Glacier National Park

As I write this, I'm sitting at my sister's kitchen table, and dressed in something other than jeans!  It's the first time I've been inside a house in 8 weeks, and it feels kind of good, but also odd.  As I read my last post on the Canadian Parks, I realized how bad it was – I sounded angry and defensive, and I'm truly sorry. I'm going to edit that post when I get home.

Anyway, Glacier.  What a park!! It's one of the older ones, and one of the most beautiful I've seen.  After a drive from Banff across the border into Montana, the scenery changed from mountains to flat plains, with a lot of crops showing yellow along the road – both sides of the road. I think it's canola but I'm not sure. But soon I began to see mountains in the west, and before long they were really prominent. I loved the shape of that square one kind of in the middle, and watched it for a long way.  Never did find out what it is called, or how it got that way, but perhaps some more research  will answer that question.

I got there in time to get one of the last camping spots (lucky me!!) and also in time to see the most famous part of Glacier – the Going to the Sun Road. Since it was only about 1 PM, I had plenty of time to drive it both ways (which altered my plan for coming home a bit, but that's the beauty of not having a schedule or commitments).  This is a drive across the park; I'd heard that it was prettiest from East to West, and I would have to agree with that, but driving it both ways (which took about 5-6 hours) made it so that I got the best of both worlds.  The views are beautiful and a lot of people were enjoying them on that day (Monday, July 15). 

The crowd in Glacier (this was about half -- there were an equal number on the other side of me)

There was even some wildlife at the campground.  I took this as I was cooking dinner.

I said before that some of my favorite photos are the "wet" ones, and on the West side of the crest, the road ran alongside a creek.  There was road construction and a lot of the pulloffs were closed, but I managed to find one that wasn't and took a couple of pictures.

There was a ranger presentation that evening on fire that I attended, and learned a few things. Did you know that after a forest fire, some of the first wildlife to return are woodpeckers?  I didn't know that, but apparently they find lots of bugs in the singed trees (someone called them barbequed beetles!!) and they are very happy campers! 

The next morning I woke up and knew it was time to start home in earnest.  I was ready.  But another part of Glacier had tickled my imagination – the part called the Running Eagle Falls trail. It was listed as an easy hike, and I was game. It was 30 miles from the main west entrance, on a steep winding road (another of those that I assumed would be flat – ha!!) but so worth the effort it took to get there. I'd never seen a falls that looked like this one, coming from behind a cliff.  It was really fantastic to see – especially the rock arch in front of it that looked like it was sagging.  The creek it ran into provided the opportunity for more of those "wet" pictures I love so much.

Along the trail

Running Eagle Falls

After this stop, it was on to Livingston Montana for the night, a town just a little north of Yellowstone.  The plan was to drive through Yellowstone, not stopping, and get to somewhere along I­-90 in Wyoming for the night, making an easy day to my sister's house in Fountain, CO.  Ha – the joke is on me. Who can drive through Yellowstone without stopping? But that's a story for another day!

   

Jasper, Lake Louise, Banff

I've always heard that Jasper and Banff National Parks in Canada are a worthy destination – beautiful and fun places to be. They got the beautiful right – it was quite spectacular.

After a stop at a very nice grocery store (what a treat that one was) in Prince George, where I scored some fresh wild salmon, it was a fairly leisurely drive to Jasper.  But it was Saturday night, and I was worried about getting a spot in a campground.  Luckily, there were a couple of tent sites left, and I was in! Although I thought I would try boondocking on this trip (camping alongside the road, or in a parking lot, or someplace like that) I didn't. Every night has been in a campground. 

It was pretty late, so after a quick dinner (that delicious salmon) I went to bed and vowed to start out early the next day for a slow drive along the Icefields Parkway – the famous road between Jasper and Banff.  IT started out just great – really pretty views, this gorgeous waterfall, and then the glacier and the Visitor Center there. It was lunchtime, and I didn't feel like making anything, so I went in and had a quick hot dog.  Amazingly, the menu, when I checked it out, was about ¾ Asian food, and the people eating there were about that percentage Asian.  That really surprised me. 

Ice Field

Leaving the Visitor Center, you leave Jasper and enter Banff National park. All along, the speed limit was 90 Kilometers per hour.  But, apparently when you enter Banff, the speed limit goes down to 60 – on a long, steep downhill.  Now I have been paying close attention to speed limits, and have stayed below the limit this whole trip. But for 5 minutes after leaving the center, I didn't, and wouldn't you know it, there was a pair of cops running radar.  I got a speeding ticket.  Talk about putting a bad taste on the day.  I was mad – mostly at myself, but also at cops for doing a radar stop on a steep downhill when the speed limit is 36 MPH (that's what 60 KPH translates to).  I rode my brakes down the whole rest of the hill.  It really put me in a cranky mood. I did manage to come out of it a little when, at the bottom of that long hill, I came across a black bear feeding just off the road, and nobody else had spotted him yet!!

 When I got to Lake Louise, where I had hoped to spend the night, it seemed like a cruise ship town and 5 cruise ships had just docked. It was packed with people, it was hard to walk along the street, and the only camping was in an "overflow" lot, which was just a big parking lot. No bathrooms, no cooking allowed, no thank you.  On to Banff, where I managed a site for the night at the Tunnel Mountain Campground. That was a nice site, and there were free showers – always a plus. But the town again was like a cruise ship town, and another 8 ships had just docked. You couldn't walk in a straight line on the sidewalks, the grocery store was packed, and besides, I was still in a bad mood. I couldn't get out of there fast enough.

So sadly, Alberta left a bad taste in my mouth.  That's one place that is off my list forever!!

It wasn't far to Glacier National Park, a place I've always wanted to visit, and it didn't disappoint!  I'll write about that one another night, right now, I'm tired, and tomorrow I get to drive through Yellowstone and Tetons! 

No Bears, No Salmon

Sometimes you hit the jackpot, and sometimes you don't. Stewart and Hyder (BC and Alaska) was a "don't" for what I was hoping to see, but it was a jackpot for some other things.

The Stewart/Hyder valley

I went there hoping to see bears fishing for salmon, and to see salmon swimming up to spawn. No salmon, no bears. The milepost said you would see them in July and August; but what they meant was the end of July to the end of August. So I was too early. Bummer.  But now I know what a salmon stream looks like, and it is prettier than I had imagined. When I was in other parts of Alaska, I kept seeing glacier-water filled streams that were really dirty, and I couldn't imagine salmon swimming in that. But this one was clear as a bell, gravel on the bottom and just as pretty as you can imagine to look at.

I've been keeping a list of animals that I've seen, and birds and marine wildlife too. I'll publish a list when I get home, but I've posted pictures of everything I've seen so you can kind of figure that out!! In Hyder, I saw a new animal – a river otter. My grandson George loves river otters and goes to visit them frequently at the Woodland Park Zoo. The last time we were there together, he told me all about their new habitat.  So yesterday and the day before, when I was looking for salmon and bears, instead I watched a river otter fish up and down the river, and thought about George the whole time I was watching. He would have loved it!! They are kind of scary- looking critters, but so graceful in the water. 

Scary looking critter!!

People told me that while I was there, I had to drive the road to Salmon Glacier, but they didn't tell me what kind of road it was. Again, I made assumptions that were not true. I figured it would be a paved road, two lanes, with pretty views along the way.  Wrong…. It was a horrible gravel road, washboarded in many places, and it was cut out from the side of a cliff with big drop-offs on the side. There was construction in places, so along with fighting the gravel and the height (I HATE heights) I had to fight the trucks. The first time I tried it, I turned around part way up because it was so rough. But as I was coming down that time, I met a lot of regular cars going up.  That night I got to thinking about it and figured if they could do it, I could. Besides, if I really got into trouble (flat tire) people could help me out…right?  So the next day I decided to try it again, and made it to the first view spot of the glacier, then turned around and came back down. It was cloudy, so the views weren't as pretty as they might have been, and those drop-offs still freaked me out. But at least I made it most of the way!

You can see the drop-off.....

I spent several hours at the Fish Creek observation post (where the bears come, and where you can see the salmon), hoping for something.  I did have a very nice conversation with the ranger on duty, and another with the customs officer going back to Stewart.  But no bears, no salmon.  And rain all afternoon and night, so that I had to haul my stove to a covered porch to cook breakfast this morning!

Tonight I'm just west of Prince George BC, on my way to Jasper Provincial Park.  I'm hoping  to find a spot to camp – I didn't think about it being the weekend. So we'll see how that goes!  I met a couple at this campground who are doing a whirlwind trip to Alaska on motorcycles, and ended up inviting them to dinner. I had food that I was going to have to throw out, and they didn't have anything to eat and were going to town to the store, so we both benefited.  I didn't have to waste food, and they got a pretty good dinner (and they washed the dishes!!).  I love these serendipitous meetings! One of the many benefits of a trip like this!

Quilters, and Bobcats

After a day of housekeeping chores (laundry, grocery shopping, cleaning out the food boxes and the cooler) and a much needed nap, I left Whitehorse this morning for Stewart and Hyder, two small towns on the British Columbia coast, where a healthy salmon run attracts a lot of bears. There are viewing platforms, and you can apparently get pretty close to them without being in danger. It was a long drive, but there were some memorable things to remember. 

First was some pretty amazing scenery. This was actually on the road from Skagway to Whitehorse on Monday morning.  It was fairly early in the morning, and I thought this was such an iconic view of Alaska that I just had to stop and take several pictures.

But this morning, I geared up for the long drive (probably 400 miles or so), put on the audio book I've been listening to (volume 3 of the Outlander series – I've already listened to volumes 1 and 2) got my two cups of tea and a bottle of water handy, and set off. I was repeating part of the Alaska highway, from Whitehorse almost to Watson Lake.  It was pretty, and I was hoping for some wildlife, and wasn't disappointed.

About 20 miles south of Teslin, a big cat-like animal ran across the road.  I'm not up very much on my large cats, but I'm pretty sure this was a bobcat. It was the right size, and the right color (brownish gray). I wasn't able to take a picture because I was going 55 miles per hour and he was running pretty fast, but I braked and watched him cross the road and tried to impress the view on my brain.  I've never seen one of these in the wild, and I was pretty excited.

A bit further on a black bear was grazing alongside the road, just as peaceful as you please. 

I'm taking a slightly different route home – it's called the Cassiar Highway, and is a little more remote than the Alaska Highway.  Here's an example……and yes, I filled up just before I got to that sign!

A few miles down the road I went through an area that had a huge forest fire in 2010; there was a huge swath of mountainside, almost as far as I could see, that was burned. But regrowth is happening – this is why they call it fireweed.  I could hardly believe how beautiful these huge patches of fireweed looked in the burned forest.

I knew it was too far to get all the way to Stewart in one day, so decided to camp for the night at Dease Lake.  The Milepost had an ad for the Water's Edge campground, and it looked pretty nice. I pulled in, filled out the registration, and started to my campsite, when I was stopped in my tracks by a sign – "Quilter's Parking Only – all others will be Stitched in the Ditch".  Wow – the owner's wife is a quilter, and we spent a couple of hours this evening getting acquainted over tea.  What a great finish to a very interesting day.  Yes, I gave her the book!!

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