Kristian Stipe

On Top of the World

Standing on top of the world is an experience few get to experience. I am one of those lucky few to have found a couple places where I am King of all the land, or at least that’s what it feels like. One such place is a stunning, 35 foot cliff covered in alabaster white snow, with the smell of pine wafting up to your nostrils every few minutes. When you are on top of the cliff you feel invincible, looking out onto the valley, until you look down and realize you are on top of a ledge that would mean almost certain death if you fell off. I found this cliff with a friend of mine, one day while we were skiing on Big Mountain. It is pretty hard to get to and even harder to get back to. Most of the time you end up at the bottom of it without realizing you missed it. If you don’t know where you are going you usually don’t make it to the top.

 This cliff is special to me because it overlooks the whole valley of Whitefish, Kalispell, Colombia falls, and beyond. It has such great meaning to me because it’s where I take people if I care enough about them to share my secrets. It is unbelievably relaxing to go up there and just sit on a clear sunny day and just look out and be able to see everything for miles around. It is a very serene spot to contemplate anything and everything. My friend and I actually found it by mistake. We were skiing through the trees when suddenly we were on top of this massive cliff. It took us a while to figure out how to consistently get to the top of the cliff, but once we did we went back constantly. We went looking for other cliffs like the one we had found, but none of them were as good. Some were the right type of cliff, but didn’t have a few, or were always shaded, while some were just covered in people skiing all over them. Once we decided our first choice was the best, we made it a ritual to go up there almost every time we went skiing. We sat enjoying the sun warm us and the view intoxicate us with the wonders of the world we live in. Through the year we came back to this snow covered paradise all the time. We actually make chairs out of snow, and a snowman that we build and dressed up. At the end of the year, right before the snowman melted away completely we sacrificed him over the edge of the 35 foot cliff, in hopes of better snow for years to come. The cliff has taught me the true value of how beautiful the Flathead Valley is. Being up there has made me think about many things, a lot of the time it comes back to, “what happens if I can’t ski any more” or “what will I do if this valley changes so much I don’t recognize it.” Thinking these things made me really appreciate where I live and grew up.               

Standing on top of the M in Missoula feels just like it did back at home standing on top of my secret cliff, but where there was a small town of 7,000 there is now a city if 70,000*. Up on the M you are on top of the world, overlooking the Missoula valley. You can see all the busy little people running around with their own personal goals and deadlines to meet. Everyone down there thinks of themselves as independent, as making their own choices in life, and choosing their own goals, but from up on the M everyone looks like ants, trying to make a colony out of the valley they call home. They all think they have their own ideas but really they are all following the larger plan everyone follows.  

Being up there really puts things in perspective to be able to see things from above. You get a dose of humanity and start to wonder if the beauty will last forever, and if not, what you can do to make it last longer. If future generations can’t enjoy the same beauty you can, are we really doing right in the world? Missoula is not immune to the peril that is facing our ever changing world. One of the most serious changes facing Missoula is air pollution. In 1956 the pulp mill really took off, but it produced so much air pollution and smog that people living in Missoula had to drive with their headlights on during the day just to be able to see.* If our air pollution gets this bad again, whether it’s from global air pollution or from something like the lumber mills coming back, this valley would be changed forever.

If we don’t act very soon our whole ecosystem is going to start to crash down all around us. The beauty of being able to look down onto your city will be gone. Instead you will start to see smog where you once saw buildings, birds, and the mountains. Air quality in a serious issue anywhere, but especially in Missoula, since we live in such a confined valley the air pollutants settle in around us.

                Missoula is not the only one that would be affected by such a drastic change in air pollution. My cliff back in Whitefish would also be greatly affected. Whitefish is also in a valley, and we also experience inversions and poor air conditions because it all just settles in, just like Missoula. If I could no longer sit on top of my secret cliff, or the M, and look out to see all the natural beauty that is Montana, my life would be completely changed forever. Being able to contemplate life, sitting on top of the world, would no longer be an option. Being able to enjoy sunny walks up to the M, or the long ski days in the sun would be gone forever. It is not the joy of skiing, or hiking that would be gone forever either. The whole climate would change. Sporadic snow storms, instead of the consistent feet upon feet of snow that we are accustomed to; Warm winters instead of the biting chill that I have come to love; more fires destroying forests that didn’t need to be burned. These things are only a few of the effects of the air pollution and climate change that is threatening us now in Missoula, and around the world.

. The M is a safe place for me; I can see every part of land that is the Missoula area, and I know that if we don’t protect it for the future it will not be there for other people to enjoy. It is not just a safe place for me, it is a safe place for plants and animals. The M is teeming with wildlife, even if you don’t see it all, there are ground squirrels, all kinds of bugs, deer, many kinds of birds, mice, and many others. I don’t want know a time when people can’t look down on Missoula and enjoy its natural beauty. If we don’t change soon we will eventually reach that point. Even though it will take a while to reach our goals, the side effects of not dealing with it are far worse than the time or money we invest to solve the problem.  It doesn’t matter whether your life place is a cliff, a hill, a river, or even down town, we all need to make the change in order to keep the things we love, and be able to keep doing the things we enjoy doing.

Work Cited

"Missoula, Montana." Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia. Web. 09 Feb. 2012. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Missoula,_Montana>.