Better Not Climb to the Snow Today.
….Much To Chris’ Great Dismay, They Start Their Way Down.

….“Chris stares at the top of the mountain before us. "Didn’t they get any warning?" .. "I don’t know." .. "You’d think there’d be a warning."
.... "Maybe there was."
.... We walk to where the ridge we are on creases inward to the start of a ravine. I see that we can follow this ravine down and eventually find water in it. I start angling down now.
.... Some more rocks clatter up above. Suddenly I’m frightened.
.... "Chris," I say.
.... "What?" .. "You know what I think?"
.... "No, what?"
.... "I think we’d be very smart if we let that mountaintop go for now and try it another summer." …. “He’s silent. Then he says, "Why?"
...."I have bad feelings about it."
....He doesn’t say anything for a long time. Finally he says, "Like what?"
...."Oh, I just think that we could get caught up there in a storm or a slide or something and we’d be in real trouble."
....More silence. I look up and see real disappointment in his face. I think he knows I’m leaving something out. "Why don’t you think about it," I say, "and then when we get to some water and have lunch we’ll decide."
....We continue walking down. "Okay?" I say.
....He finally says, "Okay," in a noncommittal voice.
....The descent is easy now but I see it will be steeper soon. It’s still open and sunny here but soon we’ll be in trees again.
....I don’t know what to make of all this weird talk at night except that it’s not good. For either of us. It sounds like all the strain of this cycling and camping and Chautauqua and all these old places has a bad effect on me that appears at night. I want to clear out of here as fast as possible “. “

On The Way Down From The Top Of A Ridge Crest, On Flank Of Mountain With Snow, Above Upper Fox Creek, Off Of Upper Cottonwood Canyon, Gallatin National Forest, MT. The Narrator is frightened, because he remembers the 1959 Earthquake near Hebgen Lake which is on the main road, just west of Yellowstone NP, only ~40 miles away from where Chris & Narrator are.
….This earthquake caused a major landslide that killed nineteen people. By happenstance this Earthquake happened the same day Robert Pirsig (with his family) left his home in Minneapolis MN, to take up his teaching at Montana State University, Bozeman, MT.

In The ZMM Passage Above Note Several Trail Location Clues =>
….Chris has struggled all this way, to the top of a ridge that leads directly to snow. Here he is very close to the snow and can see it in all it’s grandeur, all the way to the very top of the big mountain, just up the slope. No wonder he will be disappointed and resist the idea on going down!!
….This is because Chris has no way to really understand the possible danger, and no way to feel the same frightening danger of his Dad’s bad dreams, or threat of his Dad’s mental instability. …ALL of these FEARS are VERY MUCH on the mind of the Narrator!! But Chris doesn’t have any way to know this.
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(Photo = September2006 0034 ...... ZMM Page = 219 & 229 ...... Photo simulate WayPt = N+C 25cont 9200ft = 9.47+0.2 mi fm DeWeese)