March 16th Strikes Again
The Snow Wins, You Learn
Some dates just have a personality. March 16th has been collecting mine for years. There was the job loss, the Comanche helicopter flight that came out of nowhere, the blizzard ride that seemed like a terrible idea right up until it wasn't (see below). The pattern holds every time: get knocked sideways, keep moving anyway, let the mountains sort it out.
Today started with ambition. I drove up toward Marshall Mountain from the Blackfoot corridor instead of my usual Missoula launch point, hunting for snow. Found it. Found a lot of it. At some point I stopped the pickup and just sat there doing the math on how badly this could go, and the math was not encouraging. So I backed out. A full mile in reverse, which is exactly as undignified as it sounds. Turned around, drove back to town, and texted "big fail" like that covered it.
Marshall Mountain it was, then. Rode my bike up the hill the normal way, same as always. Things looked promising for a while. The snow-covered pines were doing their whole silent cathedral thing, and honestly it was worth showing up just for that. But I kept going when I should have stopped, which is a recurring theme in my life across multiple categories. Half an hour in, I was walking the bike, post-holing through knee-deep snow, asking myself the obvious question.
I turned around.
And that decision, small as it sounds, mattered. Not because it was heroic, but because I made it before the situation made it for me. That's the whole game, really. The mountain doesn't care either way. It just keeps being beautiful while you figure out your limits
March 16th Echoes
March 16th has been quite the date over the years, from job-loss blues and Comanche helicopters to blizzard rides, spring break adventures, and mountain escapes that taught me beauty shows up in unlikely places. The pattern? Keep moving, even when knocked down, because the mountains always deliver something worth the climb.
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