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Mountain Critter Chronicles

About

Meet Haley Jade

My name is Haley Jade. I am a backpacker, mountaineer, metalsmith, and writer currently based in the Northern Cascades.

I am planning to use this space to share (hopefully) useful beta and (hopefully) useful musings from my time spent in the backcountry.

Some reports will be from trips in the Cascades and others will be scattered from places where I’ve been lucky enough to pitch my tent – Alaska, Arizona, California, Idaho, Utah, and more. And many many more will be from the Rocky Mountains of my home and heart state, Montana.

Thanks for being here, and maybe I’ll see you out there. Yeehaw!

I take the road that bears leave in the mountains

I grow hard to see then vanish entirely

On the peaks it is summer

– The Dream Again, W.S. Merwin

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today marks one year since luke and i got engaged! today marks one year since luke and i got engaged! so of course taking the opportunity to share more of the stunning photos @jazzerraephotos captured of us. 😋 

and if you swipe to the end, you’ll see luke + i on this day last year — looking as cold as sh** on mount adams where we got engaged!

luke sure knows how to chose a moment: we had just got back to our tent perched at 9,300 ft after topping out mount adams in the midst of a storm cycle — whiteout conditions, precipitation, and 30-45 mile hour winds. arriving at camp, the wind was threatening to knock down our lil tent and blow our skis away into the abyss making us wonder whose great idea camping at over 9,000 ft in a storm was (guilty lol). we stripped down outside in the snow to protect our precious dry sleeping bags from our wet and frost-covered clothing (iykyk) and jumped inside. while we ate clif builder bars and dried mango for dinner and drank the last of our water supplies, luke proposed! whaaa i am the luckiest to have this sturdy, down-to-clown, type 2 fun-loving human as my forever sweetheart !! ❣️
a love letter for montana 💌 feeling a immense a love letter for montana 💌

feeling a immense calling for home lately — the light on the mountains, the lonesome country stretching between one gas-station-and-a-bar town to another, the two finger greetings from behind steering wheels as you pass on dusty dirt roads, the camaraderie between people who know what it means to sacrifice for this place — to withstand the choking months of fire season and the -20 degree winter stretches — all to live here, where a fresh blanket of snow brings an insulated quiet like no other and where when you go to the mountains you find yourself truly and beautifully alone. 

i’ve been away from montana for a bit, indulging in the human impulse of trying on a new place and a new life for size. but its almost comical how much montana, this place, grasps me. the pull is magnetic, primal. when i drive over the mountain pass into the folds of my familiar valley, i feel all the swirling silt settle in my stomach and something ineffable fall into place. i could travel to the far edges of this strange and magnificent world (and i hope to) but one thing will always remain true — there’s nowhere quite like montana. 

i’ll be home soon. 🤍
Closed the chapter of my 27th year yesterday. Ea Closed the chapter of my 27th year yesterday. 

Each rotation on this planet awes me, humbles me, and brings me to my knees with gratitude for the gift of existence and for our achingly beautiful home. This year fundamentally rearranged me. I am glad for it. 

Stepping into 28 with a soft heart and open palms.
counting down the days till i get to marry my swee counting down the days till i get to marry my sweetheart !! ❣️ 

so much gratitude to @jazzerraephotos for romping around in a thunderstorm with us to capture these photographs
some moments from last weekend glacier touring in some moments from last weekend glacier touring in beautiful BC’s coast mountains 

#skicanada #skitouring
got a lil weepy watching this fox 🥲 in the wor got a lil weepy watching this fox 🥲

in the words of the wise @gendersauce, death will come when it comes, for now you get to make the little choices, the tiny ones, the heartbreaking ones, you get to choose the color of your socks 🌀
life is too good to be true sometimes !! #skitour life is too good to be true sometimes !!

#skitouring #sleepoutside #skicanada
always feel most beautiful + most alive after a fe always feel most beautiful + most alive after a few days of sleeping outside 🤍

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