Glacier National Park

We've been loving Glacier. The first day we woke to drizzle....first time on the entire trip! Weather changes quickly around here and can be very different on the other side of the park, so we ventured out onto Going to the Sun road. We had a lovely day stopping along the various lookout points. We saw a black bear this time! It was young- probably just old enough to be without its momma. As many of you know, we saw a grizzly coming into the park on Wednesday. That fellow was huge! Lumbered across the road about 50 yards in front of us. By the time he crossed, we had closed the gap to about 20 yards, so we had a real good look at him.

These are some views of the St Mary area, which is where we are camping. Above is a ranger station celebrating its 100 yr anniversary. Also pictures of area affected by 2006 forest fire. Fireweed and aspen are making a strong comeback.

This is a lovely open meadow near beaver pond. We saw a huge beaver lodge! Anna was our ranger for the 3.5 mi hike. We saw bear beds- trampled ground where bears had clearly just slept, plus rotted logs ripped apart for the insects inside- clearly the work of a bear. Anna carried bear spray. It is recommended not to hike in glacier without it.

We saw many ripe thimbleberry bushes and were allowed to try one each- the rest are for the bears! This is a view of St Mary lake with the glaciers in the distance. The mountains at Glacier look high, but are only about 8000 ft. It is because the valleys are carved so low that the mountains seem high.

This damn blog did it to me again and I seem to have lost a day of photos.

We took a boat cruise to Baring falls, then did a three mile hike to St Mary Falls. We met up with Monica Fournier's ( a friend from Guilford) parents and had a wonderful time together. :))

We also spent time at Macdonald lake and hiked the Trail of Cedars- large stands of very old cedar trees.  

This afternoon we are headed to Many Glacier to horseback ride. The panoramic views, hidden mountain lakes, and glacier carved valleys are fun to explore on horseback- plus the guides have spray so we don't have to invest $50 for 4oz!

The bear population is very healthy here and temps are cooler so sightings more likely. Plus berries are ripe and food is plentiful. There are 800 black bears and 300 grizzlies in the park. The campground 5 miles to the west of us had to close and evacuate the day after we arrived because of bears encroaching. It was totally booked so all those people were just out of luck for accommodations. Unfortunately people being careless with food storage was probably what caused the bears to invade.

More later...