| Sep. 6th, 2009 @ 12:59 pm Trip to Glacier National Park |
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Current Mood:  satisfied
Well, we're back from our trip a tad early - but that's alright. That just means I get to rest up for a day or two before going back to work. I FORGOT MY TRAVEL JOURNAL... which sucks. Must remember that for domestic trips as well...
Pictures! http://picasaweb.google.com/Tanagers/GlacierNationalPark#
So, our first stop was Coeur d'Alenes, which is in Idaho. We stayed at a pleasantly deserted campground with a big beautiful lake and moody osprey. We even got to see one harass a bald eagle out of its territory. Shweet. We wound down after a long day of driving (and a longer morning trying to cram all of our crap into my very small Hyundai Accent) with a long meandering stroll around the lake, watching the sun go down and eying the approaching storm coming across the mountains. We then proceeded to have THE windiest fire I'd ever experienced, a massive spider (hobo, I think) came out of one of Possum's bags (meaning he brought the damn thing from home, and we wonder if that's what's been biting the shit out of him lately) and slept pretty well despite the muggy weather.
The next day we arrived at Holland Lake in Montana. It was gorgeous. The lake went to 155 feet deep, but we could walk out a good 100 feet with only getting wet at the hips. The water was as warm as a swimming pool, with frogs lining the shore and a waterfall in the distance. Also, nasty biting bugs, but who'll remember that? Oh, I guess I will, I just wrote it down.
The next day we stayed put, enjoying a beautiful 3.5 mile hike up to the falls, spying turtles in the water, tiny fish, and fat begging ground squirrels. When we got back Possum rented a canoe, which he and I took all around the lake while my brother napped.
That night I spent some time playing with my shutter speeds, and we spent a good hour playing with the fire, and I went and took some sky shots at night. Possum went to bed early, and my brother and I meandered down to the shore of the lake to watch a big lightning storm roll in over the mountains, and elk bugling eerily across the water. Seriously - it's like a cross between a donkey braying and a sea lion barking. We thought something was being killed at first. We battened down the hatches and lay in our tents as the storm went directly over us. We could hear the lightning crackling and the thunder was intense. The elk obviously wasn't successful with the ladies either, as he continued calling all through the night and into the morning. It was freaking awesome.
The next morning we went on to Glacier, and decided to go to the East Syde and take the scenic route through the park. It was stunning, tho my brother was unfortunately on the wrong side of the car (remember it was jam-packed) to see a lot of the sweeping canyon scenery, but he was able to see the waterfalls and we got out a few times. Within an hour we saw our first black bear - a little guy scrambling up the hill, across the road, and frantically getting stuck trying to get up the cliff to the side. We snapped a few shots through the excitement, and then let him be as he looked pretty scared and cars were coming up behind us. There was quite a bit of traffic on the narrow road, and construction made it worse. When we got to our site we realized how fortunate we were to have anything at all, as the place was booked up even in the middle of the week. Still, even crammed into a pretty developed and overly expensive site like sardines, we made our camp and it didn't take long to realize we were surrounded by the beauty of the rockies and many lakes. That night we went outside of the park to gather firewood and sit by one of the lakes. There wasn't anyplace to really sit, but Possum enjoyed a short dunk while we examined the tracks of bear, moose, deer, and large birds in the cracked mud. We think we saw a golden eagle as well, but not being bird people we aren't sure.
HOLY CRAP I just looked them up - and that's EXACTLY what we saw!! SWEET.
Anyway, we ate dinner on the roadside. While I was preparing it (on my tiny new campstove) the boys gathered drift-wood for burning by the lake. Across a barbed-wire fence.
That evening Possum and I took a walk to one of the small lakes very close to the campsite, and enjoyed a breathtaking scene with the sun setting to our west and the full moon rising in the east at the same time... all in perfect reflections. Of course I forgot my camera... but it's an image I hope to never forget.
The next day we did the 10-mile round-trip hike up to Iceberg lake, hearing many stories of moose, mountain goat, and grizzly bear from the relatively numerous hikers on the trail. Sections of other hikes were closed off due to bears sticking to the human trails. We kept our eyes peeled for any sign of anything exciting, but alas saw nothing on the hike bigger than the ground squirrels accustomed to begging snacks off bad tourists. The scenery, however, left little to be desired. The rockies are SO beautiful, lining sweeping valleys full of pines, waterfalls in the distance, alpine meadows, interesting insects, and stunning skies. When we arrived at Iceberg lake we found it to be almost emerald green, nestled between flattened mountains and glaciers sitting at the waters edge. We chatted with the older Kansas couple that we kept leap-frogging, and enjoyed the rather decadent lunch I had put together for all of us. Can't complain about that at all.
About 2/3 of the way back, the wind storm started. We became discouraged by our lack of wildlife, and came back to camp without having seen a thing. The wind was annoying, we lounged around camp trying to relax, and unable to build a fire. I finally just got into the car and started to rummage around for lost items, and Possum and my brother went to the parking lot in the back where people liked to sit with telescopes.
Possum came running through the camp calling for me - because they'd spotted bear on the hills!
I ran back with him and sure enough - waaaay out in the distance was a mama grizzly bear with three playful cubs. Rangers let us look through their telescope at them. They were so beautiful, the cubs frolicking around with the mom watching carefully as the sun set on the mountains. She was huge and almost golden out there. Possum and I ran back up the trail for a ways to get closer, and I got some decent pictures considering how far away they were. It was really very magical. Back at camp, we even got to see some mountain goat very far away up on one of the mountains.
The wind storm didn't let up, however, so there were no beautiful reflections for us that evening. The next morning we got up very early (still windy) because we had originally planned to take a 3-hour hike that day. However, Nick had worn steel-toed boots on the hike (oops) and his foot was hurting him, and I was sick with cramps. We realized we had to tone down what we wanted to do. We went to McDonald Lake in West Glacier. There Possum went for a run while my brother and I explored the pretty stones littering the lake, rooted around for insects to look at, and enjoyed looking out at the water, the mountains, and the sky. From there we left for Spokane, where Possum had to fly out the next morning.
After dropping Possum off at the airport, Nick and I explored Spokane a bit. We realized early on that there was no camping in Eastern Washington, and with a little internet access learned that the camping in NE Oregon was much further away then we had thought. We knew there was no camping to be had along the way as we got closer to Seattle or Portland as it was labor day weekend, and it seemed counter-productive to go back into Montana or even Idaho. We decided to enjoy Spokane a bit, and just head home. We went to the waterfront park where they were gearing up for this huge festival, so we tried to escape that with a bunch of the small bridges over the surprisingly impressive river/waterfalls running through the city. Then we went home. Note to myself: Awesome bridges are NOT in Spokane, but in Kennewick. Coulda saved ourselves an hour of driving had we realized that. Oops!
The car-ride also gave my brother and b/f a chance to get to know each other. I think it's been positive, they seemed to warm up to each other quite a bit. My favorite highlights:
BR: So, is the Wizard of Oz like a big deal in Kansas?
BF: [Seriously] Hell yes it is. On our first day of school we all dress up as the characters.
BR: [nods]hmm!
BF: ...and we don't have a mayor. We have a wizard! Transportation is easy - we don't need buses or cars, we just wear red shoes and click our heels everywhere we go! [insert other things I forgot]
BR: [10 seconds or so of silence] ... what else?
BF: We don't have Mexican laborers - we have munchkins!
They gathered pirated firewood together and navigated together. It was cute.
... and now it's windy and rainy outside. So I'm hibernating and playing online. I slept for 11 hours last night, and feel pretty damn good. :) |
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