Tales Of A Wilderness Engagement - Part 2

Tales Of A Wilderness Engagement - Part 2

April 4th, 2008 @ 2:31 pm by Mrs. Cherry Pie

In 2006 we embarked on our first backpacking trip in Glacier National Park. We decided on a 2-night, 3-day, 19-mile loop from Saint Mary Lake at the Gunsight trailhead to Lake McDonald Lodge. We parked at the lodge, only a half mile from our cabin, took the shuttle to the starting trailhead and set off. That day, we hiked 6.5 miles to Gunsight Lake on nice, mostly-flat terrain. We got to the campground early and set up our tents on prime real-estate near the lake. Our friends curled up to take a nap, and I joined Mr. Cherry Pie at the waterfront.

Gunsight Lake was so beautiful, and best of all we had the whole day to enjoy it! The water was surprisingly warm, so we waded to soothe our sore feet. After a while I sat down, but Mr. Cherry Pie kept pacing back and and forth. I had been so struck by the scenery at first that I didn’t notice he was behaving oddly. Suddenly, it occurred to me that maybe our friends had planned to leave us along and… ohmigosh… he was going to propose!

Sure enough, he came over, fiddling with something in his pocket, and knelt down in front of me. Then he gave me a little kiss, stood up, and waded back out into the lake. My heart sank.

I had been prodding for a proposal for a few months now, and I hoped it would happen during the summer. I had also told him he should think of another location besides Glacier to propose since our friends had gotten engaged in the park. Well, here it was, August 26, and I was ready to eat those words.

In reality, I hadn’t even been obsessing about our proposal until that very moment… but everything seemed so perfect that I was disappointed it had even come to mind. I was so preoccupied that I barely noticed Mr. Cherry Pie standing in front of me.

He knelt down and said “I have something for you.” At this point, I’d had enough of my imagination running away with me, so I thought he’d found me a pretty pebble. But when I looked down, he was holding a beautiful ring in his hand. All I could say, considering that I had just written off the chance of a proposal was, “WHAT?!” and laugh.

I was so flustered that I made him ask me to marry him again, just so I could say yes properly.

After a few moments alone on the beach, our friends showed up. It turned out that not only had their absence NOT been staged, they had no idea Mr. Cherry was planning the engagement at all!

The truth is, Mr. Cherry wanted to propose to me on top of a mountain. We make it our goal to summit at least one new peak in the park each trip, and I’ve so far made it to the top of at least ten (Mr. Cherry has climbed many more since his childhood). But we weren’t expecting to summit a mountain on our 2006 trip. Not only had we dedicated a chunk of our time to backpacking, three of us were also training to run our first marathon in Portland in a little more than a month. We had even set aside a whole day for our 19-mile training run. Our legs would be too sore to climb anything significant.

While it would have been a dream come true to get engaged on top of a peak in Glacier, I am so glad Mr. Cherry asked me to marry him when and where he did. It was the perfect day. GLEE!

If we hadn’t gotten engaged at Gunsight Lake, we never might never have made new friends around the campfire…

The evening of our engagement, we were preparing dinner in the kitchen area (where everyone eats together to minimize the chance of bears ransacking the campground). One girl about my age noticed me staring at my ring and said “That’s a pretty ring!” I said, “Thanks, I just got it today!” and proceeded to tell her all about getting engaged. As Mr. Cherry and I talked with this girl and her boyfriend, we learned that they lived 20 minutes from us in Seattle. They had just decided to come up to Glacier on a whim three days before and threw together a backpacking trip.

Not only that, but they were taking the same route and staying at the same campgrounds as us. We traveled together for most of the rest of the trip, and invited them to the cabin for a shower and a hot meal afterwards. We didn’t think they’d show up, but they did, and we became great friends. We started to hang out in Seattle and the next year they came to Glacier to stay with us at the cabin. They’re planning on getting engaged this year! I can’t believe we had the good fortune to meet them.

Does anyone else have tales of a wilderness engagement? How about friends you met because of your newly engaged status?

Tags: montana, proposal |

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11 Responses to “Tales Of A Wilderness Engagement - Part 2”

Bee

Miss Gingerbread (message) 647 posts, Busy bee

What a great story. You two look so happy

4/4/08 @ 2:36 pm (reply)

Bee

Mrs. Spider (message) 119 posts, Blushing bee

I love that picture! You both look so deliriously happy and giddy. =)

4/4/08 @ 2:39 pm (reply)

Guest

maggiebride

I enjoyed your wilderness proposal story. That’s a great picture too.

4/4/08 @ 3:22 pm (reply)

Guest

nerdherd

That’s such a sweet story — and I LOVE your ring!

I, too, got engaged on a hike — though not quite as wilderness-y as yours. We were on top of the Buzzards Roost trail at Big Sur, the same hike where we’d said our first “I love you”s almost two years earlier (and one of the first hikes we did together as a couple). I wasn’t expecting it, because we’d been ring-browsing together just a couple of weeks before and I KNEW a ring couldn’t possibly be ready. But he got down on one knee and proposed with a wildflower.

I think one of the funniest things about our proposal is that, since we were in Big Sur, we couldn’t tell our friends and families — our cell phones didn’t work, and there was a pay phone at the lodge where we were staying, which we used to call our parents, but that was it! So we compensated by telling random folks: the person at the hotel front desk, the waitress at the restaurant where we had dinner …

4/4/08 @ 4:05 pm (reply)

Bee

Miss Cherry Pie (message) 688 posts, Busy bee

Nerdherd- ALMOST didn’t tell anyone (except the friends who were there) until after we got back, either! But Mr. Cherry Pie’s dad lives in Montana, so he called him, and Mr. Cherry Pie Sr drove up to the cabin to congratulate us in person. The rest of the folks we waited to announce to until we came home.

4/4/08 @ 4:13 pm (reply)

Guest

chibride

What a wonderful way to get engaged. I love your ring, the setting is so pretty. It looks like it sits almost flush to your hand, which must be handy when you’ve got such an active lifestyle.

4/4/08 @ 6:51 pm (reply)

Guest

brendalynn

hey! my e-ring is remarkably similar to yours–I haven’t seen anyone else actually wearing it before! Love it!

4/4/08 @ 9:06 pm (reply)

Bee

Miss Cherry Pie (message) 688 posts, Busy bee

Brendalynn- Ooh! Lemme see! This one was custom made, and I’ve only seen one design similar (Tacori)… did you have yours made too? If not, where’s it from?

I’ll post more ring pics soon!

4/4/08 @ 10:03 pm (reply)

Guest

brendalynn

Yeah, mine is also custom made, which is why I was surprised to see yours! It was originally based on a Sholdt design, but there were a few things I didn’t like as much about the original design… We spent some time looking for a flush ring, and your looks even lower than mine–not that I’m jealous or anything