Behind our house, there are thousands of acres of the Flathead National Forest. (It’s nice to know that no one will build a house or a subdivision next door!) Those acres of forest ascend a pretty steep hill, forming a ridge that separates the Flathead Valley where we live from the Swan Valley on the other side. Earlier this summer, Kyra and I agreed that one day we’d hike The Hill. Why? I believe George Mallory said it best: “Because it’s there.”
So this morning we set off. Since it’s just a bunch of trees and underbrush, there aren’t any trails and we had to bushwhack a bit. That led to some moments like this, where we kind of peered around for a route that wasn’t completely overgrown:
Near the top of The Hill, there are a lot of rocks, which made for a bit of a scramble.
As we approached the crest, Kyra forged ahead while I stopped to admire the view. Notice the can of bear spray in my hand. There are definitely bears in these woods, and stomping through the underbrush isn’t always enough to deter them. (No, we didn’t run into any on the hike.)
At last we reached the ridgeline and were rewarded with a view of the forest below us. It was a particularly hazy day, so Flathead Lake doesn’t look all that impressive. But what is impressive is that we can see our house from here!
It’s that tiny little thing right in the center of the photo:
Mission accomplished! We headed back down, taking a slightly different route.
Kyra paused to look… contemplative?
The lack of trails or even distinct landmarks made it impossible to take the same route back down, so once again we found ourselves stymied at points as we considered different paths.
In the end, we arrived back at the house and took a celebratory selfie.
Now we can look way up The Hill, point to some of the trees at the top, and say “Yep, we were up there!”