Tuesday, October 11, 2011

Dear Missoula

I was up early, before the beginning of the Saturday book festival morning sessions, and walked a block to what I regard as Missoula's center, the Higgins Avenue Bridge over the Clark Fork of the Columbia River. It's a city of 60,000, a regional center and a university town, in a state with less than a million total population. I suppose there must be better instances of blend between the natural and the built. I haven't found any yet. Beautiful place, beautiful people.... We have to get back there...
Down-river from the bridge...Brennan's Wave, an artificial
wave built to honor a world-class Missoula kayaker who
died in Chile some years ago














The "historic" Wilma Theatre; where the book festival's
larger events are held; and, beyond, the art deco Florence
Hotel, where Rachel and Will had their wedding reception;
from the bridge














Also from the bridge, the Saturday morning farmers' market,
west annex (the larger and older market is by the Xs, three
blocks away) 














Other side of the bridge, Caras Park, one of several civic
centers







Other side still, old Milwaukee Station, now home of the
Boone and Crockett Club (yes, that Boone, that Crockett);
founded by Teddy Roosevelt, Gifford Pinchot, William
Tecumseh Sherman, and other conservation-minded pals





















A block up-river, Mount Sentinel above the University of
Montana campus














Of all the places we have lived, it is the best; but there
is this one draw-back, starting always in October...up
high...






























Taking off from Missoula Sunday afternoon; the Mission
Mountains, pretty much the view from our front porch for
ten years...

2011 Montana Festival of the Book

On Wednesday, following our trip to Yosemite, I flew up to Missoula to attend the 12th annual Montana Festival of the Book, an event I founded in 2000, when I was director of the Montana Committee for the Humanities, now Humanities Montana. I could write reams about this event and other humanities matters in Montana, which would interest very few people, any of whom would have their own relevant and valid views. But the festival is an ongoing matter, among several of which I remain very proud from my years in Montana, and I have the greatest affection for the many people who joined with me in 1999 and 2000, and subsequently, and who have kept the festival vibrant and vital all these years. Foremost among these is Kim Anderson, who came to "coordinate" the festival in 2000. I had the good luck and good sense to hire her then, and she has been a prime mover and planner of it since the beginning. I think nearly all of the greatest living writers of the American West have appeared at the festival in one year or another, many more than once...and many others...poets, writers of fiction and non-fiction, historians, political commentators, authors of cookbooks, trail guides, and always much, much more. The Festival is at humanitiesmontana.org and associated Facebook and Flickr sites. In any case, it was wonderful to see and visit with so many old friends and associates, and some new ones. And my sincere thanks to Kim and Neil for their hospitality.

And see the postscript, Mayor John Engen's beautiful welcome from the opening night of the festival.
Bill Kittredge introduces














Tom McGuane














Germaine White's session on the restoration of bull trout
in the Jocko River; published by the University of Nebraska
Press; Germaine was vice chair of my board in 1997
















Poetry dispenser at the registration desk


















My successor, Ken Egan, introduces the panel for the
"Coen Brothers' Cinematic West"; "careful, man, there's
 a beverage here"















Friday night--family night--at the Top Hat; only in Montana















Followed by the 3 hour poetry slam; just
about the most electrifying word-event I
have ever seen; 250 in attendance per
the management; mostly about performance,
but I keenly suspect that that was mostly
what Homer was about; for me, the most
electrifying reading was Debra Earling's 2003
reading of the original unpublished ending
of Perma Red; the next gala reader, Tim
Cahill, turned to me and said "I can't follow
that!" and we took a brief unscheduled
intermission to let everyone recompose and
reset; and then there was Chuck Palahniuk
a few years later; but I digress..."all
them memories come floodin' back"






























Rick Bass; just for the record, I became convinced of the
importance of Montana writers on a late 90s visit to Paris
and a Left Bank bookstore table of Rick's books
















Kiddie time at the festival, with Snow White, Grumpy, and
Corduroy the Bear; I am now much more attuned to kiddie
time...
















Just for the record, again...the festival really began at a
lunch in Bozeman (or was it Big Sky?)  in 1999 when I pitched
the idea to Jim and Lois Welch and Bill Bevis; it was
certainly of no moment to them; but when Jim Welch allowed
it might be a good idea and, yes, he would participate, it was
a done deal for me...here, Lois introduces...


















Mary Clearman Blew


























































Festival of the Book 2011

"Why is Missoula, Montana, home to so many writers?"

That's the sort of question you get asked when you're the mayor of Missoula, Montana. And while your first instinct is to offer a matter-of-fact reply, something like: "We believe it has much to do with the abundant availability of inexpensive liquor," you know there's a more appropriate answer.

When you're born in Missoula, Montana, you're likely to take for granted the sense of place that folks long forgotten worked to cultivate and later preserve. You assume that the guy moving your piano is a poet and the woman pouring your coffee has a reading tonight at your independent bookstore and that your state's poet laureate connects school kids, many of them outsiders, to words and that those words lead to self-expression and that expression leads to realization and that realization leads to fully formed human beings who think for themselves and believe that some stuff in this life still matters in the midst of all this relentless damn noise and nonsense.

You take for granted that our piece of the West, while populated in part with images of Justin Bieber and some Real Housewives of Somewhere Else, is still a bit spare. There's still enough room to be lonely and, if you want, alone. You take for granted that the weather changes, that most of us are still in the same boat, that you've got to work, one way or another, to make it work here, and it ain't always easy.

You take for granted that people of character provide fodder for characters and that the facts are all over the place but you've got to look hard for the truth and one of the ways you do that is by fighting with words over sound and cadence and meaning and depth until you embrace a sentence that's just about perfect for the moment. And you add that sentence to the last hard-won turn of phrase and start in on the next one.

You take all that for granted when you're born here. But if you're from a place that's no longer a place and you ache for a reality that fuels imagination and you're a writer, want to be a writer or will become a writer despite your better judgment and warnings from family and friends, Missoula, Montana, is a discovery. It's a place and it's a place for writers. They are welcome, admired, respected and most likely have day jobs.

And if all that weren't enough, there's a book festival here every year. And it starts now.

Welcome, folks, to Missoula, Montana.

My name's John Engen, I'm the mayor, I'm a writer, and these welcoming remarks are titled "The Chamber of Commerce Will Not Approve."

Thursday, October 6, 2011

Yosemite: Tuolomne Meadows

Sunday morning we checked out of the Bug and drove up to Tuolomne Meadows--much higher country than the Valley--where we had camped for a week in 1972 when I did the mountaineering school thing. Yosemite is not a place we have come back to again and again, like the Tetons and Winds, but it is very meaningful for us as the place where we did our first backpacking, our first climbing, and our first full imbibing of the wilderness culture. We fell in love with that culture and have sought it over the years in many different places.
A dihedral above Tenaya Lake; I am quite
sure I did this climb in 1972; click to enlarge
and see the person belaying (about a third
of the way down)





















Tenaya Lake














Tuolomne Meadows














Lembert Dome, which Vicki climbed, while I was training
on Kitty Dome and Puppy Dome















We turned back short of Tioga Pass and then did a couple
miles' hike up from Tenaya Lake















Granite; everywhere














Looking back across Lake Tenaya to the High Sierra; and
possibly Mt. Dana, which I think I climbed in '72















It was October 2 and the end of the season, with
management burns ongoing across the Park















Ditto














Double ditto; all in all, it was quite a good experience visiting
this place, special to anyone who visits it, and especially so
to us; hopefully, we'll be back in the spring

Wednesday, October 5, 2011

Yosemite: Valley, More Glacier Point, Happy Isles

The next day we carried on...me hiking from the Valley up to Glacier Point (4.6 miles, 3,200 feet) and back, Vicki taking the Valley Shuttles to visit exhibits, museums, visitor center, and shops. We met up again at 4PM to do a hike to one of our favorite places, Happy Isles.
Classic view of the lower Valley, dominated by El Capitan















At Curry Village, the Yosemite Mountaineering School, where I was a student for 
week in 1972 (classes were up at Tuolomne Meadows)
















Same T-shirt as in 1972



















Half Dome, classic view















On my hike, another view of Yosemite Falls



















Looking back toward El Cap and Cathedral Peaks















Self-portrait atop Glacier Point















Happy Isles















Vicki, happy at Happy Isles



















Granite Domes everywhere...

Yosemite: Mariposa Grove, Glacier Point, and the Valley

So last weekend we drove over to Yosemite National Park, 4 hours away, and spent three nights in a tent cabin at the Yosemite Bug, by day reacquainting ourselves with the great park, which we think we had visited  previously in 1970, definitely in 1972 and 1990, and possibly in 1992. Pretty much all the same sights were there, of course, generating pretty much the same awe and affection as in previous visits. It's an incredible place, the Valley itself, the big walls, the big trees, the high country, the granite everywhere.... Our visit began with a special occasion, a milestone, as it were, obtaining my Interagency Senior Pass ($10), which gets us into national parks and forests and other public lands free of charge, for life. Our visits to these places have spanned five decades now, and we hope they will continue a few more too.
At the Mariposa Grove of redwoods, this little fellow was dragging the pine 
cone across the trail, munching as he went















But then he was driven off by this big fellow, who took over the munching; survival 
of the fattest















The Bachelor and Three Graces



















Vicki poses for scale under the lower drive-through tree (forgot 
its name)(the upper one, now fallen, was the Wawona Tree)





















From Washburn Point, en route to Glacier Point, Nevada and Vernal Falls















Half Dome, profile, from Washburn Point



















Us at Washburn, wearing our New Zealand steady shirts ("not all who wander 
are lost")















Mt. Starr King and some of the high country















Looking up the great valley



















To distant peaks; exposed rock everywhere...















Across the Valley, Yosemite Peak and Yosemite Falls; our 
first backpacking trip ever, in 1972, took us on a trail down
Yosemite Creek, to the Falls, and then via the switch-backs 
(click to enlarge) down to theValley, where we stayed at Camp 4