Friday, June 29, 2012

Glacier Part 2

It's a good thing we slept well the night before. First thing in the morning we were up and on our way. We hiked to Avalanche Lake and passed a great many people on the trail. The trail followed the river for a while until we reached a point where volunteers were re-routing the trail because it had been washed out from flooding and was still underwater. It was only a few miles, but rewarded us with a stunning view.


It was so incredibly beautiful. The morning was even warm and pleasant. Before we arrived in Glacier the forecast said that that day was to have a high of 45, but as luck would have it we ended up with a delightful 77 degrees on this, the first day of summer. Talk about an amazing place to be on the longest day of the year! It was light until about 10:00 p.m. that night.


The amount of water that flows through the area as the snow melts is enough to carry enormous boulders and trees with it. This pile of trees near the headwaters of the river shows the size of some of the material the water can carry.


It was even prettier in person, but I'm sure you already figured that.



A friend gave me these earrings Friday the weekend before and I seriously wore them every single day while we were camping. I LOVE them and it makes me feel sassy to have cute earrings on even when we're camping. Gotta love girls and our priorities...



One of the trails we had planned to hike started from the Logan Pass visitor's center but when we arrived it didn't seem like the best of ideas. The ranger said people had been hiking it all day and there should be no problem, but it took far too long to get even to this sign at the start of it and my hiking shoes were slipping all over the compact snow. It didn't even occur to us that there might well be snow on the ground since the rest of the park is so green and lush right now.


We decided to stick to the valley for hiking and chose a couple falls to head to. These pretty little flowers were along the trail and we both loved them, though Jim thought they were white and I thought they were yellow so for a minute or two we didn't realize we were talking about the same thing.


We shared the trail for a while. This deer just sauntered along the path and didn't mind that people were around until someone tried to pass it within about two feet of it's bum and it took off into the bushes as though it feared for it's very life, which it probably did.


Glacier is so green and incredible! I thought Oregon had spoiled us being green and lovely, but Glacier was just as impressive, only with towering mountain cliffs to enhance it.




Since Jim had seen his Bighorn Sheep, I really wanted to try and see the Mountain Goats. They are supposed to live around a place called "Goat Lick" at the southern edge of the park so we headed over. Check out the sky!!! We saw this on the drive over and I freaked out about it's awesomeness and made Jim pull over so I could get a picture. It's so incredible to see the division between air masses. It's not clear here but starting at that line and stretching behind us as far as we could see there were developing thunderstorms, so the bright blue contrast was indescribable.


And.... we saw a few goats. We almost missed them and it wasn't as spectacular of a show as the sheep gave us, but it was great to see them. By this time we were both exhausted. Our legs were still tired from all the stairs in Yellowstone plus fatigued by the elevation gains on our hikes here (since everything either goes down into a cayon, up out of a canyon, or both at different points). All we wanted to do then was hang out at camp with our tradition of bottled root beer by the fire.

We aren't really trying to pick favorites, but I think Glacier picked itself as a definite favorite for both of us and it didn't even have to try. I love it here and would go back in an instant - in the summer of course. We've been inspired to try and get some land and have a summer home in the mountains because we just didn't want to leave. Of course we still need to graduate, get jobs, get a regular home, and then save a whole ton of money before that is an option but the dream has been born, which means the poor girls may not get our spare change anymore. I'm going to go find myself a peanut butter jar and start saving.

2 comments:

  1. I've never been to glacier either, but I hope to before too long...have to retire, get used to high altitude, we'll be OLD but it does look beautiful.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Your pictures are beautiful! I miss you so so much!

    ReplyDelete

OOOH oooh!! We love comments!!!