However, Glacier NP makes more than up for this shortcoming. It is without doubt the most beautiful piece of land we have seen on our entire trip so far. The normal thing to do is to drive the Goint-to-the-sun Highway, a parkway built in the 1920's that apparently offers incredible scenic views. As usual, not so for us. The road is still closed due to snow at Logan Pass where snowdrifts are up to 50 feet ( some 15 meters) thick and are usually cleared around June 18. Not so this year! We had bad weather when we left Yellowstone NP for Glacier NP and that accumulated to mere snow at Logan Pass. We drove to Kalispell near the West entrance of the park to collect some forwarded mail and check on the road conditions. Result: there would be no open road for at least another week!
Our site at Two Medicine Lake
On our way to Glacier NP we had stayed the night at a small, lovely State Park at Big Arm where the host had shown us two campgrounds not to be missed on the East side of the park, Two Medicine Lake and Many Glaciers. So that's where we went. We couldn't have done any better!
At Two Medicine Lake we found a beautiful site on the lakeshore. The next day we went on a hike with a female ranger up into the mountains with superb vistas over the glacial valleys and the surrounding mountains. On the way we saw lots of squirrels and a herd of male bighorn sheep with their huge horns. On day three the weather turned to rain again so we made our way to Many Glaciers. After a day in the rain there we returned to St. Marys to do our washing and check our email at the campground. Next day it was back again to Many Glaciers.
The weather turned again over night to a beautiful morning which we used for another ranger-led wakl into the mountains, this time to a glacier lake, a trip of about 16 km's in total with an elevation gain of some 1700 feet ( ~500 to 550 meters). O ly a couple of minutes into the hike it happened: we saw our first moose. It just came out of some shrubs maybe 30 meters away , looked shortly at us and then moved on slowly, totally ignoring us.
You must know that I have been looking out for a moose for 19 years since my first business trips to Scandinavia and I have not seen a single one. Now, finally, here it was, brilliant. Not too long after Claudia spotted a blonde grizzly bear on the other side of the valley, maybe 300 meters away. Thanks to our latest purchase, a pair of binoculars, we had a good look at it before he/she disappeared into the greenery there.
The lake was beautiful as well when we reached it after three or so hours of walking through bush, over rocks and in the snow, so the whole day was a great success.
The advantage of those ranger guided tours is that not only do you hike in a group, which comes handy if the grizzly is not on the other side of the valley, but happens to cross your way. Another thing is the information the rangers give you about the environment, rock formations, plants, animals, whatever.
Next morning, the forecast was for rain coming up in the afternoon, so we decided to use the fine morning for our drive to Waterton NP and into Canada. Good decision, that! The drive on the small country roads into Waterton NP is beautiful in itself - well except for that part where it runs through an Indian reservation. Here houses are often run down and messy, rusty old cars everywhere. The landscape however was stunning with the blue sky, especially as we had missed out already on the Beartooth Highway into Yellowstone NP and on the Going-to-the-sun Highway.
Waterton GlacierNP, however, is quite the opposite of Glacier NP. Despite seeing more wildlife (elk, bears of all kinds, boghoorn sheep, mountain goats, you name it) we didn't like this park too much. It is completely and utterly commercialized, not for us!
So, after one night there we're on the road to Calgary and on to Banff and Jasper National Parks.
No comments:
Post a Comment