Notes from a Night on a Bald Mountain

Recorded Sept. 4, 2005

From the eastern summit of the ridge line west of Sheep Mountain, Missoula County, Montana. Elevation approximately 7600 feet. Distance covered about 10 horizontal miles and about 4000 vertical feet in elevation.

The sun went down. To one side I saw the encroaching darkness of night, to the other was the last ray of light falling behind the Bitterroot Mountains. Night’s hand cradled the valley below. I stood at 7600 feet above sea level. The night’s grip grew tighter as daylight vanished. I was alone, without another person for at least ten miles. Soon the world would be clenched in a dark, cold fist.

I made camp on the eastern summit of a barren ridge line. There were only a few shabby trees for shelter, and the ground was covered in shale. I anchored my tent with a stone tent ring. I put on my long sleeve shirt, sweatshirt, and wool beanie. The temperature had already dropped several degrees since my arrival that afternoon. And the wind speed had increased dramatically. This would be a cold, windy, and solitary night.

I watched the world as the sun set. Blackness covered the land behind me. To my left, the barely visible lights of Missoula were beginning to flicker as if in battle against the coming dark. To my right, the sun still reflected off of glacial capped peaks on the northern horizon. In front of me, the sun inched its way over the Bitterroots.

In this harsh altitude, I was overcome with thoughts. I recalled something I recently read. From the epilogue of Elie Wiesel’s play The Trial of God:

“So great is humanity’s capacity for evil that the God of justice is indeed silenced by humanity’s evil deeds––but the God of the sun and moon and stars, of time and space and the fifteen billion years that brought humanity into being, the God of life itself, of the horses and lions and mountain goats that caught Job’s attention––that God is not silenced. The God of cosmos is not silenced.”

Suddenly, I felt captured by the physical and visual wonders that surrounded me. Beautiful and malevolent forces that never cease. And it was for me alone. I had no one with whom I could share this spectacle. It was all mine, just as if this moment was created solely that I might witness these things.

I suddenly had words rushing through my mind. I needed to write. I grabbed pencil and the only paper available to me, my copy of Wiesel’s Night which I brought for reading material. I opened to the last page and began scratching the paper with lead. Prompted by the wonder before me, and by the above passage that had been on my mind for over a month, I wrote the following words.

“HaShem Elohim: Blessed is your name. The sun rises every morning and falls every night. The moon and stars are in their courses and never fail. The wind blows across my face and the aurora dances in the north. It is twilight, a chance to begin again. Blessed is your name for these constants engulfed in a world of chaos, madness, insanity. Because the constants never fail, I will know that you are haShem. Blessed is your name.”

I said these words as the last rays of sun fell behind the Bitterroots. The temperature dropped to freezing. The wind blew across the bare peak like a freight train. After watching a show of the aurora borealis, I returned to my tent in the darkness both happy and content to weather the frigid and cloudless wind storm.

In the morning, I watched the sun rise over the valley. For the first time in many months, the world looked beautiful. What had changed? I spent a night in the frigid wind. Yet I knew the sun would return in the morning. Night is only a season. The sun will always rise in the morning. Yet those who lived through the night have an obligation to tell their story. Those who didn’t experience a night such as this (or any other metaphorical night) will never understand what the minutes and moments were like. Yet those who are willing to listen to the stories will, hopefully, become better individuals having heard and reflected on them. The stories of such nights provide countless others a chance to learn. Perhaps the greater gift in life is to listen to the stories.