Bill Hatcher photo; the legendary Dial-Tobin-Adkins Alaska Range bike traverse. Look at that tiny pack!
The past weekend of fun and the extensive germ exposure of my job caught up to me, and I’ve spent the past two days feeling achey and sluggish, trying to not get any more ill. Hopefully it works.
Life up here in the Flathead can feel claustrophobic. The ever present (unless it’s below zero) fog from Flathead Reservoir is the number one factor, how I ended up living somewhere so not like the desert southwest in terms of sun exposure is a matter of some speculation. We’re also two hours from the interstate (my parents found out there’s a surcharge to mail stuff here v. Missoula), which makes a hypothetical escape all the slower. Beyond that, this is a forgotten corner of the world, an attribute made very evident at my job. Folks move here because they want to get away, and somehow the not inconsequential concentration of people and the consequent trappings of civilization (Super Walmart, mini-malls, ski resorts) only serves to make more obvious the extent to which the normal denizon of the Flathead is a few standard deviations removed from any broader standard of normalcy.
It’s also been since July of ’09 and the Markagunt epic since we’ve been down to canyon country. Far, far too long. I’d like to go soon, and fulfill some longstanding plans in the process. First on the list involves biking and packrafting. Doing, in essence, Doom’s route with minor variations, and doing it faster. Moab to Escalante, or vice versa. So, I have two questions:
-Who has a bike and raft and wants to go with?
-What are you, my rabid readers, dreaming of for the coming year?
Bedrock & Paradox 
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