Sweet Alpine Silence

This past Monday, my husband and I took our classic van on its “maiden” voyage (with us) up into the mountains. It was time to hunt down our first “out of town” stamp for our Montana Bookstore Trail passport, as well as test out all the mechanical work we had done a few weeks ago, start breaking in the new tires, and make sure the transmission and new brakes were up to the task of ascending and descending sometimes steep inclines. That happens quite often in this state, especially when traveling west, so finding any problems closer to home is preferable than farther away.

Our first on-the-road passport stop was in the little tourist town of Red Lodge, Montana, at the base of the Beartooth mountain range a little less than an hour from where we live in Billings. The store is called Beartooth Books, and it’s in a lovely old stone building with a beautiful wooden door and a stained glass transom overhead. It’s cozy, but spacious enough not to feel crowded, with lots of light and incredibly handy “If you liked [big name author]…try [this not-so-big-name-author]” recommendations hanging on the shelves in very visible and helpful spots.

I picked up four books: “Dead Mountain” by Preston & Child, “Black River Orchard” by Chuck Wendig, “A Most Agreeable Murder” by Julia Seales, and “Lone Woman” by Victor LaValle. I also grabbed a couple of bookmarks – one for myself (because I’m trying to be slightly more civilized, though I’m not sure it’s working) and one for my mom for taking care of our dogs while we were out gallivanting around in the country.

The bookstore’s stamp for the passport was drawn by one of the owners when she was nine – a lovely image of a heart with a silhouette inside. The stamp was frisky that day, and tried to escape before it could “validate” my passport, but it was quickly retrieved and the validation complete.

After a successful book-shopping stop, we headed down the street to Bogarts for lunch, a popular restaurant that opened there the year I was born. I had an incredible burger with onion bacon jam and Gouda, and a side salad that was big enough to have been lunch all on its own. After that, we stopped at the candy shop, which you will not miss if you just walk main street, and grabbed a bag of taffy (another well-known destination that’s been around since I was a kid) before we headed on up into the mountains.

The Beartooth Pass tops out at nearly 11,000 feet, and the road up is only open in the summer (it’s buried, literally, in yards of snow all winter). The highway is very twisty with steep drop-offs, dramatic views, and sharp switchbacks to navigate, so it’s not a “set the cruise control and go” type of drive (not that our cruise control works). You have to pay attention and focus, and there are a lot of turn-outs where you can pull off and go hiking or just take in the mountain air and spectacular forestry (until you get above the timberline, anyways).

We kept going until we hit the summit, and then stopped to stretch our legs over the rocky Beartooth plateau, say “Hi” to the rock chucks, and enjoy the big sky our state is nicknamed for. It was cool and calm, and even though there were a few other people up there enjoying the day, the thing we both noticed pretty much right away was the silence.

Here in the city, it’s never silent. There’s always at least the underlying hum of electronics, cars, birds, chatter…even late at night in our “quiet” neighborhood, you can still hear civilization steadily moving.

Up there, it was silent. There wasn’t even much wind that day (it’s normally fairly breezy), and we stood there on the rocks among the wildflowers, looking out over the mountain range and just enjoyed the absolute silence for a bit. We stopped again at a little rest stop with a short walking trail, and even though there were a few more people and quite a few chipmunks begging for food (they told me off in squeaks because I didn’t bring sunflower seeds like others had), the underlying “feeling” was still one of silence. It was very grounding, even though the earth was literally falling away just on the other side of the guardrail.

I love quiet – I’m not someone who needs the TV or radio on “for noise” (in fact it bugs me if the TV is on when no one is actually watching it), and I need to be able to hear myself think in order to write or code or solve problems. It’s been a very long time since I’ve been out of my city, and just that little bit of silence, away from the constant hum of humanity was enough to convince me that I should venture out into the “wild” more often. It was glorious and exhilarating. Though it did take my ears a couple of days to recover from the quick descent from that high elevation (our city is at around 3,000ft, so we went up and down just over 7,000ft in the space of a few hours – down is worse, because it’s faster).

We were supposed to set out across the flatter “prairie” side of the state for Malta and Fairview for more Bookstore Trail stamps in a couple of weeks – our first overnight trip in the van. But my dear husband cut part of his finger off working on framing for the mattress Tuesday night, so that trip may have to wait a bit longer while he heals. I think we should be able to get a day trip in, though. If we do that, it’ll be farther towards the mountainous side of the state.

I’m looking forward to our next adventure out, whenever that may be. And while collecting stamps for our bookstore passport, I’m also collecting photos and ideas, which will hopefully shape themselves into stories. Or at least add to the stories already in progress.

When was the last time you found yourself in a place that felt utterly silent? Do you love the quiet, as I do, or does silence make you uncomfortable (as it does several people I know)?

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Jamie DeBree

Writer | DBA | Dog Wrangler