‘Forget Me Not’ is a story of love and loss

Eventually I returned to Montana and the remote comfort of my father's ranch near the Bob Marshall Wilderness, a good place to sort out my life. There I was able to find solace in the routine of feeding cattle and the daily chores of ranch life, watching over the place while Dad and his wife, Carol, enjoyed a visit to California, a hiatus from the long winter. With guilt and sadness, I reflected on my impending divorce. I thought of Tom's parents, whom I had grown to love, and thought of my own parents' divorce in my early teenage years, remembering my hurt and confusion. But things had turned out better in the end for each of my parents, it seemed.

As cattle began to drop their calves, I enjoyed the role of looking out for any that had trouble with the birthing process. I called on a neighboring ranch to help with one troubled young heifer I had brought to the barn. She was down and exhausted by labor, her bulging eyes rolled back with fear. When two brothers from the Copenhaver ranch arrived, we got her up, and one of them reached an arm dripping with iodine deep into her contracting body to get a rope around the calf's front feet. Once that was done, it took all of us to "pull the calf," but we managed to have it suckling in a couple of hours. The birth of that little bovine gave me a jolt of confidence. I stood before the frisky calf the next day and said, "Well, I managed to get you out into the world and on your feet. I ought to be able to do it for myself."

I was on the lookout for another job when my cousin called from Utah to say that a position was available on the seismic crew that employed him. Working outside was appealing, and the job would be lucrative. I assured his boss that I was tough enough, having done ranch work, tree thinning, and seasonal work for the Forest Service for many summers. I drove through the night to arrive at Heber City and sign on.

Alex left Boulder soon after I did. He returned to the Wyoming oilrigs, where he could make a higher wage and take double shifts, allowing for a shorter period of work between climbing adventures. He wrote to me at the ranch, and Dad forwarded his letters. I had become infatuated with the charismatic young climber who appeared to have life by the tail, and I wrote back to him:

I must thank you for inspiring me to take a risk and try a new lifestyle. My goal is to save enough money to go to Europe this summer. I want to visit some art museums and do some climbing. Seismic work is not bad at all. We "juggies" fly to work in helicopters that take us high up into the mountains. Once there, we lay out geophones and then set out charges of dynamite. After the shot, the geophones send a readout to the "box," where it is recorded; then a geologist somewhere can tell if there is oil in these hills.

The next letter I got from Alex said he would be keen to get a job on my crew if an opening came up, and that he would be happy to accompany me to Europe.

In the meantime, we both had a few days off and planned to meet in the Tetons of Wyoming for some ice climbing. I drove into Jackson Hole with anticipation and there, by the antler arch in the sunny town square, stood Alex leaning against his old Volvo station wagon, arms folded across his chest, an enormous grin beneath his Vuarnet shades. It was still late winter, and he wore army-navy khakis and flip-flops with a wool sweater knit by his mom. His long arms were around me in an instant and it was pent-up love at first sight for both of us. We spent a steamy night in the back of his car, and the next day skied up Death Canyon to Prospector Falls.

It was a fresh winter day with sun sparkling on new snow as we approached the frozen waterfall. We found the vertical ice in perfect shape, and the day unfolded like a dream as we ascended. But about halfway up, an avalanche came roaring down upon us. Alex, who was above, yelled at me to plant my tools and hug the ice. Powdery spindrift poured over me as I held tightly to the shafts of my tools.

Then the snow was gone, the sun shone, and with a surge of adrenaline we quickly finished the climb. Only when we had rappelled and returned to the bottom did I realize the magnitude of the avalanche. The windblast had sent our packs more than fifty feet downslope, and there was stuff strewn everywhere: big chunks of frozen debris and bits of rock. "Whoa!" I said. "It was lucky we weren't standing here when that came down!" Alex looked a little spooked and answered sheepishly, "No kidding." The day was an auspicious start for the two of us, but fitting for the exhilaration of new love that felt somewhat illicit.

Soon after, Alex joined my crew. We adapted to seismic life and set a goal of working for three months. In that time, we figured we could save enough money to take a trip to Yosemite and then Europe, traveling for several months. As enamored of Alex as I was, I knew he was a vagabond so I didn't hold out hope for a long relationship. It didn't matter. He was twenty-two and I was twenty-five. Happy to live in the moment, we both agreed that we would travel to Europe together and see how it went.

As it turned out, we were glad for each other's daily companionship. Work on the seismic crew meant adopting a nomadic lifestyle with little chance for social interaction outside of our coworkers. Aside from a handful of frugal Mexicans, most of the crew approached life as a party and spent their fat paychecks quickly on drugs, booze, and expensive steak dinners. Alex and I did not fit the mold; we were lovers of nature and saw our jobs as a temporary means to an end. To save money, we bought food at the grocery store and ate in our hotel room.

When the weather got warm enough, we camped out to save even more of our precious paychecks. For a while we camped near Montpelier, Idaho, and Bear Lake, where the campground was mostly empty but for us. Alex did pull-ups in the outhouse doorway every evening to stay fit for climbing. I would watch his long arms pump up and down in slow rhythm as I cooked dinner on our camp stove, and then we'd sit by a fire reading. Alex played Neil Young, Cat Stevens, and John Prine songs on his guitar while I painted with watercolors or wrote letters, looking up now and then to watch his tongue curl over his lip in concentration. When tiredness overcame us, we'd crawl into the Volvo for the night.

Our salaries each amounted to two thousand dollars per month, which was great money at the time, and I remember getting paid in hundred-dollar bills. On a typical day we would be at the LZ, or landing zone, early. There were usually two helicopters, which would whisk us away at first light to the top of a ridge. As soon as the pilot gave a thumbs-up we were out the door, ducking beneath blades to scurry away with packs slung over a shoulder. The day would entail laying out equipment, setting up shots, or picking up equipment as the helicopters ferried loads of geophones from the back of the line to the front. Working outdoors and walking all day up and down hills was great, but it was a compromised existence knowing that we were looking for oil. Alex had worked on rigs for several years, taking advantage of the high-paying jobs provided by the oil boom, and he had seen firsthand the callous treatment of the environment. I dreaded the idea of roads and oilrigs invading the wild places where we walked each day. The terrain where we worked varied from steep and rocky with deep windblown snow, to timbered, to wide-open with wildflowers popping from the melting snow banks as we followed a line left by surveyors.

For a while Alex and I "chained" for the survey crew, whose company we preferred. Far from the noise of shots, we traipsed through mountain groves of aspen, alone with red-tailed hawks, whitetail deer, and occasional cottontails, planting flags in the snowy ground. In the late afternoon or evening, our pilot would call on the radio saying, "Find an LZ," and we'd look for the flattest spot for a helicopter to land. On occasion we'd have a sketchy landing where the pilot would toe into a hillside, hovering while we carefully climbed into the floating chopper.

Although our pilots were usually skilled Vietnam vets or guys with military training who put us through regular safety drills and flew with sound judgment, we did have a couple of wild cards. I remember one guy nicknamed Captain Wa-wa who had a fondness for zooming along at what felt like inches above the water of Bear Lake. He loved to rocket up a ridge and then dive-bomb out of the sky, following the contours of the hills, while fellow "juggies" squealed with delight on this ultimate amusement ride.

When Alex and I gave our notice in the spring, most of the crew were amazed that we had amassed enough money for a trip to Europe. We smugly drove off toward Montana to make our plans, store our things, and meet each other's parents.

Excerpted from "Forget Me Not: A Memoir" by Jennifer Lowe-Anker with permission from Mountaineers Books. Copyright © 2008.

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