Journal Notes

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The Lady and the Mountain Man: 

Isabella Bird, Rocky Mountain Jim, and their Unlikely Friendship

“A touching, well-researched story of the love shared between a prolific author and Victorian lady in the Rocky Mountains and the renegade trapper who helped her realize her dream of climbing Longs Peak.”

New York Times Bestselling Author of Give My Heart to the Hawks, Win Blevins

“Thank you Chris Enss, for this marvelous introduction to Isabella Bird, an English lady who refused to let unremitting pain keep her from exploring the American West. Isabella was a prolific writer whose reports on all she saw and experienced brought admirers from across the world to bask in the wonders of Colorado and the Rocky Mountains. Americans today will gain greater appreciation for our country, seeing it through this woman’s eyes even as she fell in love with a crusty, drink-riddled mountain man. Enss, a prolific and engaging writer in her own right, beautifully brings this woman to life.”

Two-time Western Writers of America Spur Award Winner, Carol Crigger

“A delightful account of the peregrinations of Isabella Bird, footloose nineteenth-century English travel and inspirational writer. She documented journeys in Britain and the Pacific, finally ending in Colorado, where she befriended legendary Rocky Mountain Jim Nugent. Her wanderlust later took her to Asia and north Africa. If you don’t know Isabella Bird’s story, you’re in for a treat. A good read by Chris Enss, a perennial winner.”

Spur Award Finalist and Will Rogers Medallion Winner, Harlan Hague

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The Lady and the Mountain Man: 

Isabella Bird, Mountain Man Jim Nugent, and their Unlikely Friendship

To burn with desire and keep quiet about it is the greatest punishment we can bring on ourselves.  Isabella Bird loved an outlaw and only shared her feelings with her sister. 

Mountain Man Jim loved a lady and told everyone who would listen.  Read the true story of the unlikely friendship of Isabella Bird and Mountain Man Jim Nugent in The Lady and the Mountain Man.  

“He’s more myself than I am. Whatever our souls are made of, his and mine are the same.” 

Read why Isabella Bird fell in love with a scoundrel like Mountain Man Jim Nugent. 

The Lady and the Mountain Man: 

Isabella Bird, Mountain Man Jim Nugent, and Their Unlikely Friendship is now available. 

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The Lady and the Mountain Man:

Isabella Bird, Mountain Jim Nugent, and Their Unlikely Friendship

Neither Isabella nor Jim was so drained they could not appreciate the incredible sweeping views.  Standing at the highest point in the park, they looked out over an unbroken expanse of pines and snow-slashed pinnacles and more.  “There, far below, links of diamonds showed where the Grand River takes its rise to the mysterious Colorado…,” Isabella wrote describing the sight.  “Nature, rioting in her grandest mood, exclaimed with voices of grandeur, solitude, sublimity, beauty, and infinity, ‘Lord, what is man, that Thou art mindful of him?’”

Isabella and Jim had reached the summit so late their time spent admiring the view was abbreviated.  The group needed to start back down the mountain before daylight faded.  Downer and Rogers were anxious to get underway, and Isabella thought for a moment they would suggest going it alone.  They had made a few comments about women being an encumbrance on such a journey.  “A woman’s incompetence on rough mountainous trips detains the others and can even endanger lives,” she overheard Rogers say.  Jim championed Isabella’s right to climb Longs Peak and assured the men that “if it were not to take the lady up, he would not have gone at all.”

Isabella noted in her memoirs the reason the young men on the venture were in a hurry to descend the mountain was that one of them was afraid long periods in the high altitude would lead to lung damage.  She noted that respiration at 15,000 feet was painful, and they were all struggling with getting enough to drink.  Before starting down the peak, each wrote their name and date on a piece of paper, placed it inside a tin, and tucked the tin snuggly in a crevice.

Descending the mountain was unnerving.  Isabella scooted to the edge of the peak, dangled her feet in front of her, and searched the cracks in the rock for a place to set her foot.  Jim had climbed down ahead of her, and, when she couldn’t find a crevice to use as a foothold, he allowed her to put her feet on his shoulders.  His strong arms lifted her from steep rock formations and gently placed her on secure ledges below.  Although Isabella was grateful for Jim’s help, she felt ashamed she required it.  She wanted him to see her as courageous and strong, not needy and dependent.  From what Rogers observed, Jim looked at Isabella with deep admiration and respect.  The glances the two exchanged as Jim held her in his arms carrying her from one narrow, icy ledge to another was proof the two had grown to care for one another.

To learn more about Isabella and Jim’s time in Estes Park read The Lady and the Mountain Man

The Cowgirl magazine Wild Women of the West article by Chris Enss entitled

Dr. Jenny Murphy:  Yanton Doctor of Medicine is a finalist for the 2021 Downing Journalism Award. 

The Downing Award is sponsored by the organization Women Writing the West. 

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The Lady and the Mountain Man: 

Isabella Bird, Mountain Man Jim Nugent, and their Unlikely Friendship

Isabella considered the criticism Evans had about Jim.  She believed some of the animosity was born out of the fact that he was a popular character and articles about him frequently appeared in Colorado newspapers.  He was a man to be envied, and Evans and others hoping to drive Jim out of the park were consumed with jealousy.  “Ruffian as he looks,” Isabella elaborated on Jim in her memoirs, “the first word he speaks – to a lady, at least – places him on a level with educated gentlemen, and his conversation is brilliant, and full of the light and fitfulness of genius.”

Isabella always keenly felt Jim’s absences.  On one hand she admired him greatly, and on the other she grieved the life she felt he wasted because of his unruly past.  “What good could the future have in store for one who has for so long chosen evil,” she asked herself in her memoirs.  After each encounter, she was consumed with the notion if Jim surrendered all to the Lord his path would be set straight again.  Only then could there be hope for “a most painful spectacle.”  Only then could there be hope the two might find happiness together.  Thoughts of Jim and his restoration crowded her mind to the exclusion of all else.  She couldn’t write.  Distractions were necessary.  Fortunately, the day after her exhilarating ride with Jim and the Deweys, Griff Evans provided one.  Once again, he needed another hand to help with a cattle drive.  Isabella gladly agreed.

The bronco Isabella was given to ride was quick and resilient.  The pair traveled over rocks and inclines, driving the herds out of canyons and tree lines.  While riding fast and pushing the cows forward, Isabella reflected on her days riding in Hawaii.  That challenge had provided her with the experience needed to round up Texas steers.

To learn more about Isabella Bird’s time with Jim Nugent read

The Lady and the Mountain Man

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The Lady and the Mountain Man: 

Isabella Bird, Mountain Man Jim Nugent, and their Unlikely Friendship

If you remember me, then I don’t care if everyone else forgets. 

This was all Mountain Man Jim Nugent could hope for from Isabella Bird. 

The true story of their romance is at the center of  The Lady and the Mountain Man. 

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The Lady and the Mountain Man: 

Isabella Bird, Mountain Man Jim Nugent, and their Unlikely Friendship

At dawn, a brilliant sun bloomed on the horizon, and its golden petals stretched ever outward into the rich, blue sky.  Isabella stirred under her covers and gingerly peered out to take in the new day.  Jim was just waking up, and Rogers was tending to the horses.  The sounds of the animals feasting on their breakfast rousted the mountain man from his bedroll.  He stretched and scratched as he surveyed the camping spot.  He and Isabella exchanged a look and a smile as Downer hurried onto the scene from nearby, beckoning his traveling companions to follow him.  Rogers, Isabella, and Jim complied, traipsing after the excited youth to the ledge of the mountain.  Before them lay a spectacular view of silver pine trees decorated in white, far-off snow hooded mountains punching the sky, and low hanging clouds hugging sections of the vast, blue-gray plains.  Moved by the indescribable beauty of the setting, Jim proclaimed, “I believe there is a God!”  The sincere praise delighted Isabella, and she couldn’t help herself admiring him.  She acknowledged the Lord’s handiwork as well.  “I felt as if, Parsee-like, I must worship,” she wrote in her memoirs.  “The grey of the plains changed to purple, the sky was all one rose-red flush, on which vermilion cloud-streaks rested; the ghastly peaks gleamed like rubies, the earth and the heavens were new created.   Surely, ‘the Most High dwelleth not in temples made with hands!’”

Shortly after breakfast, the four adventurers started off on the second day of their quest to Longs Peak.  Isabella rode her horse, but the men walked, leading their mounts behind them.  Once the group reached the lava beds, Isabella was forced to walk with her horse in tow.  The lava beds were long, rocky paths made up of large and small boulders covered with snow and ice.  As the stones tended to shift under their weight, trekking over the rocks was time consuming.  When Isabella managed to take her attention off where she was placing her feet, she focused on the varied and vigorous array of life above the tree line.  Scattered before her were steep slopes, shattered summits, and precipitous walls.  There were also several lakes.  The ice on those lakes was frozen so solid horses and sojourners could walk across without fear of breaking through.  They decided to leave their rides in an area not far from the lava beds and press on without them.  They planned to retrieve them on their return.

To learn more about Isabella Bird and her relationship with Jim Nugent read

The Lady and the Mountain Man 

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The Lady and the Mountain Man: 

Isabella Bird, Mountain Man Jim Nugent, and their Unlikely Friendship. 

Twenty-three-year-old Platt Rogers and his friend, twenty-one-year- old Sylvester Downer, waited at the front entrance of a hotel in Longmont for the woman they promised to escort to Longs Peak.  The two men hadn’t been in Colorado long.  Rogers had recently graduated from Columbia Law School and Downer, a student at the same college, decided to go West and see the Rocky Mountains.  They hadn’t planned to venture into the high country with anyone else.  “…we were traveling light and free,” Rogers wrote of the experience years later, “and the presence of a woman would naturally operate as a restraint on our movements.”

The offer to add another body to the expedition was agreed upon only after they learned they would be paid for their trouble.  “We consoled ourselves with the hope that she would prove young, beautiful, and vivacious,” Rogers later confessed.  “Our hopes were dispelled when in the morning, Miss Bird appeared wearing bloomers, riding cowboy fashion, with a face and figure not corresponding to our ideals.”

Isabella’s outfit was one of the traditional Hawaiian riding dresses she usually wore for such an occasion.  The pa’u, as it was called, was a voluminous skirt or sarong that was tucked in around the legs.  When riding astride, the garment resembled wings.  The dress was more for comfort than style.  If the trip from Denver to Estes Park was any indication, Isabella anticipated the journey would be rough and at least wanted to feel at ease with what she was wearing.  Rogers and Downer were taken aback because of her clothing and by her ride, a horse named Birdie which looked as though it was not strong enough to make the trip.  When the two men asked Isabella about the stamina of the animal, she was quick to come to Birdie’s defense.  She assured them he had the “cat like sure-footedness of a Hawaiian horse.”  Isabella might have been confident her ride would not disappoint, but the young guides were not convinced her horse would withstand the trip.  However, they didn’t argue the point.  They simply loaded the supplies and ropes on their horses and a pack mule and started on the quest.

To learn more about Isabella Bird and her time with Mountain Man Jim Nugent read

The Lady and the Mountain Man.

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The Lady and the Mountain Man:  Isabella Bird, Rocky Mountain Jim, and their Unlikely Friendship

Isabella slowly made her way through a lush field of heather and wildflowers toward a cluster of boulders on the Isle of Iona.  John Campbell, the Duke of Argyll, and Alexander Ewing, the Bishop of Argyll, followed after the fragile woman.  Iona was a little island in the midst of the Outer Hebrides or Western Isles of Scotland.  The small plot of land was rich in Christian history.  This was Isabella’s first time on the Isle of Iona, and she wanted to learn about the community where missionaries had been dispatched for the conversion of the pagan tribes of Scotland and northern England in the late 1760s.  She was compiling another book on religion and believed the information would prove vital.  Aside from her research, she hoped the scenery would improve her frail health.  Such outings always made a difference to her condition.

While waiting for the duke and bishop to reach her, she gazed out over a nearby pasture at the great horned, shaggy Highland cattle tromping through the fields and thought how much her father would have appreciated the serene setting.  Reverend Bird had left behind copious notes and essays about such historic locations important to the faith.  Not long after his passing, Isabella her father’s compilations published.  Out of respect for her him, she wanted to continue writing on the subject.  In addition to focusing on religion in Europe, she planned to study religious revivals in the United States.  For that, her health would need to be rejuvenated.  At the time, she suffered from muscle weakness in the legs, painful muscle spasms, and periods of extreme exhaustion.

Regardless of her physical struggles, Isabella’s friends noted she was always cheerful and positive.  Socially influential people in Edinburgh sought out her company after reading the complimentary article she wrote about the country published in The Leisure Hour magazine and The Sunday Magazine.  All who encountered Isabella found her lively disposition infectious.  Those who knew her only through her writings would never have imagined she suffered from recurrent spinal attacks.  She was good at working through the pain, but there were times when the frustration of having to deal with the ailment would eventually take its toll.  When that happened, she would vent about the problem in letters to those closest to her.

“I feel as if my life were spent in the very ignoble occupation of taking care of myself,” she wrote in 1864, “and that unless some disturbing influences arise I am in great danger of becoming encrusted with selfishness, and, like the hero of Romola, of living to make life agreeable and its path smooth to myself alone.  Indeed, this summer I have made very painful discoveries on this subject and long for a cheerful intellect and self-denying spirit, which seeketh not its own and pleaseth not itself.”

To learn more about Isabella Bird and Mountain Man Jim Nugent read

The Lady and the Mountain Man.