The majority of hikers take in this view for a few minutes and then descend, feeling quite accomplished for “going half way” to Sahale Glacier. While this may be true distance wise, the next part of the hike is a bit more grueling than the casual walk through the forest path already completed.

But so much greater is the next part of the hike, that I would not argue if you said it was the best hike in America. The elevated ridge that leads to the glacier is known as the Sahale Arm. Here you will find Doubtful Lake and wild, delicious blueberries growing so close to the ground even when your brain is starving for glucose your body will wonder if it is worth bending to the ground to pick them. Waterfalls cascade and roar to your north, joining your heart and the marmot as the only sounds.

It is a steady uphill, and all along the way, you know the mountain has saved the most grueling part for last, when 1000 foot gain in under half a mile with scree, large boulders, and a poorly-marked trail await.

Both the elevation and the gain caused me to break four or five times in this unrelenting section. Do not worry – every person who passed me, I eventually overtook them on the way down, where no one ever passes me. Uncle has always said that had I been born in a place with nearby mountains, I would be a world class climber.

The Sahale Glacier has camping sites, but seeing that massive glacier, which no longer has any snow cover, is impressive. There were also some mountain goats, animals that most people on the trail do not seem to fear. After nearly being speared by one in Glacier, I am careful with these mercurial mammals. The views from this height, 8000-8500 feet, depending on high up along the glacier you go, are glorious and well worth the effort.

We were not made to live on mountain tops, and just as Moses and Christ before us, we spend but a time at the top to return home, with the hope that our journey will freshly inspire us and reaffirm God’s calling to bring the good news of God’s love to those who need it the most, whether they be a pedophile, prisoner, or OT pro.

It took me 4:50 to ascend and 2:45 to descend. I spent about 30 minutes at the glacier where I drank six bottles of water and prayed for God’s healing of a fractured world that looks to substances and hatred to fill the emptiness inside them. If only they knew that your love will seal all their cracks and make them well.

At the trailhead, I stood around for about 30 minutes while I gave handshakes and applause to those I passed on the trail but who had also finished this demanding trail. AllTrails clocked it at 11.5 miles, but the people with whom I spoke who had fancy tracking devices all said they clocked 14.5 miles. That would explain why it took me 7:35 to do the roundtrip, five minutes longer than AllTrails estimates. Normally, I shave anywhere between 20 and 50 percent off a hike’s estimate.

These hikers, of course, are not your typical internet hikers who do it for photos and social media credit. These guys hike as their number one hobby. They shop at REI and have walking polls, rope, crampons, and hiking helmets. I would imagine most of their resting heart rates are around 50 bpm. They drive Subaru, Mercedes conversion vans, Tacos, and 4 Runners.

As I made my way down the rippled road, I fancied the thought of a cool, flowing river running over my dehydrated and overheated body. But first, I knew I needed to eat anything. Great Value energy bars will get you so far, but I had just burned well over 3000 calories and know I needed some pizza. Gratefully, I found a spot in Concrete that was bursting to the seams with customers. Named Annie’s Pizza Station, clearly, this pizzeria is a town favorite.

The lovely ladies working there could see I was famished, so they gave me the VIP treatment. I ordered a large pepperoni, an usual order, as 95% of the time at non-chain pizzerias, I will get a plain. They said a large is enough for 4-6 people, but I did not have trouble eating mine, and nearly ordered a second. But thoughts of that cool stream beat out the stomach’s hunger.

Cooked in a gas Blodgett oven, this pizza was pretty thicc and very generous with sauce and cheese. It weighed three pounds and seven ounces. At $24, I was getting a good deal because this was the equivalent of two large Brooklyns from Dominos. It was a solid 7.0, better than Lovely’s 50 50, which now, undeservedly, is making more than one list for best pizzas in America.

And now it was time to get that shower! I rushed back and prepared my towel, change of clothes and soaps. The walk through the forest was lovely and interesting. It wound past my outhouse, which the host had to explain to me how to use. Then I unexpectedly passed a bus house, where my host told me he first lived when he bought this 46 acre property.

He had lots of fruit varieties growing throughout. Thankfully, I did not see any illegal or mind-altering substances, lest I report them to the DEA. There were random outdoor kitchens and sandboxes with toys scattered. What a way to spend childhood.

This post was edited on 9/5/23 at 1:29 am

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Posted by TulaneLSU

Member since Aug 2003

Member since Dec 2007

13298 posts

Posted on 9/5/23 at 1:22 am to TulaneLSU

Finally, ten minutes later, I made it to a body of water. It was not what I would call a running stream. Instead, it was a muddy, stinky bog. Still, I was willing to give it a go. I was dehydrated, hot with friction burns on my thighs and lips salty from the pizza and the loss of electrolytes from the hike.

I removed my shoes and socks and cautiously approached the water’s edge. That was when I sank knee deep in foul smelling mud the likes of which you smell and feel while crawfishing in the Bonnet Carre Spillway. It was disgusting. At this point, I knew I could not enter the bog, as it would be even muddier there.

So here I was. My lower legs completely caked in a methane-rich mud. My body unclothed, I could not put my clothes or shoes back on, lest I ruin them with this mud. So I walked back, carrying quite a load, barefoot. My fragile, soft feet were already blistered from a week of over 35 miles of hiking and 15,000 feet of elevation gain. Thankfully, Mother had packed my bags with a hidden supply of moleskins, which became quite useful, even though on the packaging it says do not use on active blisters.

Barefoot, I walked painfully over the rocks the host had laid on part of the path. My return took 30 minutes as I gingerly navigated the sharp rocks on my poor feet. Exhausted, I made it back to my shack, looking, knee-down, like a swamp creature. It took my backup 24 count 16.9 ounce Great Value bottled waters to remove this caked mud, which I did outside, in the nude, praying that the host would not bother me.

Exhausted, I went to bed, dirty, angry, and uncivilized. I imagined, “This is what it must feel like to be a college football fan waking up after passing out from inebriation – humiliating and debased and disgusting.” I prayed that night for purity of body.

The next morning, I arose at 3:30 and was gone from that unfortunate experience by 3:40. I drove in the dark to I-5, where I came across Love’s Gas. There was a large illuminated heart that lead me there and not one of the other three gas stations within a stone’s throw of it. The gas, at $4.63 a gallon, was also the cheapest I had seen all week. There was no denying it – God led me to Love, the greatest of the gifts, according to Paul, if you read One Corinthians, as some biblical illiterates might call it.

While I cleaned my luxury sedan, rattled by that rough road, the overhead advertisement rang through the area. “Truck drivers, come get a hot shower to refresh. Currently there is no line.” God had answered my prayer. I hesitated not one second and marched into the store.

There was a Cinnabon station to the right, which is better food than anything Bucee's has. There are very few, if any things, I can say positive about Bucee’s. It is a mockery of a gas station that discriminates against our truck drivers and drives the easily influenced to purchase junk either made in China or made to clog the arteries. If I had the inclination, I would write a Top 10 reasons Love's is superior to Bucee's. But I have more important things to do than compare gas stations.

“Give me one hot shower,” I said to the cashier, smiling from ear to ear. It was 4:30 and both of us were already full of cheer.

“Are you a truck driver?” he asked.

“No, I am driving a sedan. It is that black one out there you can see on your video.”

He responded, “I am sorry; you cannot use the showers. Truck drivers only.”

Hopes dashed and thoughts of making the five hour drive to Astoria filthy, I pleaded with him. That did not work. I then stood there and bowed my head, to clear my thoughts and pray.

“Eureka! I have a CDL!”

“You do?” The man was quite surprised.

“Yes. I am in the late stages of starting a tour guide service in New Orleans that I call TulaneLSU’s Poorboy Tours of New Orleans. Right now, I lack a vehicle, but I carry a CDL just in case I ever save enough money for a new Ford F350 tour bus. Here it is!” I plopped my card on the counter.

The cashier seemed genuinely surprised and happy that he could sell me a ticket to one of the six shower stalls. It was $18, a bargain at that time. I would have paid $100. The receipt carried a shower number and a code.

At the door, there was a security pad with numbers. I typed in my code and I was officially part of the Love’s shower club.

Luxurious does not begin to describe the comfort I felt upon entering the bathroom, or should I say, the spa. To my right were a private toilet and vanity. To my left was a tiled bench. Just beyond was that morning’s piece de resistance: the shower.

There were two levers: one to control the force of water and the other to control the temperature. But for a few moments, I stood there, gazing all around, admiring the tiling and the strips of backsplash, the fire alarm, the fan, the stool for obese or those with a handicap. I said a prayer of thanksgiving to our benevolent, guiding God.

And then the water flowed. Normally, my showers last two or three minutes. But this was my time, and I divulged in the steaming shower. I washed my hair with the delightful soap that doubled as shampoo, not once or twice, but three times. Using the washcloth provided, I rinsed every crevice with the precision of a surgeon cleaning his hands at a scrub sink. It felt like a new baptism. The old and concreted mud washed away. The new and lovely purity was here.

Drying myself with their brown towels, I wondered if these were made of the finest Egyptian cotton. It mattered not. I have stayed at some of the finest hotels and resorts in the world – The Ritz, The Grove Park, The Plaza, The London Lodge, The Fairmont, and more. None of them has ever given me a shower experience as beautiful as Love’s.

May we all, in our own way, find such a cleansing experience, a moment or a string of moments, where our dirtiness if washed away by the redeeming love of Christ. Or as Paul says:

quote:
If anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here! All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation: that God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting people’s sins against them. And he has committed to us the message of reconciliation. We are therefore Christ’s ambassadors, as though God were making his appeal through us. We implore you on Christ’s behalf: Be reconciled to God. God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.