August 13, 2012

I climbed a mountain!

In Missoula.

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Sentinel Mountain.

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There's a big old concrete "M" up there.


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We took the steep path up, and I got scared of the heights, but the intrepid Meade was there...

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... making everything beautiful.

46 comments:

chickelit said...

We took the steep path up, and I got scared of the heights, but the intrepid Meade was there...

This explains why Althouse rarely looks down from the lofty heights of her blog. :)

Palladian said...

Oh no, not "Active Lifestyle" Althouse again!

Where do we of the sedentary, depressed, dwelling in darkness among mouldering volumes of forgotten lore turn for succor?

Meade said...

The hills are alive with the sound of Althouse.
*quack quack quack hand gesture*

Lem the artificially intelligent said...

The professor that went up a hill and came down a mountain.

coketown said...

I love Montana. If you drive through Eureka, let me know if you think it's possessed by demons.

Ann Althouse said...

"Where do we of the sedentary, depressed, dwelling in darkness among mouldering volumes of forgotten lore turn for succor?"

Palladian, get your ass up some mountain, why don't you? It's aesthetically pleasing.

Anonymous said...

I'm scared of heights, I wouldn't have climbed up there, no way, not even with a Meade type coaxing me on.

Meade said...

Actually, I admit, I'm projecting my own yackity yacking. Bears and lions, you know.

Palladian said...

Palladian, get your ass up some mountain, why don't you? It's aesthetically pleasing.

More than getting some mountain up my ass? I don't think so!

Anonymous said...

But flying never bothered me, go figure. Good work climbing that mountain, despite the fear.

Palladian said...

I'm just going to stay here in Brooklyn amid all the voices weighed down with mind-forg'd manacles, and continue eating these half-moldy strawberries and descant on mine own deformity, or something.

Lem the artificially intelligent said...

Succor.. is a word John McWhorter used in a column about Obamas unevolved gay marriage stand..

Forgotten lore.. is obviously a reference to our very native Elisabeth Warren.

I'm at a loss for "mouldering volumes".

Ann Althouse said...

"More than getting some mountain up my ass? I don't think so!"

I knew I'd get a response like that. Jeez... one simply says "ass" and that sort of thing ensues.

Palladian said...

I knew I'd get a response like that. Jeez... one simply says "ass" and that sort of thing ensues.

It was the word "mountain" that did it for me, Althouse.

Ann Althouse said...

"But flying never bothered me, go figure. Good work climbing that mountain, despite the fear."

The views were exactly like what you see from an airplane, flying into some city (like Madison). I found it quite disconcerting not to be inside a metal tube while looking at such things.

Now that I'm back safely on the ground, I think it was rather grand.

Ann Althouse said...

Mountin'

Palladian said...

I found it quite disconcerting not to be inside a metal tube while looking at such things.

Life is generally disconcerting from without our metal tubes, I've found.

Meade said...

Hey, you two - get a chat room.

coketown said...

I don't know if I'd call that thing a mountain. I checked the internet: it's only 2,000 feet tall. And 6,000 feet in elevation--which we call street level here.

The aesthetic pleasure of mountains is a bell curve. Eventually you get so high that everything below is a flat mush of one color buried beneath smog, and you think to yourself, "It was more impressive 4,000 ft ago. At least there were trees and mountain goats. Now it's just rocks."

LOL! Mountain...up your ass...awwwwesome.

Palladian said...

Mountin'

Mons.

Lem the artificially intelligent said...

depressed, dwelling in darkness

Ditto.

Palladian said...

Eventually you get so high that everything below is a flat mush of one color buried beneath smog

Yeah, man, I've been there. Where's my damned lighter?

Ann Althouse said...

"I'm just going to stay here in Brooklyn amid all the voices weighed down with mind-forg'd manacles, and continue eating these half-moldy strawberries and descant on mine own deformity, or something."

Get out of Brooklyn/London or your mind has also forged the manacles.

Montana is "big sky" country. Check it out!

Dante said...

I was at the top of the Gorges in France, which have a very precipitous drop. My wife was terrified to drive on the road, but I stopped it and got out to look down.

I had this strange feeling that I used to have in dreams, of being on a skyscraper, and being drawn by some force to jump. Only, I was awake. I can't say it was an unpleasant feeling at all (though I have zero suicidal tendencies). I've had the same feeling in other places, like the 80th floor of the Marriott in Atlanta, which led me to think it would be fun to monkey down the open interior, with its expanding middle floors. But it scared the bejeezus out of me when I walked up one of the spires in "La Signia Familia" in Barcelona. I had to slowly inch my way back down with my back to the center column, which seemed to be about 8" wide, so I wouldn't jump out one of the windows.

From Inwood said...

Watch out that Paul Ryan doesn't throw you off it :-)

Carnifex said...

I've always voiced my concern over a bird strike while taking off. I am 1 giant white knuckle till leveling out. Cruising was okay and landing was cake. But lately I've taken to a phobia about the floor falling out from beneath me while at cruising altitude. I know it's irrational, and I can force my self to relax but it is forcing. Not pleasnt at all. 'Til just now, I have never told anyone this, so keep it between us.

And hate going into taller buildings. I don't like buildings that I can feel swaying in the wind.

But when I go deerhunting, the swaying of the treestand can put me to sleep. I guess because I have confidence in the things I build, not others.

Actually sleeping is a good way to sneak up on deer. I've gone to sleep hunting before and woke up to have a deer standing nearby, just looking at me like, "What the hell is he doing? Making all that racket? Well he can't be hunting so I'm safe!" Then the looks on their faces get to me and I start laughing out loud, and the deer will turn its back to me, and show me its ass. Flagging is the term.

Carnifex said...

Oh! Meant to mention the big ol' concrete "M". Will one day future ufologist look at that concrete M and find the link to the Nazca Lines? The masturbating monkey at Nazca has his penis pointing at the mysterious rune thousands of miles away, and that will be proof goddamnit of aliens visiting the Earth! And that they liked to watch monkeys beat up on the bishop.

edutcher said...

You mean Meade swept you up in his strong arms and carried you down?

Ann Althouse said...

Mountin'

Oop will have something to say about that.

Menahem Globus said...

I can see my house from there. Well, my old street anyway. I used to run the M after work as long as I was caught up on my homework. Or run halfway up and climb the rest of the way if you prefer. I'd always run down as fast as possible which made the switchbacks interesting and scared the hell out of couples climbing up who didn't see or hear me coming.

netmarcos said...

It's not a "height" if you are still standing on the ground =D

CWJ said...

@carnifex,

I had the same aiplane floor phobia years ago. So you're not completely alone.

OTOH, Depending upon its orientation to Nazca, the aliens are as likely to think it a W or Sigma, as they are to think it an M.

CWJ said...

BTW. Snow skiing is one of the best ways to satisfy the urge to jump down from a high place. I guess we won't be seeing Ann on the slopes anytime soon.

That mountain looks to be a dark blue run.

alan markus said...

Palladian, get your ass up some mountain, why don't you? It's aesthetically pleasing.

More than getting some mountain up my ass? I don't think so!


Reminds me of an old National Lampoon joke about the Folger's Coffee ads with Mrs. Olsen advising newlyweds about making coffee for their husbands.

Folger's Coffee Commercial


Something to the effect that the real marital advice she was giving is: "It's mount and groan".

I Have Misplaced My Pants said...

Yeesh, the photos and Dante's comment are making my palms and feet sweat!

Chip Ahoy said...

the other sport that validates the jumping impulse is hang gliding. The whole time I was reading Dante, this Dante, not that Dante, I was thinking, "Dante, you sound like a hang glider pilot. Doe your wife know about this?"

When I told my girlfriend a thing similar to what Dante said, we were driving to the ski slopes past the hang glider training hill at the time, she said, "Do it."

Incidentally, she was the worst skier I ever spent time with. She has no business at all up there. None. She encouraged me to take up hang gliding and I encouraged her to stay off the slopes permanently. So we were good for each other and steered each other in the proper direction.

Ralph L said...

Next up, stream fording and rainbow following.

Chip Ahoy said...

The worst skier ever, I mean it. Se was afraid of falling.

!!!!11 okay, 100 exclamation marks and ones.

I might fall. I might fall. I might fall. I might fall. I might fall. I might fall. That's all I heard all day. She skis like a handicapped person. Like a recovering person with broken bones all over the place. Like she's made of paper and toothpicks or something. I didn't understand her desire to even pretend to think about desiring to go up. She was afraid of

every

little

thing.

I refused to go up with her again. That was that.

netmarcos said...

The best sort of skiing amounts to throwing yourself face first at the pile of snow at the base of the mountain - and missing...slightly.

Simon Kenton said...

In the background of the photo of Meade are the wave-cut terraces of glacial lake missoula. At full volume it was as high as the top of the mountain you climbed. When the ice-dam that had blocked the rivers burst, the discharge down to the Columbia (which it filled more than 1100 feet deep) and out to the sea peaked at about 9.5 cubic miles/hour of water. The strange turbillions called volks - underwater tornados - were set up as water poured around the submerged, emerging peaks, returning to the canyons. The great geomorphologist j harlen bretz first described it in his explanation of the channeled scablands, and endured about 40 years of vilification before vindication. The cycle repeated and repeated, perhaps nine times. Given what we are learning about the timing of the Clovis culture, there were men and women like yourselves, luckily standing on a peak, witnessing somewhere in Western Washington when a flood 20 miles wide came roaring by, moving so fast it scoured waterfalls in the lava plains and set up gravel dunes 200 feet high.

JAL said...

You guys are just so much fun.

Joe Schmoe said...

I got scared of the heights

You don't have an outdoor view from your Ivory Tower at the U of Dub? Nyuk njuk.

kjbe said...

My husband calls his 'scared of heights' a 'fear of falling', which can stop a mountain hike dead in it's tracks with certain (single log) creek crossings. Bless his heart though, he's now halfway through a CDT thru-hike in NW WY.

netmarcos said...

If y9ou ever do overcome your fear of falling, you should take this drive:http://www.utah.com/byways/highway_12.htm
The Hogback and the Hell's Backbone are just two of the highlights you can see from your car...

MrCharlie2 said...

the climbing snob in me says, that's no mountain, just a hill. but even a big hill can give you the same feeling. cheers.

Lyle said...

I would get scared of the heights too. Would have loved to have grown up in the mountains.

kjbe said...

netmarcos, that's beautiful. I've never been to Utah. There's also the highway between Silverton and Ouray, that's got quite a rep.