The National Parks

If you missed the first episode of the new Ken Burns documentary The National Parks--or, like me, don't have a working tv--you can watch it online here.

I've had the good fortune to visit quite a few of the national parks and honestly don't have the adjectives to describe them. They really are spectacular and, at the risk of seeming obnoxiously preachy, something that all Americans should be both proud and grateful to have. So anyway, what I'm saying is that I'm pretty excited to watch the documentary.

Edited to add: Well I certainly hope this improves in later sections because an hour in I am utterly unimpressed. Disappointing.

Going-to-the-Sun Road, Glacier Nat'l Park

Grinnell Glacier Trail, Glacier Nat'l Park

Vacation (Pt. 5)

And so we come to the end.

After finishing our 15+ mile hike on Thursday we drove the rest of the Going-to-the-Sun road, stopping for the very short walk at Trail of the Cedars which is old growth. Erin and I were whiny about it because we wanted dinner, but wound up enjoying all 200 or so yards of the trail. I, brilliant person that I am, had never realized that Cedar was an evergreen. So now I know what they look like. The other sort of tree that the have a lot of is Black Cottonwood. I actually like them much better than the Cedars...interesting bark.


There was one Cottonwood that had a giant hole in the side and a hollow trunk large enough for my sister and I to crawl into together. The amazing thing about that one was that it was still alive.

We were driving around Lake McDonald as the sun set. It was setting into the 'v' of a mountain. And also, as a glowing orange ball, it's light streaking out over the small waves, into the lake, wavering reflective mountains stretching out behind it. I think that little stabbing knife of beauty is always sharpest when it's unexpected.

Talking about those surprising moments, two others come to mind. The first was when we were in Big Bend. The weather was miserably hot and we decided to get up early in the morning to begin our hike just as the sun rose. But, being from Northern climes, we forgot to factor in the fact that the sun would rise later so far south. So when we got up at 5 in the morning, it was still pitch black. Crawling out of the tent, we could see the stars unfurling and there seemed to be a depth and volume to the sky that we hadn't seen before, while the Chisos mountains were visible only in their unrelieved blackness.

The second was the morning after we drove into California. We'd left Las Vegas in early evening because driving through the desert in the middle of the day didn't seem like a fun proposition (and we'd done quite a bit of the driving through the desert thing by then) and when we got to the Sierra Nevadas we turned and drove north along their eastern edge. We stopped around midnight and pitched our tent using our headlights for light. The next day we found ourselves on the shore of a lake with the snow-capped peaks rising sharply behind us.

Of all the things we did on the trip, those two still, lovely mornings are among those that I remember best. This evening was very much like that.

Friday we spent wandering around, basically doing nothing. We rented a canoe and went boating on Lake McDonald. It was so windy once you left the shore that it made for some tough paddling.



And we were sure to go to the lake as the sun was setting. Nothing spectacular, but the clouds were certainly pretty all lit from below.


We were flying home Saturday, so all we really had to do was pack up the tent and drive to the airport in Kalispell. My father, morning person that he is, woke up early Saturday morning to photograph the morning mist coming off the lake (that's just some random guy in the picture).

Vacation (Pt. 4)

Never fear, we're approaching the end of the I-took-a-vacation-weeks-ago posts. Although I'm going on the assumption that they're not actually a chore given that it's mostly just pictures anyway. Thursday was the biggest of our hikes and one we hadn't planned ahead of time but had been told about and decided sounded more fun then what we actually had planned.

So Thursday morning we drove down the Going-to-the-Sun road to Logan Pass. V. pretty drive.



From Logan Pass we took the Highline trail 7.6 miles to the Granite Park Chalet. Built at the time of the Many Glacier Hotel, tourists used to horseback ride up to the little chalet to spend the night. You can still stay there, provided you make reservations about a year in advance, but now you generally hike in.

(View from along the trail.)

(Approaching the Granite Park Chalet--that's my father in the foreground, and my sister just turning the corner.)

When we got to the Chalet, I found a nice place to sit while my father and sister did a tough couple miles up to a lookout. (You may have gotten the impression that I'm the out-of-shape one of the three of us. This impression would be correct.) So while they hiked I settled down at a picnic table to read The Master and Margarita (having finished the Millay biography) and people/scenery watch.

(The view from my picnic table)

I did meet some rather interesting people. An entire group of older gentlemen shared the table with me at one point, all introducing themselves to me by name. Apparently it was an annual trip for them. They were loud and friendly and several of them had pins that said, "Ask me about male bondage bonding."

Around 3:30 Erin and my father got back from their section of the hike--apparently it had great views but was rather difficult--and we headed back the way we'd come. On the hike to the Chalet it had been pretty crowded. On the way back we barely saw anyone. And when the trail is emptier apparently the animals come out to use it (path of least resistance I suppose).

The first animal we saw walking along was a stag. Unfortunately he stepped off the trail to graze just as we got close enough for photographs.


Erin also saw a marmoset (such adorable, fat little things) on the trail, although by the time my father and I caught up to her it had wedged itself between some rocks and all we could see was a bit of wiggling fur.

(Erin's photo of him/her on his/her way into hiding.)

Our closest encounter though, was of a Mountain goat and her kid. They had been walking on the trail ahead of us, and then the kid walked to the side and she lay down in the middle of the trail. This presented a bit of a conundrum because, although you can't see it in this picture, the mountain rises straight up to the left of the trail. So we essentially had to walk right past her on the trail. We felt bad about it both because she seemed nervous (you can't tell in the picture but she was breathing quite heavily) and because she had quite the set of horns and you never know.

As we walked past her though, giving her as much space as possible, she got up to stand between us and her baby, who didn't seem to care about us much at all.


Our final encounter was with a Bighorn sheep (my favorite of the animals we saw in Glacier--very handsome animals) who sauntered along the trail ahead of us for some time. He then stopped, peed on the trail, and trotted off.


15.2 miles, 5 new blisters, and one bruised foot later, we were done with all our hiking for the trip.

Vacation (Pt. 3)

So...the day after the Grinnell Glacier hike we took a day off and hung around the Many Glacier Lodge, reading and spending a bit of time Grizzly watching.

(A cropped and rather blurry picture of bear and cub--they were far away)

(and another...apparently the cub was born this year but is rather a large one)

We had been planning to rent a boat and go out on Swiftcurrent Lake but as it turned out, it was too windy and cold to take a boat out. So we drove a ways down the Going-to-the-Sun Road, past St. Mary Lake.


We parked at Sunrift Gorge (nice name, that) and while Erin and my father hiked up to St. Mary Falls I sat around nursing my blisters, taking pictures, and reading my Millay biography.

(Lots of Aspen around the gorge--the bark is green because it has chlorophyll in it. Erin tells me that the younger trees tend to be greener.)

And Wednesday we decided to go up to Waterton in Alberta because the smoke was bothering my dad and he was convinced (mostly incorrectly) that it would be clearer there than in Many Glacier. They gave us a hard time crossing the border with only drivers licenses. I don't know if it's a western thing or if they're tightening up security in preparation for the upcoming--and totally stupid, for the record--passport requirement, because I've never been asked for more than my license when traveling from Buffalo to Canada. Had become quite accustomed to just crossing the border at the spur of the moment so it's a shame to lose that.

(Blakiston Valley)

We did a short walk to Blakiston Falls and saw Red Rock Canyon.

Then we drove over to Cameron Lake. On the way we saw some bears (Black bears this time), a mother and her two cubs checking out a picnic area. Now we've seen Black bears with cubs before, wandering through campsites, playing in latrines, and climbing trees in an attempts to get at bear bags, while backpacking in the Adirondacks. But they're always fun to see.

(the other cub is behind the picnic table, I think)

The Lake Cameron walk would have been boring (neither the lake nor the views around it were anything special) but it was saved by some lovely wildflowers and a Mule deer who was thoroughly unconcerned about people.

(Grass of Parnassus--wonderfully evocative name)

(Harebell)

And then it was back to Many Glacier. Crossing back over the border the US Customs agent was sure to point out that 1-in-6 New York licenses belongs to an illegal alien.

Vacation (Pt. 2)

So, on our second full day in Glacier (this would be Monday, Aug 6th--yes, I'm slow) we had a more strenuous hike planned up to Grinnell Glacier. It was actually only a little longer than the walk to Upper Two Medicine Lake but incorporated a whole lot more elevation gain. Very nice hike, actually

About half a mile into the hike, we ran into a family who pointed out a Grizzly bear swimming in the lake we were then walking around. Upon climbing out, he/she proceeded to amble along the trail we would later be walking on, before heading up the mountain. A bit later on we ran into people who pointed out yet more bears a ways up the mountain from us. They had that light, blondish color you sometimes see in Grizzlies--on the Discovery Channel, that is; prior to this trip I had never seen a Grizzly in person, only Black bears.

After heading around Grinnell Lake (pretty much everything in the park seems to be either named after him or have a name in some way related to him) the trail began to travel up in a series of long, easy switchbacks. Although there's something obnoxious about switchbacks, in that they're often taking you in the opposite direction from your destination, I will acknowledge that they make the hiking much easier. None of the hiking I've done in the Rockies, Sierra Nevadas, etc., even when there is a significant elevation gain, has been as hard as the hiking I've done in the Adirondacks. There you're scrambling over rocks, trying to avoid tree roots, walking up and across slippery mountain streams or through expanses of mud, or trying to get up granite faces by putting your feel in ancient water channels. Out West it seems to be more travelling along nice paths that often go uphill. The scree can be annoying, but otherwise? Not so bad.


Anyway, there were beautiful views on the way up. Either Erin or my father joked that it looked like a fairy country of sorts with the lakes and woods and mountains and everything turning all misty looking in the distance because of the smoke.


There were also plenty of past-their-prime wildflowers including some interesting ones that Erin said looked like something out of a Dr. Seuss book.


Just before the Glacier there's a picnic area of sorts, where we saw Bighorn sheep and, further away, barely visible, a couple of Mountain goats. The sheep photo below is a bit Where's Waldo-esque. They didn't seem to blend nearly so much in person. The goats look a bit like a couple piles of snow, but they really did look like that in person. That photo was taken through a telephoto (with which my father needs a bit more practice).



Just past the picnic area you walk across a moraine to arrive at the glacier itself. Waterfalls trickle from the Glacier into a small lake of melt water with icebergs floating in it. As you can see it was pretty smoky (those mountains with the indistinct edges were not far away) so the color of the photo isn't great.


They say that by 2020 even Grinnell Glacier, which is one of the biggest glaciers in the park, will be gone.

Home Again

Well, I'm back from Glacier Nat'l Park and starting to be caught up on everything. Man, a week without phone or internet is much more difficult than it used to be. I think it's because, upon missing a week, it's perfectly reasonable to try and catch up. The year I went away for 6 weeks (oh, days before employment, how I miss thee) I just didn't bother and that was much easier. Also, I think that if my cats were not, quite fortunately, lacking opposable thumbs, they would have surgically attached themselves to my body. Adorable and flattering if slightly obnoxious.

Anyway, I'll have a bunch of Glacier posts since the only time I really bother to keep a journal is when travelling so I've got lots to write about. That'll come once I sort out photos. Also, ever-so-fascinating posts on what I've been reading etc.

In other news, I'm now totally caught up on So You Think You Can Dance?. Because I'm the most wishy-washy person alive (not really true) I've changed my mind in recent weeks. Well, I still think Pasha is adorable and Lauren is annoying. But Lacey, who I used to like, now annoys me. And I've finally seen the light on Sabra. As soon as she started dancing with people other than Dominic I started liking her better, and the last few weeks I've adored her. Danny, on the other hand, has been impressing me less the last couple weeks (although he still does the best solos). I'm sure this is fascinating to you all.

And now, I'm off to do my laundry. It's a lot of very filthy, dirt-coated things, so I feel like I can't just leave it sitting about as I'd like to.