No matter how much time I spend in the woods (particularly in mountain lion dense areas like Montana) I can never find one.

Most people wouldn’t want to find a mountain lion. I go out of my way to try and find them. But no luck. Yet. Usually what I find are signs warning of mountain lions. Maybe that’s the scariest thing of all…mountain lions as nothing more than a figment of our imagination, bolstered by signs such as these, like some passed down mythology.

I’ve spent an enormous amount of time in the Rocky Mountains this fall. I have failed to glimpse even one mountain lion track. But I like to think they are up there in the higher country, peering down between juniper or ponderosa pine and wondering if I’d make an easy meal. Maybe this is why I look for them. I like the idea of not being at the top of the food chain. There’s humility, ego-check and adventure in this. I emerge from the Rockies knowing that there are things beyond my desires between the strip malls which can knock me off that tired path with the swipe of a paw.

There’s a mountain lion around. Sure there is. Sure.

I’m writing from a charming yet empty campground in Glacier National Park. It’s been 30 days on the road. 30 days and nights of outdoor activity in sub 40 temps and sleeping amongst wild animals. It’s amazing how the cold can whittle your energy reserves, day by day. I picked up the flu, and now perform the zombie shuffle quite well. After a certain time sleeping outdoors, you start to meld with all you hear, see, and smell. I am no longer a marketplace robot, head buried in a smartphone between strip malls and office parks and red-faced people in traffic. There is something out here in this mountain range, something else entirely, a fleeting thing out of the corner of your eye in an aspen patch. It’s a playful thing that tries to pull you in deeper, into the core of nature. All you have to do is promise to stay a little longer, and more wonders will reveal themselves. But it will not last, sadly. I can feel that other thing, the strip mall-tollway-concrete thing tugging at me even now in this million acre park. And soon I will have no choice but to turn my back on that aspen patch. We can never be a bear. But damn it, we can try.

A black bear in the cliffs of Glacier National Park.

It’s been eight days of camping in the magnificent Gallatin National Forest of Montana. What I was before this trip I am not anymore. Instead, I am some conglomeration of smooth river rock, jade pools, moss, twisted roots, wind-blasted cliffs and numerous other attributes of this environment.

I could always stay, I suppose. And always be this new thing.

It’s good to be home again, for a little while anyway.

I was struck by the significant contrast between Chicagoland air and Montana air. You have to feel it for yourself to truly understand. Sure, you notice at first how crisp and sweet Montana air is. But it is not until the next morning that it feels like you have new lungs, as if someone had swapped out your overworked city lungs while you slumbered.

Along the way I encountered a few critters of the furry kind.

A room with a view. And feet.

One of the many prairie dogs I encountered today. They are a blast to film.