Crossing Divides: Of the Continent & the Imagination

Springtime is working its way up the high valleys of the northern Rockies. Trout are rising to midges and early stoneflies on the Big Hole and Jefferson Rivers. The snow in our yard is gradually giving way to grass and mummified dog turds.

Spring skiing: Andrea Stierle emailed early last week suggesting a cross country trek from Deep Creek on the Big Hole (east slope) side to German Gulch on the Silver Bow Cr/Clark Fork (west slope) of the Continental Divide. It's not a trivial tour: 11 miles total with a 900 foot climb in the first 4 miles and a 2,000 foot drop in the second 7 miles. Of course, I did not figure this out until after the tour when we posed the curious question: "How far was that?" Here's the route, marked by the blue dog leash, and of course it unwinds along the corners of four separate topographic maps:

Before the trip, the questions floated around: How is the snow up along the Divide (i.e. is the surface set up, is it icy wind pack)? No one knew. Does anyone have this plotted out on a GPS? Nope. Does anyone know the exact route? Ah, no. But everyone had made some version of the trek before, and we have a lot of collective hiking experience (and, in my case, elk hunting time) along most of the route.

So, let's go! First drop Mike's truck on the German Gulch Rd above Fairmount Hot Springs ("Oh yeah--the front end is out, so no 4WD. We can't drive in quite to the gate..."). Starting out from the Mill Creek highway near Sugarloaf Mountain are (from left) Mike Stickney, Andrea and Don Stierle, Chukah the Dog, Larry Smith, and Chuck the Dog:

Perfect weather--sunny and in the 20s deg F starting out, several inches of fresh snow a few days ago. Afternoons have been warm (40s deg F) and so the snow is generally firm. Everyone was on lightweight touring equipment: traditional length, waxable (mine with Swix purple the full lenghth), "back country" skis with leather boots. Mike, Larry, and Don are superb telemark skiers. Andrea has logged a lot of backcountry miles. Yikes, what was I getting into?

We paused a few minutes after the steep climb from Sugarloaf on a rolling high flank of the Divide. Sadly, Andrea had knee surgery recently, and decided (before the steep climb) to turn back, have a ski on the Little California loop at the nearby groomed cross country trails, and then go for a soak and meet us at Fairmount Hot Springs. Here's the group with a look back to the Pintler mountains (Sugarloaf is the round-top on the right):

And here they go across the top of the world (you can tell that Chukah is the young dog, out in front):

Up and across the Divide, we then found a ridge running east toward Butte. The skiing here was fantastic, and I wish I had captured Mike's graceful tele-turns on video. And I'm glad no one captured my occasional face plant.The route did get a little confusing. After some deliberation (which actually involved getting out the maps!) we thought we were on a Forest Service road leading down Beaver/Beefstraight Creeks, tributaries of German Gulch Creek. Time for a quick lunch:

Then some more confusion as the ridge twisted and turned and split. But we found a narrow trail (unsullied by snowmachines) running in more-or-less the right direction. And, as Mike pointed out, "It'll lead somplace." Good enough. And what a great ski down! Here's Larry with Chuck on his heels:

By some fine stroke of luck ("No, no. It was superior map reading skills and the inherently correct male sense of direction.") we had found the Whitepine Creek pack trail (which, even though I frequently hunt that area, did not know existed). This led us to the German Gulch Rd, not a mile from where we were parked, and just 5 hours after we began. You can tell by the happy faces just how good that long downhill run was:

Yesterday, walking around campus and looking west to the Divide where we had skied over, I thought, "We should do this every weekend." As Don pointed out, however, we really did luck out with perfect snow and weather conditions. On an average winter day, the wind is blasting along the Divide hard enough to knock you down. A week earlier and the snow might have had no bottom. A week later and it might be treacherous icy crust. Allah be praised, life is good, we hit it just right.

The Continental Divide is just a line on a map. It's how we think about it that makes it significant as a boundary, as a symbolic barrier to be crossed heroically. But no, that's not fully true either: it's not merely a thought-construction. It's a genuine barrier to many kinds of flora and fauna, the weather and climate vary, and -- as geologists Mike and Larry can explain -- there are other, very real, differences.

And so it is with life. It is full of diverse kinds of Divides. Many, perhaps, are merely psychologically or socially constructed. But many also have deeply real qualities that may transcends our limited grasp. Some people play it safe, and try never to cross. One thing is for certain: you don't get the exhilirating run down without the hard climb up.

My College & Late Onset Realism

A midwinter fable:

I blame it all on Martha Montgomery, my beautiful, charismatic, and brilliant philosophy professor. In a sophomore-level ethics course, she turned me on to Immanuel Kant's Metaphysics of Morals. From there I turned to Kant's Critique of Pure Reason--first with the old English translation by Mueller, then on to N.K Smith's translation and commentary, and finally (as a PhD candidate) auf Deutsch. It was a dirty, rotten, Enlightenment trick: the idea that we might shape a new world of reality based on the transcendental application of pure concepts.

So here I am, a broken post-Kantian in a decidely un-Kantian world. Hell, most allegedly college educated people don't even know who the fuck Kant was; let alone do they care what Kant said, or what the hopes of the Enlightenment were. At least I've finally admitted my Don Quixotean tilting at windmills, and resolved to stop it. My wife calls it "late onset realism."

The roots of this conversion lie in my 17 years as a professor with the little college known as My College. When I hired on, I fell in with a like-minded (i.e. delusional) bunch of faculty that actually thought we could change our college for the better. By "change for the better," I don't mean realistic notions such as increasing enrollment or making it easier for students to take a degree.

Though we were a dedicated bunch, we had very limited and narrow experience. Dave had been a liuetenant in the jungles of Vietnam, taken a couple of psychology degrees from diverse Californian universities, and worked as a statistician for the Forest Service. Bill had ruined himself with unrealistic expectations through his time at various high-powered colleges in California, Hawaii, and Colorado. In my case, there had been engineering & humanities (that should have tipped everyone off!) at Drexel, a MS in Science, Technology & Values (huh?) with the Human Dimensions Center (oh, pulleeeze!) at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, five years running a lab with a million dollar budget at an oil refinery (well, at least that was promising), and then a PhD in the History & Philosophy of Science & Technology (yikes! who hired this guy?) at Cornell.

In retrospect, I should have been much happier (and successful, which after all equals happiness, right?) had I started teaching with the MS and then, if necessary, picked up a Dr.Ed. Ah, but we can't go back, can we?

Well, anyway, back to the story: there we were at My College--a bunch of individuals who thought they were just too smart, a bunch of individuals with a very narrow view of the world, a bunch of individuals with unrealistic expectations.

I should have listened when my Dean and Department Head, dear dear Tommy, told me: "No, you really don't need to be doing any research and publishing. In fact, I think it will harm your teaching. You can't serve two masters." Tommy was a homeboy. He grew up on the mean streets of Butte at a time when Butte really was a tough town. Tommy had played sports, taught K-12, and went on to become a college professor, dean, and department head. He never published anything, either. Smart guy. Happy guy.

As the expression goes, "No man is a prophet in his own land." That is true. But lots of non-prophets do just fine. If Thomas Wolfe hadn't got all caught up in all that fancy-schmancy literature and tried to be a prophet, he could have went home again and done just fine. Disney had it right, folks: Hakuna Matata,--don't worry, be happy... Remember, George Bush (The First) using the song in his 1988 campaign? Happy guy. Kindler, gentler. It's a vision thing. Puppies. A scintillating kind of fellow. A man who steps out of the shower to take a pee. Best president we ever had.

Well, anyway, back to the story: there we were, and just because we wanted to change things and make things better and all that crap we started a new program--an MS in Technical Communication. The idea had been kicked around for years, but the old guard in the old Humanities & Social Sciences Department would have none of it. The college president didn't like the idea either--it would be just another program that might accelerate the mission drift of the insitution away from its identify as The School of Mines. Foolishly, we sought allies at the mother ship--the University of Their College down the river at Missoula. Oh yeah, we won a lot of friends with that move. Nothing like going over your colleagues and your boss's head to get what you want. Won the battle. Lost the war.

And then came the creation of a new undergraduate program in Technical Communication, along with the formation of a new department as an act of seccession. Oh boy. More friends won. As a department born of a long agonistic process, we not only made enemies: we also inscribed our identity. Yes, we were the progressives, embodying metamorphosis, leading My College to a new, bright future. Maybe not. Maybe we were mere changelings, caught up in some self delusion of "progress" and "enlightenment."

Agonistic identity. It has not worked, and it has made us unhappy. It is not fun to be perceived as "negative" by your colleagues and by management. Never mind that in this Age of DisEnlightenment no one distinguishes between "critical" (oh, my dear Kant) and "negative." Yes, perception is reality. It's time to shed that identity, and to embrace something happier, something more realistic. Pretty simple: shut up and be a team-player; otherwise, you're negative.

When I first hired on at My College, I thought it remarkable that so many department heads and other management-types were homeboys. And when I think of the three most recently selected department heads (that I know of), they too are homies. There is good reason for this, primarily because it works. People who are locally embedded, share cultural markers, and "speak the same language" can network together effectively. In the local culture, Montana Tech is IT. There need be no silly comparisons with how things are done at other colleges. That which is foreign makes no sense, is not possible, has no intelligenge--like the bar-bar sounds of Persian language to the classic Greek ear. WE are the world. Whatever happens "away" is irrelevant. Autopoiesis.

Because I did not take any of my degrees at My College, I cannot really be native. But I have been here long enough as a sort of cultural anthropologist to figure things out. Here's a simple example: I cross country ski. But cross country skiing is not a Butte thing. As I traverse the trails of The Moulton, I meet Paul from Vermont, the Stierles from California, the guy from Austria, the Stickneys from Missoula, the Smiths from Texas, Rossi from California/Oregon, sundry young folks from Bozeman or Helena... You get the picture. I can recall meeting only one Butte native on the ski trails--and he has largely given up the sport. Cross country skiing, though it lends itself marvelously to the geography of the place, marks you as someone from "away." To the Butte ear, it is like the bar-bar nonsense to the Greek ear. Best you don't talk about it too much.

Well, when in Rome... Or Athens... Or Butte... Those who are from "away" can work at My College, but generally it is very difficult to become truly part of the institution in a way that allows you to change it. Unlike many other colleges where one rarely meets a homie, at My College it is a general rule. That is the reality. A small group of agonistic faculty is not going to change that.

With a new Vice Chancellor and, soon (according to the rumor mill--which at My College is an authoritative source), a new Chancellor, agonistic faculty who base their identify on how things are done elsewhere and who expect My College to conform to their model should wise up. There is a new slate, and a new opportunity. Embrace the force. Go with the flow. Don't worry, be happy...