Glacier-Waterton International Park: West Glacier
Trip Start
Nov 22, 2007
1
46
55
Trip End
Dec 01, 2008
West Glacier,
Montana,
United States
Saturday, August 16, 2008
With all that we had seen until now, it was hard to believe that we could still be awestruck by this latest landscape in Glacier, Montana. Think Yosemite exponential-Huge, green, and full of lakes and waterfalls fed from the still-melting snows and glaciers that speckle these Northern Rocky mountaintops year-round. This park is huge and mostly undeveloped. The main road bisecting the park is the famous Going to the Sun (GTTS) Road-a fifty-mile road hewn into the sides of the mountains, thousands of feet above the valleys and gorges below, crossing the Continental Divide at Logan's Pass. It is also the United States' first international park-connecting with the Canadian Waterton Lakes National Park just across the US-Canada border.
Glacier National Park is a treat for all the senses. Close your eyes and inhale-woody pine is strong, followed by a hint of fresh rain on hot rock, with a slight mustiness reminiscent of fresh cut grass. Open your eyes and absorb the three-dimensional greenery of West Glacier; colors so rich, they seem to pulse with life. Listen to the wind and water at the lower altitudes; feel the warmth of the earth rising to meet the sun, sandwiching the cool air at the top of Logan's pass. On the east side, toward St. Mary's, the wind blows warmer and drier and the rock cliffs dance with a mosaic of colors high above the grasslands. Over the border, at Waterton, the great lake spreads out like a vast sea between the foothills and mountains, surrounded by thick forests filled with moose, elk, deer, and the fearsome grizzly. It's hard to get spiritually closer to the link between earth and the heavens than you seem to be at Glacier-Waterton International Park.
Hiking around West Glacier
We camped on the West Glacier side for about a week near John's lake. This is a great vantage for the areas on the west side of the park. However, with the motorcycles we were somewhat limited in where we could explore. We did some day hikes near the lake and the creeks feeding into it. The water here is incredibly clear-it is amazing to see the aqua and teal colors usually associated with the warm waters of the Caribbean here in the glacial streams, rivers, lakes and creeks. You can see the colors of the rocks on the bottom through the rushing waters. And wildlife is everywhere. We took an evening hike near fish creek and, as we were standing and admiring the colors of sunset, we heard a rustle in the woods behind us. Out from the trees came five deer to graze right near where we were standing!
One day we set out to go to the Polebridge section of the park. After about 10 miles of paved road, the road turned to hard gravel and dirt, with about 15 miles left to Polebridge. We made our way slowly for a few miles on the unpaved road before deciding that it would be too much for the motorcycles. Those roads are hell on tires and suspension-mot to mention the dust and dirt that cakes into the frame. Instead, we stopped at a trailhead for a national forest trail that was part way down the dirt road. Well, we had no idea where the trail led to, but we parked the bikes and started up, up, up, through standing black tree trunks-the remnants of a forest fire-through new growth pines, and further to where the woods began again. Over the first ridge, and up to the next. All along the trail, we saw various paw prints and scat of deer, elk, coyote, raccoon and bear. It's hard to tell the age of prints, so we kept an eye out for bears. At one point a couple hours in, there was a huge pile of bear scat at a junction in the trail. We looked at each other and both said-"gee that looks pretty fresh!" We looked up the trail to the right and too the left and didn't see anything. Bob started on the trail to the right, while I stopped to take some pictures. As I started up behind him, all I heard was Bob calling out to me-"Hurry up!" Well, apparently the bear was up there! Bob had been walking along and looking ahead, when he came face-to-face with a bear that had been eating about 20 yards up the trail. Bob said they looked at each other for a second and then the bear took off up the trail. As Bob puts it, all he saw was "bear ass and paws" making tracks up the trail. By the time I caught up with him, the bear was out of sight, but Bob had that look of excitement, exhilaration and a touch of fear that is so common upon seeing wildlife in the wild with no barriers between you. The bear was BIG and Bob was amazed at how fast it was! A split second and he was gone. Your can't help but try to do the math and imagine what a different experience this would be if the bear headed down the path towards, rather than away from you. . . .
The pictures on this blog entry are from our hikes around West Glacier. Check out the next two blogs for pictures of Going to the Sun Road and our travles to the Canadian side of this international park.
