Glacier National Park
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Kind of cool in the back seat! |
Lake McDonald |
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Lake McDonald Lodge |
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McDonald Creek |
Flood damge to walk bridge |
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What makes the green color? |
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Avalanche Lake |
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On the trail to Avalanche Lake |
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View from Going To The Sun Road |
July 18, 2007 |
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Mountain goats |
Baby |
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Met Lana and Mike for dinner |
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Big Horn Sheep |
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Beginning of our 17 mile bike ride |
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Highline Trail - Hiked a ways just to see what it was like |
See the rope on the right - Lois did not go on this part of the trail |
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View from the trail |
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Hidden Lake Overlook Hike - 3 miles |
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Big Horn Sheep |
Hidden Lake - Worth the hike |
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Second tunnel |
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St. Mary Falls - 1.6 Mile Hike |
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Eating laying down |
Following Mama |
Our trip to Glacier National Park was another site of amazing mountain views and valleys that just seemed to go forever. The road that cuts across the park is called "Going-to-the-Sun" road because it climbs up the side of the mountains and just seems like you are never going to stop climbing. From one side to the other is 42 miles and about half of it is in an area where one side of the road drops off to the valley 'way below'. It does have plenty of turn-outs so the driver can get out and enjoy the view, other wise it is 'eyes on the road'. The mountains in Glacier are unique in that they are mostly sedimentary rock that was under the ocean 75 million years ago. When the plates from the western US were pushed this way, they scooped up the original ocean floor and pushed it up to make these mountains. This area is very unusual in that the mountains on top are older than the mountain bases; normally the younger rock is on top. This sedementary rock is also realitively soft so they do not encourage rock climbing, just hiking.
We took several hikes, some that seemed to climb forever, but really they only went up about 300 feet. We took a 17 mile bike ride through forest and along creeks, that was actually very relaxing.
The park is full of wild-life and we have pictures of some of the animals. The while mountain goats came right up to us in one area and while on a hike we came upon a mama and baby that were eating grass in some bushes. The Big Horn Sheep seemed to enjoy posing for pictures.
If you ever wondered where a river starts, look at the pictures with the water running out of the bottom of the snow. As we hiked to view Hidden Lake, the trail crossed over several little streamlets of water that was just beginning its trip down the mountain to join in with other streams to create the Flathead River.
There are still 30 glaciers in the park and many, many areas of permanent snow fields way up high on the mountains. A Ranger told us that a glacier is a field of snow that has been there long enough and is deep enough that the snow has compacted on the bottom to form ice. The other characteristic is that the structure has begun to slide down the mountain because the immense weight of the snow and ice.
The pictures of the rivers that you see are so clear it is unbelievable, you can see the bottom in water that is several feet deep.
While in the park we met with some friends from Houston that hike up here every year. Lois used to teach with Mike and Lana when she first moved to Houston. They do crazy things like 10-12 mile hikes over mountain passes.