady drips with a compress, a bunch of gauze, and one of those sticky roll-up bandages, but couldn't avoid leaving a dandy trail of blood spots right to the campsite, about a mile down the trail. Didn't camp in my usual spot in those parts, but in an old outfitter camp. He went out of business some ten years back, and the Forest Service never permitted that camp for anybody else, at least partly because he had regular bear problems. That trail is definitely a bear corridor, but I wanted to camp there because it's closer to the spots I wanted to investigate, and my regular camp is about a mile further (and about 500' vertical down in a canyon).
Got there with about a half hour of daylight left, and of course it promptly poured rain for about fifteen minutes. I was real glad about then I hadn't talked Kim into coming along ;-). She'd have been hysterical.... A big roaring campfire was sounding just really good, but of course all the small wood around was wet. Making a bunch of noise was kind of attractive too (and I had cranked off a round after my little first-aid episode back down the way), so fired up the chainsaw and sawed up a couple of dead lodgepoles and built an inferno.
Had a backpack meal and a nightcap, hung the food items well out of reach and adequately far away, and turned in. Had the ponies in right next to the tent, which is some comfort against nasty surprise wake-ups, and actually slept pretty well.
Unfortunately, the route I wanted to scout, which holds potential for leading to the absolute Heart of the Inner Sanctum for giant bull elk, is just a total no-go. A couple miles of just truly awful deadfall, the kind where you have to walk on the down logs cause you can't even hardly get down to the ground. Mighty slow going, and totally impractical for elk retrieval, so I suppose I could classify the trip as an abject failure, except it could have gone a lot worse. All the same, I kind of feel like I've been pushing my luck in there, and since I know places where there's more elk and less bears, we might kind of cool it on that spot. Not giving it up entirely, though....

We had a great Fourth of July, starting out with spending the earlier part of the day flyfishing an obscure smaller local stream, with epic cooperation from the finned fauna. If you don’t know, Bozeman is one of the Meccas of the flyfishing world, a lynchpin of the local economy and a near-religion for some. Being irreverent by nature, I think the whole flyfishing dogma is overblown, and while I nailed ‘em on dry flies, my son adapted the novel technique of a small Panther Martin lure on a fly rod. Total blasphemy if not an unnatural and depraved act in the eyes of the Orvis crowd, but I tell you what, it worked like a charm. I expect to bring it up in conversation with purists whenever opportunity presents.

But the really fun part of the day was still to come. My wife Kim, son Cody, and I got a long-overdue blast of rock’n roll magic at Bozeman's Red, White, and Boom celebration, and although the written word (mine, at least) can’t convey the sensations verbatim, I’ll attempt to do justice….
Decent bands pass through Bozeman from time to time, although nobody would mistake us for Austin or Nashville or even Boise, but that’s OK, because disregarding any lack of big name entertainment, many fiercely provincial residents think this is the best place in the world to live. And besides, Kid Rock played here last winter (and I had a meeting that night, thankfully, but got a couple weeks worth of jokes out of my utter lack of interest). And yeah, Fleetwood Mac is playing next weekend, but $75 tickets fail to enthuse me, and besides it’d never match up to when I saw ‘em open for the Guess Who shortly after Buckingham & Nicks joined. So, aside from a handful of area bands, we don’t see much live music, and don’t even make it out for those very often.
But the local Fourth celebration had a couple of local bands, plus Roger Clyne and the Peacemakers, and the Young Dubliners for headliners. For six bucks, it was a no-brainer. My wife plays fiddle and likes Celtic-flavored stuff, and Clyne’s previous band, the Refreshments, are a favorite of mine. A few years back, Banditos wound up in the rotation at a local rock station, and after about the second time I heard it I actually called up to say “who is that band?”. That’s a really fun tune; funny lyrics (and you can look deep into my eyes, like I was a Supermodel…. Uh-Huh!), raucous guitar, a stompin’ beat…. I’d promptly bought Fizzy, Fuzzy, Big, & Bouncy, and it rapidly became one of my favorite albums to play along with.
But then the Refreshments fell victim to the merger of Mercury Records and a soulless conglomerate, broke up, and Clyne and the drummer P.H. Naffah eventually morphed into Roger Clyne and the Peacemakers. I bought Sonoran Hope and Madness, and well… Man, I just friggin’ hated it! I figured it had to be the result of some record company mook mandating an acoustic sort of Great American Desert Burning Man sort of vibe, but I see now it’s an indie release and some folks apparently like it just fine. My daughter played it the morning of the Fourth, concurred once again that it was just truly awful, and declined to take a chance on the performance. I figured “for six bucks, if they even just play Banditos, I’m going….”. My son is always up for taking a chance, and Kim was ambivalent but went along with the caveat that we could leave if lameness prevailed.
Thankfully, it didn’t. Oh, no, quite the contrary, in fact….
Clyne & Co. were scheduled for 6:00. We got there about 5:30, and were sort of dismayed to see an absolutely pathetic crowd. Probably not over 250 people. What the heck?! More showed up later, but the Peacemakers had to have been bummed out with the showing. They’ve been opening for John Fogerty (to presumably better crowds), but he was opening for the Allman Brothers up at Big Sky that day, & so…. Just to give you the vibe, there were a handful of biker types, an assortment of white-bread parents with little kids mainly there for the giant sandbox and other kiddie attractions, a smattering of teenagers young and old, and, about twenty residents from a group home. And, the mentally challenged bunch was right down front, comprising about half the people clustered in front of the stage. And that turned out to be really cool, in my opinion anyway.
The Peacemakers came out and just ROCKED ferociously. They played like we were all Ahmet Ertegun cloned and the recording contract to end all was on the line. And the group home folks, not to mention everyone else present that I looked at, just dug it in a major way. There was this one group home gal, that at first glance some might have mocked, but she was having such a great time, dancing with just this total childlike abandon, that man, I’m telling you, it was rock and roll magic in the flesh! I was way overdue for some of that…..
So, I know, concert revues from a guitar player are supposed to include gear minutiae, which I didn’t positively identify except for Roger Clyne mainly favoring an assortment of Teles, through a stack ‘a Fenders. Brown ones. Lead guitarist Steve Larson started out on a Strat, but then promptly switched to and remained with a Les Paul, with a Bigsby that saw near-constant use, without lapsing into overkill. Great tone, likewise through a stack of blackface Twins, I believe. The drum tone really struck me. Just sharp and crisp, with enough punch to put out cigarettes. Bassist Nick Scropos was playing a Music Man, I believe, had short hair and looked & acted like my UPS driver; reserved, with timely delivery.
But if I had to pick one thing that made the show, it was Clyne’s singing. Man, that guy has a set of pipes! During Girly (one of my Refreshments faves) they lapsed into an extended excerpt from the Who's Baba O’Riley, and I’m telling you, it sounded like Roger Daltrey up there. Teenage wasteland, indeed! It just killed….
So all in all, it was just big fun! With the great fishing early in the day, we were in a good mood anyway, but I could have spent the day working on taxes and still been elevated by that performance. Hopefully some of youse felt the magic again, too…..