How many people who will die today even know that it is the last day of their lives?
Joan Halifax
I moved to my new Wyoming home in early September many years ago. It was a beautiful warm day, the sun shining but not too hot. I had of course been reading and studying maps of the mountain ranges that surround the Big Horn Basin. I was eager to begin hiking as soon as I got a break from my new, very demanding job. The following weekend a blizzard arrived, blowing the outside door to my bedroom open and waking me up with a blast of snow in my face. I considered it to be a “welcome to Wyoming” moment.
The trails would not be clear of snow until the following summer. I planned my first Rocky Mountain backpacking trip, a short trek in the Bighorns, where the trailheads were close to my home. I left my car at the West Tensleep Lake trailhead and headed up the path to Misty Moon Lake, a place as beautiful as its name implies. I made camp high above the lake, a stream flowing nearby with a close up vista of Cloud Peak. That night I awoke to an explosion of light in the sky, the Perseid Meteor Shower. A weasel ran in and out of my camp in the morning, apparently wanting to take possession of my teapot lid, succeeding in carrying it across the rock slide near my camp, where I had to scramble to retrieve it.
On that first trip to the Bighorns I was already creating memories which are still with me many years later. That trip remains in my mind as one of my best ever, filled with new discoveries and adventures.
On the second day I decided to explore the high barren ridges above my camp. I studied the map and was intrigued by a site not far from where I was already exploring, Bomber Peak. The name was not as mystical as the lake and peak but was no less intriguing. The trail continues over the ridge above Misty Moon, then descends abruptly to Fortress Lake, named for the B-17 Flying Fortress that crashed on the mountain on a stormy day in 1943. It was a precipitous scramble north to Bomber Mountain from the lake. By scramble, I mean there was no trail. Instead I followed a compass heading north, the high point of the mountain visible, climbing over rocks the size of Volkswagen beetles.
I miscalculated and did not find the wreckage on my ascent so instead climbed all the way to the summit, where I walked along the ridge top until I could look down and see the remains of the fuselage gleaming in the bright July sunlight. There it was, where young Billy Monaghan lost his life. He had joined the Army Air Corps (precursor of the Air Force), shortly after Japan attacked Pearl Harbor. Like many young men in those days, including my own father, he wanted to serve his country.
I scrambled down to get a closer look at the wreckage, wondering about that young man who lost his life that day. He was only a few dozen feet below the summit, as you can see from the photo. In such places most of us will think about our own death, wondering when it will come, where it will come. How many feet below the summit will I be? Will today’s risky climb lead to my demise? In truth, even as I age I rarely think about such things. I am so often filled with wonder about meteor showers and weasels.
The Solitude Trail 