Glacier National Park (East Side) 6/14/2007

6/14/2007
Today we decided to drive over to the east side of the park. Peg had a sleepless night but decided to go any way. It's about a 100 mile trip one way with all the side trips, at least it is all black topped not gravel. You still can't drive the whole Going to the Sun Road on the east side you can only go 12 miles up. The drive around the south end of the park on route 2 is very pretty.
On the way you do drive through a small part of the park and there is a pull off in the park called Goat Lick.

This is the view from the Goat Lick overlook. I'm sorry the goats don't show up any better but that's the best my telephoto would do. You really need to expand this picture to see the small white goats on the hill side. Small because of how far away they are, they're across the river.

Another interesting place on the way to the east side of the park on route 2 was this pass called Marias Pass at 5214 feet and is on the continental divide. I know you all know that it means any drainage on the east side goes to the Gulf and on the west side to the Pacific Ocean. This is the view from the rest area. There are some pictures of the signs at the rest area telling more about this pass in my Glacier Album.

This is called Running Eagle Fall and was named for a Blackfoot Indian women. Apparently she was a warrior and a heroine to her tribe. These falls are on the way to Two Medicine Lake.

This is Yellow Columbine. I have seen Red Columbine in the Smokies but never yellow. These were on the path to the above falls.

These are called Showy Jacob's Ladder and were also on the path to the falls.

This is the view at Two Medicine Lake as you can see it was a cloudy overcast day and cool, temperature was in the mid fifties.

This little fellow who was not shy at all is called a Columbian Ground Squirrel. He is not afraid of people in fact he ran Peggy off. She was afraid he was going to run up her pant leg.

This view is from the Going to the Sun Road on the east side of the park. The water is part of the St. Mary Lake. The really interesting thing about this view is the way the valleys are rounded. This means they were formed by glaciers. As you can see there are no glaciers there now.

Another view from the Going to the Sun Road. The lake is the St. Mary Lake.

Just another view along the Going to the Sun Road of St. Mary Lake and the beautiful snow covered mountains in the background.

This is one of the tour buses they use in the park when the road is open. These buses were free to ride until the Going to the Sun Road was open the whole way then there is a charge. Be sure to click on the link http://www.seriouswheels.com/cars/top-1930s-White-Glacier-National-Park-Red-Bus.htm for the interesting story of how these buses came to be. The park is starting a shuttle service that is free. http://www.nps.gov/glac/planyourvisit/shuttles.htm This is a really good idea to reduce traffic in the park. The Grand Canyon NP has been using it for awhile now and when we were there it worked great. The date when the road is suppose to open is July 1st but as the lady at the entrance gate told us "that comes from government officials and you know how they lie." She also showed us pictures of the damage the avalanche had caused. It took a large chunk of the whole road out and will require a lot of filling back in.

This is the only glacier we have seen so far in Glacier National Park. It's name is the Jackson Glacier. This was where we had to turn around. By this time it was getting late. We had wanted to go to the Many Glaciers drive but it was to late. We had a long drive back to the west side over some windy roads with no guard rail and steep drop offs. I didn't want to be driving them in the dark so we headed for home vowing to come back Saturday.

Glacier National Park (West Side) 6/12-13/2007

6/12/2007
We finally made it to Glacier National Park. We also found out that we are early. Most things don't open until July 1. The ranger talks, the boat rides on the lakes, the Going to the Sun Road and the gondola rides in White Fish. Actually the reason the Going to the Sun Road is not open is not because of the date but because of avalanches. They had 60 feet of snow on the mountain and avalanches have about wiped out the road in some places. They are working to repair it as fast as they can but apparently the damage is extensive. They keep moving the opening date back. As for the gondola rides in White Fish they are remodeling this year and the rides won't be open at all this year. White Fish is a ski resort and the gondola ride takes you to the top of the mountain for a beautiful view. In the winter the ride is to the beginning of the ski run. Every where we go there are roads still closed. So we are going where we can. Today we drove up the part of the west side of the Going to the Sun Road that is open. It is open to the Avalanche Camp Ground 16 miles up the mountain. It runs along McDonald lake for about 10 miles. McDonald Lake is the largest lake in the park.

We try to get a picture of the entrance sign to each park now. I understand the stone work for this new sign was $60,000.00.

Once past McDonald Lake the road goes along the McDonald Creek which is the river that feeds McDonald Lake. As you can see it is a fast flowing river and has many rapids, very picturesque.

The mountains across the river have side streams feeding into the McDonald Creek with many beautiful falls.

This is Bear Grass. Right now it is at it's prettiest.

6/13/2007

Today we drove the west side of the park. Most of the road is gravel and very rough. We drove 11 miles on the west side of the park on a black top road, then drove out of the park into the Flathead National Forest on to a gravel road. The road is gravel for about 7 miles then it's black top for about an other 6 miles. We stopped at a small bar for a pit stop and to get a pop as they call it here. The owner was a retired real estate salesman from Cincinnati, Ohio. He told us they have any where from 2 to 8 feet of snow a year and at times it gets to 55 below zero. They have no electricity. They run on a diesel generator that uses 8 gallons a day. At $3.00 a gallon that's $24.00 a day or about $720.00 a month for electricity. So I guess we don't need to feel bad about our power bill. From there Polebridge was only a few miles up the road but back on to the gravel road. Peggy really wanted to see the pole bridge. Unfortunately the fire of 1988 got the bridge and they replaced it with a iron one. At Polebridge we went back into the Park on our way to Bowmen Lake. It was 6 miles of curvy, rough gravel and it seemed like 12 miles. At 10 miles an hour it takes a while to go 6 miles.

This is the view when we got to Bowman Lake, very beautiful. There is a campground on the lake and there were people camping. On this lake you are aloud up to a 10 horse power motor on your boat. From there we had to go back the 6 miles and head north to Kintla Lake. Don't ask me how to pronounce it. I just got an e-mail from a camp host in the park, he told me it is pronounced (kint-la). That's simple enough. It was 15 miles further north on a road that was even worse, rougher and rockier. There was no way to avoid the potholes.

This view of the field of flowers and the log cabin was on the way to Kintla Lake. Most of the houses we saw on the way were built of logs. The flowers are little more yellow than show up on this picture and are every where in these prairies. We were not able to figure out the name of these flowers.

We saw deer every where along these roads in the park. Peggy got a video of a deer with a young fawn that must have been recently born. It still had it's spots and could hardly walk while trying to follow it's mother.

Indian Paint Brush. It is just starting to bloom but the red really shows up along the road.

We finally got to Kintla Lake and this was the view. There was a campground here, also, but there wasn't anyone camping. There were three men with a chain saw working in the the park but that was all. You are not allowed any motors on this lake.

We had our picnic lunch here with this beautiful scenery in the background. By the way for those of you suffering from the heat the temperature here was about sixty and the breeze was cool. Of course there were mosquitoes but not bad. At least none of the bears came for lunch. The only problem was that we had to return over the same rough road we came in on. But it was really a good day. The weather was great for me but Peg would like it a little warmer. She also would prefer a little less day light. It doesn't get dark here until after 9:30 PM. We had originally planned to go to the east side of the park today (Thursday, 6/14/2007) but as I write this at 4:30 AM, Peggy hasn't been asleep yet. So I guess we will do something less tiring today.

Hiawatha Bike Trail

6/09/2007
This morning we drove to the Hiawatha Rail to Trail bike trail. It is 100 miles west of Missoula just off interstate route 90 on the border of Montana and Idaho. All of the other pictures are located in the Idaho album because once you are through the first tunnel you are in Idaho even though the trail starts in Montana. It cost $9.00 to ride the trail and $9.00 to ride the shuttle bus back up to your car. Actually they take you to the west side of the first tunnel and you have to go back through it again to get to your car. The trail is 15 miles long. All down hill, thank goodness. You go through 11 tunnels and over 9 trestles. The first tunnel is 2 miles long and pitch black as are some of the other tunnels. The rules for the ride are that you must wear a helmet and your bike must have a light. The weather was great for the ride it was in the mid seventies. The tunnels are much cooler. The first one is in the mid thirties and wet and damp with water dripping on you at times. They do have travel marshals on the trail to check for any problems.

This is the beginning of the trail in Montana. The first tunnel is right behind us. At our age I should have know better. Even with the bike light and the one on my head as soon as we hit the dark I couldn't see a thing. Instead of stopping until my eyes got accustom to the dark I kept trying to push on. The tunnel has drainage's on each side with water running in them. You can hear the water dripping all over the place. It didn't take me long to lose my balance and ended up against the wall and in the drainage. Fortunately I only tore my good Pendleton wool shirt and scraped my little finger and my arm just below my elbow.

This is just on the other side of the tunnel. So you can see I wasn't hurt bad, just my pride. Some times it's tough getting old and like they say getting old is not for the young.

This is one of the views from the trail. The trail you see below is part of our trail that we will get to later.

A view of one of the many trestles we crossed.

This trestle is called the Turkey Creek trestle and is 146 feet high and 494 feet long. The views down in the valley from these are great. You are at the top of all the trees. Peggy got to see the start of the cones on the spruce for the first time since they are at the very top of the trees, along with the western white pine and other pines, Balsam fir and western hemlock. Looking at these tall trees from the top certainly gives you a different perspective.

We found these Lilacs right along the trail, notice there are both lilac and white ones.

Lilacs are one of my favorite flowers and these smelled wonderful.

This is another flower we found, it's called Hound's-tongue. We also saw these flowers at the National Bison Range. The worst part of the trip was the ride back to the top in an old school bus. The road was a curvy, dirt and a narrow road. The bus driver had to keep radioing to tell the other buses where he was so that we didn't meet one at the wrong place. Half way up we met a bus that was on it's way down but had been waiting on us at a place where he could pull over. Two things I learned was that if I ever ride a trail with long tunnels like this in the future I will have a much better light on my bike and secondly to walk in the first part until my eyes got accustom to the dark. After the bus dropped us off and we had to go back through the 2 mile tunnel to get to the car, we walked our bikes in the tunnel for quite a way before we started to ride. That helped a great deal because by then our eyes had adjusted to the dark and we could actually see fairly well. In spite of the mishap we really enjoyed the ride. The scenery was beautiful and the weather could not have been better. We did get through just in time. Just as I finished loading the bikes on to the car it started to rain. It rained half of the way back to Missoula then it stopped. Missoula had not had any rain. We are going to stay in Missoula one more day so I can get a prescription filled at a Walgreen. Then Monday we are going to Glacier National Park.