In this edition of “Married in Montana,” I’ll take you deep into the Glacier backcountry on our pre-wedding, 2-night, 3-day trip to Cracker Lake. The trip was fraught with action, adventure, and… ah, mostly angst… and a lot of rain. Plus, there was some extremely gorgeous scenery:
But the real reason I’m writing about this trip isn’t just to share glorious photos; it’s to tell you about “the fight“.
Now, a lot of people will tell you that wedding planning is more than enough to bring out the worst in the most loving of couples. You’d be hard pressed, however, to find a more peaceable pair than the Cherry Pies. We certainly have our differences of opinion, and every so often find ourselves in a disagreement, but we rarely, if ever, have what I would call a fight. Even though our wedding planning, when I was sweating bullets and he was confusedly aloof, neither of us once lost our temper.
But three nights before our wedding, we were trapped in a tent at Cracker Lake duking out some serious issues and I found myself wondering, quite spitefully, if either of us knew what the hell we were doing.
But let’s back it up a bit so we can start at the proper beginning of this story…
After our secret, friends-only ceremony at Swiftcurrent Lake, the eight of us started trotting on the 6-mile hike in to Cracker Lake, laden with food, shelter, and clothing for a few long, cold, mountain nights.
Mr. CP and I have been backpacking many, many times over the last three-and-a-half years. (Our gift to each other for our five-year anniversary was a top-notch “suite” of basic backpacking gear.) Two of our friends had been backpacking with us in Glacier when we were engaged, and several more had experience outside of the park – but for one, it was the first time backpacking!
The trip to Cracker Lake took us two miles along a wide horse trail, past the scenic Cracker Flats, which Mr. Cherry Pie and I had seen for the first time in 2007 on our ascent of the nearby Mt. Wynn:
After about four miles, the hike started to seem less pleasant and more long, hot, and strenuous. By the time we arrived, we’d crested no less than five small hills, each of which seemed like it should have hidden the lake right behind it. But, suddenly, there it was, hidden in a gorgeous and remote bowl right beneath the 6,000-foot North Face of Mt. Siyeh on the continental divide.
Check out how insignificant our tents look beneath that sheer mountain face:
Of course, right after we got there, the sun went behind the mountain and it started freezing. Fires are verboten, so we huddled around our campstoves and drank copious amounts of box wine, champagne, and whiskey. I’m sure this was much to the chagrin of the other two campers who joined us late in the evening – I know I would have been pissed at us if I were them, but we were celebrating!
And then, on top of being freezing, it started to rain. Once in our tents, we were sealed there until morning, and slept a solid ten hours only waking up to roll over on the hard ground.
Wednesday morning was cold, but clear and sunny. We planned to hike, but it took us so long to “defrost” that we got a late start.
Mr. CP and I went to the head of the lake to look at some of the old mining equipment from the days of Cracker Mine:
It was sunny and beautiful until the rest of the group assembled to start the hike., Suddenly, weather started to pour over the continental divide and the sky became a bleak, steely gray. I don’t know what we did to piss off the weather gods, but we stupidly decided not to be deterred and set out to climb up one of the high ridges west of the lakeshore.
The one bonus of this bogus hike was that while climbing the creek bed, we discovered an old mine shaft that had re-opened after sealing. And in it, a set of tracks and a little mine car!
None of us were cocky enough to test fate by exploring what would probably be our grave, so we kept climbing, stopping only to pose in the worsening weather, and for lunch when it cleared.
During lunch, the best man was cutting salami with the knife that Mr. CP gave him as a groomsman gift when he slipped and drove the very sharp blade deep into his thumb. Ow! Thankfully, Mr. CP is a nurse practitioner and the cut wasn’t super severe, but the poor guy was bleeding/cursing everywhere and it certainly signaled the end of our hike.
Just as we started back, the skies decided to open, and suddenly it was pouring on us as we made our way down slick rock, around the lakebed, and back up to camp. We were soaked, freezing, and in a foul mood.
Mr. CP hadn’t spoken to me most of the way back, and after I had crawled into the tent and warmed up enough to feel anything less than hypothermic, I realized that he was still icily silent. Pretty sure that his anger was directed at me, but not aware of anything that I had done wrong, I prodded at him until would tell me what was bothering him.
Given the unsavory conditions of the aborted hike and the weather, I probably should have left well enough alone and things would have sorted themselves out after a rest and some hot cocoa. Instead, what happened is that he made a barbed statement, I made a defensive reply, and things spiraled out of control from there.
This wasn’t exactly a yelling match, or even an unreasonable argument, but we were both extremely irritated and unwilling to see the other’s point of view. And we were stuck in a tiny 2-man tent while the wind howled and rain poured outside. For hours. And hours. All the while, we were less than three feet from our good friends who were playing cards in their tent and struggling to keep our voices down enough that our argument would remain private.
Without getting into specifics, I started to feel like he didn’t really appreciate me and thought I wasn’t trying hard enough, while he was insulted that I’d taken as a jibe something he’d meant as a compliment and was feeling sullen that we hadn’t made it to the top of the ridge we were climbing (we call that ECS — “emotionally committed to the summit”).
None of this fight, in the slightest, was related to the wedding (it had to do with hiking and teamwork) or even stemmed from wedding stress, but the fact that our wedding was only three days away and we were FIGHTING was hugely depressing to me. It’s silly, but I think I was more upset that we couldn’t just be happy than that we were fighting at all.
Finally, it stopped raining enough for everyone to leave their tents and cook a quick dinner in the communal cooking area (can you say awkward?) before it started the downpour again.
I know that everyone always gives the advice “don’t go to bed angry,” but you know what? I’ve found that on more than one occasion the reason for anger is often so stupid or superficial and so coupled with exhaustion that reason and apology won’t come until AFTER sleep. So we went to bed while it was still light out; the both of us silent, sullen, and angry. The storm continued through the night, threatening to tear our rain fly off the tent, drown us in buckets of water, and fling our sodden corpses into the lake.
Near morning, it quieted. When we awoke, the lake was blanketed in fog and the summit of Mt. Siyeh glistened with sun and new snow:
Though it was still early, by the time we had packed up and were ready to roll, Mr. CP and I were feeling refreshingly civil, if not downright affectionate again. It still bothers me that we spent that night arguing, but I figure that two good things definitely came out of us:
- By “getting it out,” we managed to clear the air and emerge refreshed enough that the stress of the next few days didn’t even faze us
- The fact that we could talk through, if not resolve, some very negative emotions without becoming overly irrational and resorting to yelling or insults is positive testament to the strength of our relationship
Despite all the drama, our trip to Cracker Lake definitely left us feeling fit and ready for more family contact, which we had in droves as soon as we arrived back at the hotel on Thursday afternoon.
Next up — Friday! – the family arrives, we get our marriage license, I have my final hair trial, and everyone goes to Polebridge for the rehearsal. Mr. Marmot says, “Bye bye for now!” Stay tuned…
Did you have any major pre-wedding fights?