Virtual Hike on Avalache Trail, Glacier National Park

My last big hike in Glacier was on the Avalanche Trail.  I had pretty much raced over to the Avalanche Campground without stopping - or barely stopping and only taking sixty pictures or so - from Two Medicine so I would be able to get a camp site in Avalanche.

My ploy worked so well, that I had to tour the loops a few times, waiting for people to leave, and  also to find an empty site that also had hammock trees, a requirement for me. Grabbing my trekking poles, water, lunch, hat, and camera, I set off.  There was a linking trail from the campground and I was soon on the main trail.  This trail is so popular that is is very worn and I felt sorry for the trees whose roots were trying to exist in the trail.

The trail is mostly flat or has small elevation changes so any climbs don't last long. 

Mid morning light on the trail

First view of the waterfalls

Longer view

 The trail was mostly shaded by this kind of a forest.

To the left was the creek for part of the way, while to the right the forest was a series of moss-covered  bumps under the evergreens.

 While the exposed roots made a beautiful pattern and texture, I felt sad for the struggling tree.

Hoary Marmot eating decomposing log next to the trail.

After a few miles, I reached Avalanche Lake and saw all these logs piled at the entrance to the creek.

View  from further up the lake

View back towards the creek  from almost  the far end of the lake

There were hundreds of people enjoying the trail and the lake

At the back of  the lake, a huge set of mountains rose, with a few waterfalls.  But the area was back lit and I desperately wanted this picture.  So I decided to hang out, eat lunch, cool my dogs and wait another hour or so.  I ended up rearranging the little rock dam just upstream to make the water run different ways. Very entertaining.

Brrr!  AHHHH!

The source of the water in the lake and the creek

A closer view of one of the waterfalls

Back to the creek

 I still had a little energy left when I got back, so continued around the accessible trail, The Trail of the Cedars, which connects to Avalanche Creek Trail.  This is the view from the back bridge. After taking the full loop and enjoying reading the descriptions of the area written in Haiku, I was ready for a hammock session.

I just found the description while trying to remember the name of the accessible trail. A great trail that even small children could enjoy.

Trail Features:		Lake, Waterfalls
	Trail Location:			Avalanche Creek
	Roundtrip Length:			4.5 Miles
	Total Elevation Gain:			730 Feet
	Avg. Elev Gain / Mile:			324 Feet
	Highest Elevation:			4031 Feet
	Trail Difficulty Rating:			5.96 (moderate)

Ninepipes National Wildlife Refuge is Nifty

A while back - dates are now completely jumbled in my head - I went to Ninepipes to figure out where might be the best place to set up a Big Sit.  This is a bird counting event, held on the weekend of October 12 and 13, in which the participants sit in a seventeen foot circle and count birds for as much of a 24-hour day as they can manage.

I offered to stay through mid October, if I could run a Big Sit.  Pat accepted and  I have been working on the plans for it.  I'm hoping to have it all in place for everyone else to do the work on it while I go play. Put the date, October 12 on your calendar, and come join me if you can.

Ninepipes NWR is a wetland refuge and is a breeding water bird refuge. But there are higher lands around it  and a few trees on it so I'm hoping to get long-eared owls - probably a given -, pheasants, migrating song birds, hawks and osprey, as well as ducks, geese, yellow legs and grebes and trumpeter swans.

Most of the birds were too far away for pictures but here is a little of what I saw that lovely evening.  Oh yes,  I also got a good look at a red-necked grebe, a lifer for me.

Osprey and chicks

Trumpeter swans

Dragonfly

Trumpeter swan kids?

Blooming teasel being visited by Central Basin Bumblebee

Another dragonfly

If you are interested, read on to see the list of birds I turned in to eBird.

Canada Goose (Branta canadensis)  32
Trumpeter Swan (Cygnus buccinator)  4
Wood Duck (Aix sponsa)  4
Gadwall (Anas strepera)  1
Mallard (Anas platyrhynchos)  10
Redhead (Aythya americana)  10
Ring-necked Duck (Aythya collaris)  7
Ruddy Duck (Oxyura jamaicensis)  12
Red-necked Grebe (Podiceps grisegena)  1
Western Grebe (Aechmophorus occidentalis)  3
Double-crested Cormorant (Phalacrocorax auritus)  105
American White Pelican (Pelecanus erythrorhynchos)  55
Great Blue Heron (Ardea herodias)  7
Osprey (Pandion haliaetus)  7
Ring-billed Gull (Larus delawarensis)  500
Eastern Kingbird (Tyrannus tyrannus)  6
Tree Swallow (Tachycineta bicolor)  2
Barn Swallow (Hirundo rustica)  5
Red-winged Blackbird (Agelaius phoeniceus)  6

When this comes out, I'll be in Glacier  NP with a friend.  I'll come back and work three more days, then pick up another friend who will drive to Minneapolis with me - via Grand Tetons National Park, Red Rock Lakes  NWR, a friend's house in Bozeman who is driving us up the Beartooth Highway,  and finally Theodore Roosevelt NP in North Dakota.  Blogs will be spotty for a few weeks, depending on time to find an internet site and edit pictures and write the text. Hiking and sightseeing will definitely be a priority.

And I offered to stay on a little longer after roundup IF I could host a Big Sit.  I've been working on organizing that around the edges of getting the cooking done for my road trip and two weeks paddling in the Boundary Waters and doing my scheduled work.

  If you live close enough, come help coount birds here. October 12, 4A - 10 P.  More information will be on the refuge's web page and Facebook page. RSVP if you want some of my elk chilli or vegetarian chilli for lunch.  There will be both  on-line and call in registration.   Check out the details of what to bring.

This event is basically a tail-gate party for the birds.  We'll take turns - so drop in anytime -  watching and listening for birds from a seventeen foot circle.  If you can't come to my Sit, host one of your own.  They are sponsored by Bird Watcher's Digest so check out their site for details.  Hopefully they will be on both places in the next ten days.

Happy Birding. 

Superwoman?

She travels back in time to visit Big Medicine, the white buffalo, hikes six miles up and down a mountain, photographs the entire length of a river, revisits the Lewis and Clark expedition, drives 520 miles and wins an argument with a huge bull elk.  And all that in one day. And while fasting.

Looking back on my last Thursday's exploits, I thought I might be superwoman.  But I was  probably just delusional after going at top speed for nineteen hours, making sure I got my trip's worth of adventures.

My odyssey began with a desire to go to the Montana Historical Society's Museum in Helena to see the famous bison, Big Medicine, who was born and died here at National Bison Range. Now his stuffed body is part of a diarama. I wanted to do a blog on him.

Then I figured, since I was driving 320 miles to do this, I ought to at least get my money's worth out of the trip.  I went on-line and looked up things to do in and around Helena.  Among the top attractions was visiting the St. Helena Cathedral and climbing Mt. Helena. So I decided I could easily fit them in, and if I started early enough, I could hike while it was cool and the other attractions were closed.  And I saw that I really should drive the extra 90 miles to Great Falls because it was so scenic.

I didn't make very good calculations - probably because I've been going too fast to stop and do much thinking at all - so I didn't even get to Helena until about 8:30 A.M., when I should have been there by 6:30 - 7:00 A.M.  When I arrived, I still had visions of a quick hike and of being finished by 10:00 A.M.  Of course, I didn't even know the distances until I got to the park. I decided to take the 1906 Trail up the mountain and then thought I was supposed to take the Backtrail back.  However, apparently I had the wrong trail in my mind.  After walking the Backtrail a while, I met some ladies and asked them if the trail was going to get me back to the same trail head I'd started from.  (I was, after all, going the wrong way, and knew it.)  They said, no, but I could switch over to the Prairie Trail.  I knew that one, since I had to make a decision to walk a steeper trail or a longer trail and chose the steeper one to the top. I managed to follow their directions and make it back to the trailhead.

I passed this hiker going down the Prairie Trail, a longer, easier route to the top

That was a beautiful walk.  The trails I was on wound through open areas and wooded areas, and once, past a rock wall. The town of Helena lay to the south and east of the mountain, looking into the sun.  The other side of the mountain looked over beautiful open hills and on into forested land.  If I had been even more dumb or delusional, I could have gotten on a trail that led off the mountain and into these public lands.

View to northeast from the top of Mt. Helena

I finally finished my hike around 11:15.  I knew that I would have to be at the cathedral between one and three since that was when the tours were. I decided to call and find out just what this meant. It turns out that a tour guide begins a tour and you just drop in and find him, then drop out again when you get back to your starting place.

After getting the information on the tour, I decided to go to the museum and see if I could come and go all day.  I was able to get a sticker which would let me come all day - and any other Thursday, since they museum only has tickets for different days they are open and don't date-stamp them. And I could also come back the next day - if he put a sticker on my receipt.  Pretty neat.

Bronc rider outside the museum

The museum was very interesting and had a lot of interactive stuff.  You could put on an Indian robe, see how you looked in an old wedding veil, use booklets to find stuff in the museum and do other non-technical interactive stuff. They had a lot of materials that you were allowed to touch.  They also have a big research library which I didn't use.

I stopped to look at all the brochures they had.  I excitedly opened the one on Great Falls and decided I might be able to make it to the Lewis and Clark Interpretative Center and also check out Giant Springs and the Roe River that carries the water from the springs to the Missouri River. And of course, I wanted to see The Great Falls, for which the town is named. This is when the last little bit of reason disappeared and I was on to bigger and better adventures.

I still had to check off the cathedral so went over there, arriving a little after one.  The woman on the phone had told me to come any time and just find the tour.  There did not appear to be a tour, nor anyone waiting to lead one. So I took myself on a little tour and then set my GPS to direct me to  the Lewis and Clark Interpretative Center in Grand Falls.

View from the back of St. Helena Cathredral

The drive was beautiful but, since I-15 now overlays it, it was impossible to stop and take pictures of some of the stunning views and the many paddlers.  I finally came off the Interstate and found a boat launch site.  Then I had to drive fifteen miles on a very poor road to get back on the Interstate.

A view of the Missouri River

By three-thirty, I was at the Lewis and Clark Center.  It was the most interesting and detailed place I'd visited that day.  I stayed a few hours but could have stayed all day.  I only got to see one of the movies - that a quick overview of the trip.  There is another movie that documents the portage around grand falls. And docents have talks after each of the movies. One of the interesting exhibits was of a boat with a rope you could pull.  Your pull registered on a scale, which told you how many miles a day you could pull the boat.  I could have done NEARLY two miles a day of the twenty mile portage. It took Lewis and Clark's men two weeks to haul all their stuff across.  They were so tired, that, when rest stops were called, they dropped down, instantly asleep.

Diorama showing how the expedition portaged around Great Falls - a 20 mile portage

I moved just past the Interpretative Center to Giant Falls State Park to see the falls and also the Roe River which carries the 156 million gallons of water per day to the Missouri River. Once listed as the shortest river in the world, it is only 201 feet long. So I'm not too delusional when I said I photographed the entire river  - and I did it in mere minutes.

Commemorative plaque

This is pretty much the whole enchilada - spring-falls-river

In the background is the Missouri River - upper right - Giant Spring - then the waterfalls and rocky river - all viewed from bridge over Roe River

The other piece of the river, looking downstream from the bridge to its  confluence with the Missouri River

Closeup of part of the waterfalls flowing out of the spring

 Then it was on to Great Falls.  Their beauty is much diminished because a dam has been built there to capture its energy and transform it into electricity. But it is still an interesting place.  I toured Ryan Island while I was there and took pictures of the dam and the river from the high viewpoint there.

A part of Great Falls

The rest of Great Falls

There was still enough light that I thought I could get to First Peoples Buffalo Jump.  But when I reached it about 7:00 P.M., I found it closed, and locked the gates at 6:00 P.M.  I did take a picture of an edge, before discovering  that the main part of the state park is below the jump area, while the area from which they jumped was about a half mile down the closed road.  This would be a neat place to visit again some day.

The actual buffalo jump was to the far right of this picture but this gives the same views.

Museum depiction of a buffalo jump

I didn't want to come back the same road on which I'd come, so had decided to take Highway 200 all the way to Missoula.  But Ulm is about fifteen miles south of Great Falls, on Interstate 15, so I drove back up to Great Falls before starting home.

The land along this route has many more prairies over rolling hills so I was glad I'd taken the route.  But I ran out of light about an hour away from Missoula so don't really know what this part looks like.

Then just as I was driving through the day use area, at National Bison Range, to reach the bunkhouse, a giant bull elk stepped into my lights.  He apparently was declaring ownership of the road.  He stood there and I stopped.  Then I eased forward.  He held his ground, so I stopped.  I backed up a little to see if my lights were confusing him and he moved just off the road.  I came forward and he came back on the road.  I revved  my engine and he took a few steps back to the side of the road.  I charged down the road  past him and he decided to give up and trotted off.

Yep. Superwoman!

But the rest of the weekend is truly mundane.  I will consist of visiting a doctor, doing house cleaning and clothes washing, and drying food for my vacation and to feed my friends in the Boundary Waters. I have a visit to Glacier National Park with a friend in a little over a week, then will drive to Minneapolis with another friend, stopping at Grand Tetons National Park, Red Rock Lakes NWR, my next summer's home, at a friend's house in Bozeman - and she's taking us up the Beartooth Highway - and finally at Theodore Roosevelt National Park  before dropping him off in Minneapolis, then going on to Grand Marais to meet friends for a two weeks of paddling in the Boundary Waters.  So I'm getting into crunch time on getting everything cooked and dried to have on the Boundary Waters.

Bison in Lust

One morning in mid July I walked out of the bunkhouse to hear a new sound.  It was the bellowing of of bull bison.  The rut was starting and the bison were in the Headquarters pasture, where the bulls love to posture, fight, and challenge roll in the  many wallows they have made.  This pasture is adjacent to the bunkhouse area, so we could see a lot of the action from the bunkhouse.

Challenge rolling

That week, we set up the Talk-to-a-Biologist program along the road where cars would want to stop anyway to see the action.  In between customers, I tried to document all the interesting stuff going on.

Bull keeping cow from other bulls and constantly smelling her

 Kelsey, the biology tech working the program with me, told me that mostly it's the young bulls that tend cows at first.  This means they cut a cow out of the herd and then keep her isolated.  Other bulls may come and challenge him for her. This tending actually brings the cows into estrus.  The older bulls are much better at knowing when the cows are in estrus and then move in on the young bulls and claim their cows.

Agitated bull with cow

So we had challenge rolling going on, chases of females by bulls,  one bull making another bull give up his wallow, and lots of bellowing and lip curling.  The lip curling allows the bull to smell through the roof of his mouth.

Bulls too young to mate practicing their moves

From a distance, the bellowing sounds almost like a really loud and deep  purr.. It can get louder as bulls challenge each other. But many bulls stand around singly and bellow or tend a cow and bellow.

The real deal with older bulls

The bulls  want most to mate with a dominate female and sometimes she gets chased a lot.  Her poor calf gets worn out, and sometimes separated for a while.

The lip curl

The bison have been moved to the next pasture and are now over two miles from the bunkhouse. I finally got to spend about an hour watching them Tuesday evening.  Many females are no longer being tended, so I think they have mated.  But I've yet to see that happen.  A pair of bulls tussled a few seconds very near the truck.  Several bulls came by tending females and bellowing. But nothing very exciting was happening and I've yet to see any heavy  duty fights.  If the bulls are very closely matched, they may fight a long time, but usually, the bulls are not all that close in size and age and one of them can intimidate the other without a fight.

Two bulls fight over a female

But Tuesday evening became more  and more magical.  After spending a hour close to a group of bison, I hiked up to High Point to look for a family of Lewis woodpeckers.  I didn't find them but enjoyed the setting sun on the Mission mountains and the panoramic views.  The sun going behind the mountains when I left to move on to Triskey Creek to put out my bee cups. But once again, I was detoured by over thirty bighorn sheep.  I ended up getting out of the truck and walking to the back bumper where I took pictures and enjoyed half of them.  The other half had crossed in front of the truck and were back lighted.

Big horn sheep hanging out by the auto tour road

Still more fun awaited.  I drove down the Triskey road - a bumpy two track - to put out my bee cups.  I stopped to open a gate, and  thought I saw a mule deer on the top of a golden mountain.  When I grabbed my camera, and took the beautiful composition, I found that it was an elk.

I have been wanting to continue to climb to the top of the hill, so did it.  The best news was that I  my step meter actually reported that I was doing aerobic exercise. I climbed and then walked around on the top of the mountain for ten minutes, then walked back down.  So I'm definitely getting my mountain legs.

Coming on around the loop auto tour to reach the bunkhouse, I was able to enjoy the lights of St. Ignatius.  This was the first time it's been dark enough to see them. I was also able to enjoy the last of the sunset, and the appearance of the evening star.  Then I got one last jolt when a bull elk raced across the road in front of me.  I barely missed hitting him.

The last of the sunset

 My morning treat was getting to visit with about forty people, including a man and his daughter from a town very near Houston and Galveston. I also talked to a lady  from Hempstead, a town a little north of Houston, Texas. Out topic was invasive species and I was able to interest the visitors by telling them how we have to work really hard and spend lots of money to keep the invasives from replacing the grass in the bison's pastures.

So yesterday was a very good day.

Going-to-the-Sun Highway

I spent most of two days at Two Medicine in Glacier National Park.  Then I moved to Avalanche Campground, on the west side of Going-to-the-Sun Highway.  I left early, and planned to arrive at my destination before 10:00 A.M.

But even in my hurry, there were a few places where I was forced to stop.  The last time I had driven on Going-to-the-Sun Highway, I had the sun in the west.  This time the sun was just coming up in the east, making for really beautiful pictures.

So here a few I just had to take:

Wild Goose Island in the right light

Roadside view

Snowmelt forming torrent near the loop

Weeping wall

Wild garden terraces

Wildflower

Tunnel

Roadside waterfall

Logan Visitor Center - still haven't seen the inside

Roadside Ravens

Ice bridge along the road

Heaven's Peak

One of many bike riders out early

McDonald Creek Near Avalanche Campground

Another view of McDonald Creek  a little ways west

I got to my campground about 9:00A.M,  and then had to drive around a few minutes before I could locate a camp with hammock trees. I just parked, grabbed my trekking poles, water, snack, hat, and camera, and set off to hike Avalanche Falls Trail, another beautiful, but much easier hike.

Iff you plan to go to Glacier National Park and camp, be sure to get to your site really early.  I heard from a Glacier volunteer camp host that Many Glaciers Campground is often  full by 8:00 A.M. There are campgrounds in the Flathead National Forest and near the Hungry Horse Dam that you can use the first night and then rush in to grab a campground in the morning. Most of them will be full before 10:00 A.M. during July and August.

Pictures from my last trip across Going-to-the-Sun Highway are here. They include the pictures featured in an earlier blog, Hike From Sunriff Gorge.