KEEPING WATCH

00:00:00:00 - 00:00:25:21

[Chris] I mean, if you could if you could just talk a little bit about your experience at St Mary’s and in kind of the tour guide aspect. That’s kind of interesting.

[Patrick] Oh, good. Well, same here, I guess. A lot a lot of visitors and a lot a lot of people that’s their first walk into the wilderness is just across the wilderness boundary.

00:00:25:24 - 00:00:48:09

[Patrick] And I want to encourage people. This is there is a phenomenal blessing here. You can spend the rest of your days just noodling around the Selway-Bitterroot. So, you know, I’ve tried to tell with, you know, you know, the you know, the flora, the flora, you know the what to look for the flowers. They’re trampling over. Encourage…

00:00:48:10 - 00:01:15:10

[Patrick] …them to be cautious up there. And the one thing that sticks in my mind was on or near near the 15th of August there’s a big Catholic presence. The 15th of August is the Feast of the Assumption of Saint Mary and St Mary’s Peak, which was named by the Saint Mary Parish. So anyway, Saturday is a group comes up from Idaho and I’m blanking on where they come from.

00:01:15:10 - 00:01:30:25

[Patrick] I was, you know, I got to know them pretty well. And then Sunday the local parish from St Mary walks up and they have a whole ceremony. They do a mass right one top. But the first time I was up there and nobody including me here, that there was going to be a, you know, a mass of people. So all of a sudden it’s inundated.

00:01:30:27 - 00:01:52:03

[Patrick] I’ve got people crowded into the lookout, I got a woman around here changing a diaper. So no, I was getting a little stressed there. And then I looked out. Maybe I walk around the catwalk and there’s the little girl out here picking flowers. Okay, You know this. Please. You know, this is the wilderness area. This is at 9000 feet.

00:01:52:03 - 00:02:08:19

[Patrick] You know, it’s tough. Everything growing here is really hearty and just hanging out. Please don’t pick the flowers. Okay. So then I looked up and there’s a group of young men, nothing I would have done at that age. But they’re on the edge of my cliffs. Just pitching the rocks off as fast as they can pick up. So I went over there and unloaded on them.

00:02:08:21 - 00:02:29:08

[Patrick] So I’m coming back and there’s this old man walking on his facing away where I go picking flowers. So I had it, I walked up. I just unloaded on him, and he turned around. He was wearing the collars. The priest. Oh, Father. I said I asked him to quit picking flowers. So as Father Kasick, I got to know him pretty well.

00:02:29:08 - 00:02:54:11

[Patrick] And we look forward to seeing each other after that each year. But it’s an intro for a lot of people, and I want to make it a positive one. And you can see Missoula from St Mary. You can see from oh about the courthouse to the university along Broadway, you see up the rattlesnake, up the you can see the lower peaks on the mission range.