STORY WARNING Our decisions, good and bad, come with consequences. Some better, some worse than others. Typically we associate a bad consequence with a bad decision and vice versa. But what of a bad decision with a good consequence? That decision becomes a gamble and any good outcome becomes luck. I was on the last 1/4 mile of the hike in to the glacier overlook and I came up over a ridge to a big open meadow still covered in snowpack. At least where creeks hadn't formed yet. I was about 500-700 ft from an adjacent ridgeline that I could only speculate dropped off right against the glacier. The trail was hidden, the creeks were beginning to swell from the midday melt and I couldn't see any other footprints to follow. To top it all off, I saw an anvil pushing up the south side of the summit and climbing fast. I took what must've been 5 to 10 minutes standing in this very meadow debating if I should turn back or press on and risk it. The trail has beautiful treasures scattered around it so I wasn't totally empty-handed, but just in that last 1/2 mile I had finally laid eyes on a partially obscured summit and still no glacier. I scouted a route, swallowed all of my better judgement, and trekked in and across as quickly as I could. Whole time packing my 20 lbs of camera gear. Luckily, I spotted a trail, made a B-line for it, and was never sorry for having done it because on the other side was that absolutely majestic glacier and total view of the summit, almost like I could reach out and touch it. I setup my gear, snapped as many shots as I could, made a few videos to send to folks, and packed up just in time to see the shadow from the coming storm cast on the summit. It took me 3 hours of stop and go hiking to get across that 2.5 mile climb up. But it took me 1 hour of non-stop moving to get back to the car just as the rain really hit. I was chased by thunder at first, as I had scurried back to the safety of the treeline, but it didn't take long for the loud bolts to catchup. As I crossed the midpoint, I could've sworn it was going to be on top of me, but I can only guess that it pushed further north and stopped chasing me west. I gambled and got lucky. (at Heliotrope Ridge Trail)













