Backgrounds : Glacier 9 - 10 - 2001

In early September, 2001 I went on a photo safari to Glacier National Park in Montana. It's a beautiful place, with incredible mountain, lake and wildlife scenery. I saw some amazing things on that trip including this shot of the sunset the night before I left. There was a forest fire in the northern part of the park and the air was full of soot and ash making the sunsets spectacular and unbelievably colorful. This image hardly does justice to the slide, but certainly gives you an idea of how dramatic a sunset I witnessed. I had no idea how significant those delphian clouds would be.
The next morning I went to check out of the hotel and drove over to the hotel office. The radio was on and they were talking about the confusion, disorder and traffic gridlock in New York. I dismissed it as some technical glitch and that we were getting a feed from New York reporting another common day there. I went into the office to check out and the attendant at the front desk was watching the news. He said that the twin towers in New York had been blown up and were completely destroyed. Given the man's appearance, and the fact that he looked and sounded as though he'd been in Glacier a bit too long, I passed it off as some sort of hoax. It was just too wild a claim to believe.
Later as I drove home, more information came over the radio and the picture of what was happening slowly formed in my mind. I was transfixed by the stories being reported as they communicated the horrific and heroic acts. I followed the story intently. I stopped along the way for pit stops and spoke to others along the way. Some were unaware of what was transpiring, others didn't care. "Hell, that's all the way over in New York. What do I care?" said one Montanan. One McDonalds manager claimed that President Bush had planned the whole thing, while several of the women working with him whispered to me in barely an audible voice, "He's a bit wierd, don't listen to him. It's terrible what's happening." I have never been so transfixed to the radio as I was on that drive.



I will never forget that horrible day.



September 11, 2001