03 Oct From The Editor: Embracing the Climb

After cautiously guiding our horses up a steep and timbered hillside, we were met by knee-high meadow grass and the scraggly trees of the alpine. It was an unusually cool morning in August, and despite the lather on my horse, I knew we had more of the mountain to climb. Our party was headed to the very top, where we’d be greeted by a stunning cliff drop within the Bob Marshall Wilderness that would give us the vantage to see east all the way to the Sun River Game Range.

This was my daughter’s second pack trip and, at almost 3 years old, she rode in front of me in the saddle as our horses climbed. Higher up, fields of talus interrupted the meadow and, as we skirted the rocks, I noticed deep pits and scat piles; grizzlies had enjoyed a moth feast while basking beneath the wondrous sky, views of the drainage extending for miles.

As I’ve found to be the case more often than not when the goal is to reach a mountain’s top, the summit continued to evade us — we’d crest a rise, anticipating we’d reached our destination, only to realize there was still more of the mountain to climb. The wind, now brisk, laughed at our folly.

Well after lunchtime, we clambered up a gentle slope, found trees where we could tie the horses, and made our final ascent: The top was breathtaking in every sense of the word. The sky stretched out low and wide and, from every angle, the horizon was filled with mountains. Before us, the ground’s gentle slope ended in an abrupt drop; about 1,000 feet below, we observed hikers traveling a trail. While not the lauded Chinese Wall, this cliff band was certainly worth the effort.

A highlight of the trip, this mountain climb was an adventure that required work but yielded a deeply felt reward. A lifelong equestrian, I’ve eagerly awaited the time when my first child would grow old enough to experience the mountains on horseback and this summer offered us a stepping stone into that period of our lives. It’s a love my husband and I share: a way to be among nature, in harmony with a horse.

I’ve thought back on this trip more than a few times while preparing this issue. The edition is full of stories about people who are embracing their passions. Among them, Laura Orvidas, CEO of onX, has found a way to “inspire people to be able to do the things they want to do” (page 144); the Hostetler family of Buffalo, Wyoming and the Kouf family of Darby, Montana are carving out livelihoods where they can take pride and satisfaction in their work (page 112 and 120, respectively); and Arnold “Smoke” Elser found a home among the mountains where he “watched the sun rise over the horizon to give light, color, and life to the sky, ridges, meadows, and trees — nature touched his soul” (page 104).

Amid the hustle of the every day, and despite a fast-paced world of 24-hour news and social media, it’s critical we carve out time to alight in our passions, to embrace the unfurling of inspiration within our bellies. To find joy.