"She Rocks in the Treetops, All the Day Long”

Saturday, July 19, 2014

Oh yum!  Jennifer has put out the goodies we brought back yesterday from Polebridge Mercantile!  We feel guilty taking a bear claw, since we bought our own, so Marilyn has a chocolate chip-banana muffin and I have a huckleberry-bran one.  It is kind of early because we are heading back to Whitefish today and our tummies aren’t ready for a whole muffin, so they go into our little fridge and we go into the car!

We are going back to the Whitefish Mountain Resort, this time to do the Walk-in-the-Treetops!  At it highest, this series of suspension bridges is seventy feet off the ground!

First the nine of us adventures gather for a description of what’s coming, delivered by our two guides, Kelsey and Andrew.  They look like they are teenagers;  but surely they are older than that or the insurance company would have a cow!  We ride our “open-air limousine”  to the Treetop’s tent, about a mile away, where we learn the ins and outs of donning our harnesses, attaching our safety lines and moving our double-safety carabiners from one steel cable to the next.

Our limo!

First you put your legs through the harness and secure it around your waist, then you slip the safety ropes through a loop on the harness and form a lark’s head knot.  Each end of the safety rope is attached to a carabiner which they called a lobster claw and each of the two claws had two colors of tape wrapped around it.  The red and blue claw gets attached to the cable with the red and blue tape and the green and yellow claw …. You get the idea!

They are called double safety because you have to push in a release before the claw will open.  And they are pretty strong!  We work with a partner and each person has to have one claw attached at all times.  When you come to a transfer point, you take one claw off the current cable and transfer it to the new one, saying, “One on”.  The your partner says, “One on.”  Next you transfer the second claw, saying, “Two on’” and your partner responds, “Two on.”  Now your partner goes through the same operation and you repeat back to her.  That way everyone is constantly aware of what is going on.

Inside the tent there are fanny packs that we can use to hold the water bottles and snack bars that are provided as well as anything else you plan to bring.  Had we know that I would have brought the other lens for my camera, instead of opting for only the longer telephoto in hopes of a critter!  We can leave anything in the tent, like hats and car keys and once everyone is geared up and has practice transferring the claws, we’re off on a half-mile hike to the beginning of the adventure. 

This lumber company let's us walk on their land.  They practice the kind of
lumbering where they only cut dead or diseased trees.

Along the way Andrew and Kelsey stop us several times to give us a lesson on the biology of the area.  We learn about service berries. During the winter the ground was too frozen to bury people; when the service berries started to bloom it was time to hold a funeral service.  

This lovely plant is actually an invasive species.

There are bane berries which are poisonous, from the Latin word for death.  They have a small dot on the end and were sometimes used as dolls’ eyes! The Pacific yew was used to make a cancer cure!  It is now made artificially.  Arnica is used for treating bruises.  Thimbleberry is similar to an oversized raspberry but when you pick them, they tend to fall apart and so aren’t grown commercially.  The plant has a five-lobed leaf and is very soft.  They are not to be confused with devil’s club with has a similar leaf with seven lobes.  They are covered with evil thorns and are sometimes called bear candy because the bears don’t seem to notice the thorns! 

The twin berry is easy to recognize because the red berries are actually joined at one end.  They are poisonous and will induce vomiting. The indians used to have all the young men chew the roots and the last one to throw up became the new chief!

Twin berry

Thimbleberry

If you eat too many thimbleberries you might need to use the leaves like Charmin.  The devil’s club leaves are like Walmart’s off brand! Pathfinder has an arrow-shaped leaf with a silver underside.  When they are trampled by deer, they indicate the direction the deer traveled.  There is a clump of white sticky stuff clinging to some of the branches.  Andrew says it is a spittle bug! He gets some between his fingers and shows us the critter inside, Yuck!  Now his fingers are all gooey!

Wolves are a hot topic in the area.  Andrew tells us that if you see a bumper sticker that says, "Smoke a pack a day"  it is referring to wolf packs, not cigarettes!

Huckleberries can only be grown in the wild because the seeds must pass through the digestive system of an animal before they will germinate!  The joke is that you have to have a pet bear to grow them!  They sell for sixty dollars a bucket.  That’s why huckleberry products are so expensive in the stores. 

Kelsey

Enough education!  On to the bridges!  The very hardest part of the adventure is the first step!  Kelsey has started down the bridge and when she does, the free standing end rises in the air about two feet!  Luckily Andrew is standing right there to offer a hand as each person climbs up and hooks his lobster claws.

Look Ma!  No hands!

 Once hooked up, walking on the two boards is a blast!  The steel cables from which we are all suspended, are the same ones used to catch jets as they land on aircraft carriers.  That’s pretty reassuring!  There are smaller cables that act as handrails with vertical members every three feet and the whole operation really looks pretty substantial.  At some of the transfer points there is a loop of cable that you transfer to before attaching to the next overhead cable and all the time you are walking your safety lines follow behind like obedient puppies.

Everyone on this particular walk is a camera person, so no one minds if someone else wants to stop for a photo op.  We only see one critter, a western tanager sitting in a very far off tree.  He’s a gorgeous bird with an orange head, yellow body and black wings with a yellow path on them.

 Near the end of the trek there are two platforms where we take a moment for photos and to sit with our feet dangling into space!  There is no handrail around the platform but everyone is attached to the cables and it feels very safe.

Andrew was kind enough to take this shot of us on the platform.  We really
are almost as tall as the trees!

A few time the cable is too tall for me to reach and Marilyn has to pull it down for me.  There is a mother and son ahead of us.  The son is about eleven and his mom does the same for him.  He is very conscientious about the “one on, two on” routine.  They take a selfie and send it to his thirteen-year old sister who was too chicken to come!  They also do a really neat thing when they travel.  They take nature photos of natural letters and then print them as a word when they get home.  Last year they spelled out Yellowstone.  They were looking for a “z” to spell their name, Moritz and everyone helped the search on the half-mile hike back to the tent.

Can you see the lobster claws behind my back?  That's the easiest
way to carry the safety ropes.

We turn in our gear and thanks our guides, then ride our limo back to the base camp.  I think everyone bought a Walk-in-the-Treetops t-shirt to commemorate the experience!  What a total trip!

We sit in the parking lot and eat our PBJs and chips and I indulge in a huckleberry crunch dark chocolate bar!  Then we are driving back through Whitefish when we see a sign for the Flathead Winery!  Who could turn down a celebratory wine tasting?  It is nine miles down a well-paved but pretty deserted road and I tell Marilyn that if we hear banjoes we aren’t stopping!

There are a couple of other cars in the parking lot at the top of the steep drive and we feel encouraged.  Dave conducts our tasting, which is free, and we lets us sample everything.  Of course the huckleberry wine is the top draw, but there is also a Rainier cherry and a flathead cherry and a plum and a chokeberry and a Montana red which is a mix of pinot noir and cherry.  He suggests that we order on line to simplify shipping but we have to have one bottle of the huck (sweet) for after dinner tonight.  Maybe we’ll be strong enough to make it last for two nights!

Dave pours for our tasting.  He gave us some pamphlets
to take back to Glacier Guides Lodge.

On the way home we locate the whiskey tasting room and put it on our list for tomorrow or Monday.  Then it’s home for blogging and photo swapping and then we’ll be off to dinner.  Don recommended the burrito lady and that sounds good to us.  On our way out, we run into Jennifer who is chatting with the couple a few doors down.  She is a media specialist in Sarasota County and he is a school psychologist!  They want to know about the wine tasting and we give Jennifer the pamphlets, one of which she promptly passes on!  Jennifer leaves and returns with wine glasses for all of us and a bit later, while we're all still chatting, she returns with more wine glasses, a corkscrew for us, and three of the Polebridge goodies left over from breakfast!  Amazing!

And speaking of amazing - we went to the Wandering Gringo Cafe for dinner.  It is the home of the three-pound burrito!  No lie!  We each brought home half of ours!

The owner schmoozes with the customers while his wife does the cooking and boy is she tremendous!  We will probably be stuffed for weeks!

Time to lie down and hope my tummy forgives me for today!