Frontier Spirit
I guess I’ve always had a frontiersman spirit. When I was younger, I loved the outdoors as all kids usually do. In the summers we would spend most of the time with my grandparents at “The Fishing Trailer” that sat on the Toledo Bend Reservoir in East Texas. It was a simple single wide, but to me there was no better place to spend the summer. Up with the sun, out on the lake and back around 11 am, that was my typical morning. My grandfather would clean the fish at a station he built behind the trailer. I say station, it was a plywood on top of a couple of railroad ties. There was a long water hose stretched from the trailer to wash the fish.
After the fish were cleaned, he would hand them off to my grandmother. She would then batter the fish, with her own recipe, and fry them up for lunch. The fryer was set up behind the trailer. I remember, to check the oil temperature, she would drop a match in. If it caught on fire, it was ready. My grandfather and I would sit it in the old folding lawn chairs and sip coffee. Looking back now, those were simple and amazing days.
As I got older, a lot of that seemed to fade away. Life and responsibility catch up to us all. We start to let the world dictate who we are and what is necessary to live in society. We are taught that we must conform if we want to be successful. It really wasn’t until I went to visit my brother that the essence of a mountain man came rushing back. And it hit me hard.
"Wilderness is not a luxury but a necessity of the human spirit." - Edward Abbey
I was passing through Raton when the feeling started to take hold.
In 2009 I went to visit my brother in Bozeman, Montana. As soon as I passed through Raton, I felt something change. I didn’t know then what it was. It felt like nervous excitement, but also, there was a since of familiarization. I liked to travel, and I hadn’t seen my brother in about 5 years so I dismissed it as excitement. As I rolled north through Colorado, the snowcapped peaks of the Rockies to my left, the feeling that I was where I was supposed to be was unescapable.
I hit the Wyoming line and saw the rolling prairie grass. The wind moving the grass likes waves on the sea. There was an aroma that sent shivers of nostalgia through me. I found out later that it was sage, as Chris Ledoux said “I love the smell of sage in bloom.” Watching the antelope run across the plains gave me a since of freedom I hadn’t felt in a long time. Continuing north with the Big Horn Mountains on mt left, I passed through Kaycee, Buffalo and then Sheridan. Each mile that passed brought me closer to something I didn’t know I was missing.
I turned west in Billings. After passing through town, I could see off in the distance another mountain range. It was the Beartooth Range, standing like a beacon against the sky. The views just kept coming. This is Big Sky Country, and it lives up to the name. Every direction I looked seemed like a painting or post card. The Yellowstone River flowed beside the highway like a song carrying me to a home I hadn’t seen.
I arrived in Bozeman after dark. My brother met me in the parking lot of his condo. After we got my stuff inside, I said let’s go for a walk. The air was crisp even though it was summertime. We walked and talked for I don’t know how long. We talked about the normal stuff, how’s work and the family. Then I started telling him about my trip, specifically the feeling of belonging and familiarity that I experienced. I knew we had a 3-day camping trip in Yellowstone, but I didn’t know what else he had planned for me. The next day we took time to organize the gear we needed for the camping trip. We were going to tent camp in the park and even though it was summertime it still gets cold at night. We gathered gear and made a store run for food. The next day we would make the drive to Yellowstone.
We did all the tourist spots, Old Faithful, Lamar Valley, Yellowstone Falls and so on. Seeing Yellowstone National Park the first time was an unforgettable experience. Obviously, since we were in Bozeman, he took me to the local places like Hyalite, The “M” and Spanish Peaks Trailhead. I could go on for days about all of those places. But that is not the point of this story.
What is the point?
Since I started the trip I felt this spirit pulling me forward. I had to know what was over the next hill. Every hike, every mountain top to the next valley and back again, I had to know what was over there. I would guess, most of you know the feeling or else you wouldn’t be reading this. That longing for exploration and belonging. I couldn’t shake it the feeling was both overpowering and liberating. Whatever you want to call it Mountain Man Grit, Frontier Spirit, or a Gypsy Soul it was now awake inside me.
I didn’t realize how much effect it was going to have on me. It was only supposed to be a two-week trip, but I was done, I had to move here. It consumed everything I thought about. Getting back there was my only goal. It took three years to line things up. Selling a house, finding a job and finding a place to live can all be done faster but doing things correctly takes time. In 2012 I made it. I found a sense of freedom after all the mountains, to me, truly represent freedom. That is another story though. I hope all of you can find your spirit. Whether it’s in the mountains with me, in the desert or on a beach. Find that place that makes you feel free. Find a place where you feel the frontiersman spirit. "The mountains are a calling, not a place to reach." - Unknown
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