That Going-to-the-Sun-Highway

No matter what else people do in Glacier,  they all travel the Going-to-the-Sun Highway.  The first time I traveled it, I was told it would take about two hours.  Actually it took me a day and a half to finish it.  Since then I can sometimes restrain myself and make it in under three hours.  But I got to see it several times since Julie and I took it across the middle of the park to reach our northeastern camp site at Many Glaciers, and then we went back to take her to the airport and I was on it to try to hike the Highline Trail and again, very early on a cloudy morning as I left to go home.

The Thompson fire has just gone through the eastern part of it and will make for very different viewing and make views of St. Mary Lake more open in a lot of places.

I think it is one of the most spectacular areas in the country with only the Beartooth Highway even being in competition.

Here are a few of my favorite pictures from this trip.

The west end of McDonald Lake at sunset

The road runs against cliffs in most places

The view of a stream coming down the mountain and crossing the road

A view along St. Mary's Lake

A view near Logan Pass after a snowstorm 

Another view after the snowstorm

Bighorn sheep on the mountain across from the Logan Visitor Center parking lot

Clouds playing with mountains

Fall colors, with mountains and clouds

Detail of the rocks on the cliffs along the road

The mandatory Wild Goose Island picture - in St. Mary Lake

If you want to see views of my first trip, click here. And I have already been back to see Beartooth Highway and will eventually have a blog on it.

Second Try to Hike Highline Trail

Highline Trail is supposed to be a wonderfully scenic trail that starts along a "wall" where there it is a narrow trail along a cliff with long views to other mountains and where one can often see mountain goats, big horned sheep, and bears. I made a special trip to see it last year, and found Logan Pass covered in a dense, wet fog. So I just turned around and went back to the refuge that let me have a room for a couple of days.

I was determined to do the trail this year.  But my left foot was hurting too badly to start a long hike, and I was tired- after all I was the oldest one there and had been running madly for a couple of weeks trying to finish my work and get ready to play.  So when the rest of the group went, I sat out. The following day, they planned to hike to Grinnell Glacier.  I had already hiked that,  so I got up early and caught the last of a marvelous sunrise coming up to paint the mountains across Swiftwater Lake. Then two ends of a rainbow appeared in the sun painting, causing me to stop several times to capture the amazing beauty.

Sunrise

Sun painting the mountains across the lake

Clouds and sun painting

One end of the rainbow

The light continued to be beautiful as I started up Going-to-the-Sun Highway.  But as I got to Logan's Pass,  the clouds started swirling back into their beds in the valley, and again, it was almost white-out conditions in the pass area. The temperatures had fallen, and the winds were howling.  I was not willing to try to hike in those conditions, so I took myself home and had to take a nap in the tent, because it was raining off and on.

I loved how the clouds added mystery to the mountains

I think this was Jackson glacier

The clouds left the valleys all colored while the top of the mountains went to black and white

The clouds swirling down to the tunnel that is just before Logan Pass

Close up detail of the rocky cliffs along the road

Oncoming clouds

I stopped to take a picture of this little waterfall and the amazing view of the stream making it

I also stopped along St. Mary's Lake on the way back

The Thompson fire had just burned through the east side of Going-to-the-Sun highway and was still active when I left for this trip but some shrubs are already resprouting. 

There are colors in the rock and also from niches of plant life

Another beautiful view

 I was blessed by the views and hardly missed the hike. And I'll be coming back to Montana  in a few years and that hike will still be on my bucket list.

Glacier Park Adventures: Travels with Julie

When Tracy was making plans to come to Glacier, way back in the early spring, before I migrated to Montana, she asked me if I would be willing to get them campsites.  I told her I would, then told my boss that I would have to leave by September 10 since I was booked after that.

When Julie joined the group, I told her I only had the one obligation - to make SURE everyone had a camp site.  So I hauled her out of bed after she had be traveling - or mostly waiting in various airports - for 21 hours and we quickly broke camp and headed across the Going-to-the-Sun Highway to its terminus at St. Mary and then continued up to Many Glacier.

Map showing Glacier National Park including Going-to-the-Sun Road, and all the campsites I write about. Apgar  Campground is on the west end of Lake McDonald

Julie's not a birder but she knows I am and thought this sign should represent me

Almost to Logan Pass

Julie on an old snow pile at Logan Pass

View Somewhere along St. Mary's Lake

We stopped as little as possible – but it is IMPOSSIBLE to not stop along this highway – and finally got to Many Glacier about 10:30A.M. Most of the sites were already taken, but we threw down a piece of camping gear at every empty site we found. We picked one that was really nice for ourselves and started to set up. THEN we noticed, that while there was no gear in the site, it had a reserved sign on the post. So we continued to look for sites and finally found four that were close together.

We had to fill out envelopes and pay for all the sites, then go back and try to retrieve all our gear. After one false start, when Julie collected someone else's gear, we got all our gear back and set up our own camp site. I had (amazingly enough) had a thought about how our friends would find their sites without us having to hang around and wait on them. While I had phone service, I called Tracy to tell her that I would tie the chairs to trees or something on their sites.

Black bear on mountain near Many Glaciers

Wild horse on route to Two Medicine - part of a heard

That meant Julie and I were free to go play until supper time, about seven. I really love Two Medicine so we decided she should also get a taste of that area. We grabbed a light lunch and took off. We got to Two Medicine to find that the winds were getting stronger, and the temperatures were falling. So, although, I had planned to let Julie paddle my canoe in the lake,  we did only a short hike and a drive around the camping area, then another stop for a short hike to a dramatic falls.  

View Across Two Medicine Lake from North Trail

Julie enjoying the lake waves

Julie hiking back from Two Medicine Lake

Running Eagle Falls - named for the only female Blackfoot warrior - click link for the rest of the story

Julie and I also spent an hour or so at the Many Glacier Hotel  which overlooks Swiftwater Lake, watching the mostly non sunset.

Julie on the deck of Many Glaciers Hotel

 Julie and I had one other small adventure on the way to take her back to catch her plane. We stopped at Logan Pass and did the short hike to the Hidden Lake Overlook.  This is usually an easy hike on mostly boardwalks, but the area had gotten a snow storm a day or two before and the walk was slippery.  Julie made it all the way to the overlook, but I missed getting there by about a quarter of a mile.  The day was cloudy so the snow covered mountains were outstanding.

Julie walking fast to make it to Hidden Lake and back in time to catch her plane

In a little snow field. We walked beside the boardwalk on the way back until we got to where it had more melted spots

I'm so glad to have another totally kindred spirit in Julie. We'll be doing more things together in the future.

On a personal note, I've made it back to Red Rock Lakes and will soon wash my clothes, take a shower, and fall into bed. Tomorrow I'll pack up my clean clothes and more food and head off to Yellowstone to meet another friend.  I'll try to get a few more blogs ready to post before I go but may not have Internet access for most of the time I'm there. Then I'll be back here to pack to leave around September 30 and head for visits in Texas and Louisiana on the way to my new assignment in North Carolina.  Posts will be spotty until I get resettled.

Glacier National Park Adventures: Day One - Paddle on the Middle Fork of the Flathead River

One of my BEST, and newest friends, Julie from Florida, wanted to come visit me.  I already had back to back visits planned with friends - one on a week long trip to Glacier National Park, and the other to meet another friend at Yellowstone for several days with one travel, sleep, wash day in between.

Since I pick my friends very carefully: they all have to be somewhat to entirely crazy - and ADD is a bonus - and they have to like birding, hiking, photography, camping and paddling - I know all my friends will like each other.  Julie ended up picking the Glacier trip since she had never been there and we were planning to do some moderate hikes and also were planning to go to Waterton Park in Canada.

But Julie is such a dedicated paddler and kayak fisherman, that she was feeling bereft without at least one paddle during her visit. So she arranged to meet me two days early and also rented a boat and a shuttle for us.  I brought up my canoe - I'm against rubber duckies, the only boats available  - and met her at the airport on the last possible flight at 11:33 P. M.  (She tried for 1:30 P and also for 5:30P.) We camped in Apgar Campground in Glacier, where I had already set up camp, and then got up early the following morning to find our outfitter and get on the river.

We put in on Middle Fork of the Flathead River, only yards below where the North Fork entered it and where Glacier National Park ended. We wanted to do a sixteen mile stretch,  putting in on Middle Glacier where it is still in Glacier NP, but our outfitter was SURE we could not get back by seven, when they closed, even though it was only ten when we  put it.  So we ended up not getting to do the purportedly most beautiful stretch and finished in a little over three hours of paddling.  We started playing a little more in the river when we realized we were almost finished and also took a long lunch hours a a few breaks, including stopping to visit with another boater, and a couple of people that rode ATV's down to the beach when we were stopped.  Our take-out was in Columbia Falls, just about a mile past where the South Fork joins the Middle Fork and becomes the Flathead River.

We had our outfitter take the picture at the put-in. 

Julie underway- you are seeing through clear water to colored boulders

View

I stopped here to empty the water out of my canoe after going through some tall haystacks

Julie could paddle standing up or sitting down

Side stream coming in with a waterfall

Another waterfall

The watcher - an osprey

Looking back at one of our stops

I ate the WHOLE awesome smoked duck pizza, while waiting for Julie's plane, and had to buy her another one.  She brought her leftovers for lunch and is warming them in on the ducky. 

So glad I hauled my canoe up here

Fall color is starting

Think this is a merganser duckling

Julie in my boat

The only other boater we saw.  He and Julie played in this stretch. 

Julie having fun

Beautiful rock formation

We paddled past a lock of rocky edges

I turned around to enjoy this view

Almost done

I think that's the take-out coming up

We got out so early, we were able to go shopping for groceries, and visit a couple of other places on the way back to turn in the rubber ducky. It was a wonderful day and could only have been better had it lasted longer.

The next morning we got up early and drove across the Going-to-the-Sun highway, with WAY too few stops, to get to Many Glaciers in time to save four camp sites for ourselves and the other five friends that would be arriving.  I will have been on it three times by the time I get home tonight and do have some pictures that will be on a blog on that stupendous drive. And we've visited other parts of the park, and taken one of the most beautiful hikes of my life.  But I'm already planning to meet my next guest as soon as I get home from this trip, so blogs will be sporadic until the end of the month. Too little Internet, adn too much playing make for a poor blogging.  This blog was written at the library in Whitefish, Montana after taking Julie to her plane. We hiked through new snow this morning after waking up to frost in our camp.