“My toenail’s probably going to fall off,” my mother predicted as she shortened the nail with a pair of clippers. The damage had been done in the course of a four-mile hike in Montana’s Glacier National Park - one with minimal elevation gain. The toe-stubbing downhill stretch had not seemed long enough to cause such an injury, but I suppose some toes stub more easily than others. I hated to think what today’s twelve-mile hike was going to do to her.

The hike I had chosen for my visiting family was the Highline/Loop Trail - a popular route that clung two-thirds of the way up a 6,000-foot slope and kept a level altitude before suddenly taking a four-mile plunge towards the valley floor. As one hiked from south to north, the unbroken views of glacier-scoured valleys and snow-speckled summits would constantly tap at one’s left shoulder, requesting a moment for well-deserved appreciation.