Quote of the Day.

After an inter-room chat, briefly discussing the deliciousness of various dinner options:

D - Okay now no talking, I'm sewing a curve.

Water.

Meltwater below Sperry Glacier, early Sept

So - the short version of the moment is that summer was beautiful and busy...

Tarn at Logan Pass, late August

and then fall hit and everything decreased.  Work.  Drivable miles of road in Glacier.  Temperature.  Sunlight.  Wildflowers in bloom.  Desire to be colder than necessary (aka going outside).

Tarn at Logan Pass, late August.

 I'm struggling with trying to figure out how to motivate for the winter.

Mountain goat enjoying the view at the Hidden Lake Overlook, mid-July.

And then Glacier National Park's facebook page (which I love) does a photo contest.  The "prize" is having your photo used as their profile picture for a month.  They did this back in May and it turned into a bit of a free-for-all.

Tarn at Logan Pass, mid-July

The theme was "Spring".  Some particularly excitable fans submitted over a dozen photos and I'd say 60% of the photos were clearly from high-summer, and another 15% from fall.  Whatever - spring means different things to different people (and we'll disregard that what makes Glacier such a wonderful and special place is exemplified by the differences between Spring in Glacier, and Spring anywhere else, but again, whatever), but considering Glacier probably gets 90% of it's unique visitors during a 75 day window in late June, July, August and early September, that's about what you'd expect.

Paintbrush, Mary Baker Lake, and Sperry Glacier, early Sept

This time the theme was "Water: non-frozen" which I think is excellent.  Also - one photo limit per Facebook profile.   As you'd suppose, most photos are of Lakes McDonald or St. Mary. 
 

Along Running Eagle Creek, late July

 I decided I'd find my most favoritest photo of Water in Glacier and submit it.

Two Medicine, late July

 Harder said than done.

Two Medicine, late August

To start with, until late July D and I were using the same camera.  Sometimes we would pass it back and forth on a trip, depending on who was in the mood to photo.  Now we have two cameras, but they're the exact same camera, and we both download the photos to D's computer, so when viewing photos in the typical iPhoto format (chronologically) our photos from the same trip intergrade.

Lake McDonald, late August

And while some photos are clearly mine, or clearly D's (we do have different sensibilities) some are up for grabs.

Gooseberry blossoms along McDonald Creek, June.

So I looked through the "Last 12 Months" section of iPhoto and pulled to the desktop my favorite water pictures.  One of them I'm 80% certain that D took (but I was there...), but the rest I'm sure are mine.

Hidden Lake, early Sept.  The reason I'm pretty sure D took this picture is because below is a picture of me taking of picture of D taking the above picture.  I think.

When I got done sorting through iPhoto I had 14 of my favoritest photos of Water in Glacier from this year.  I've added one more (the contest forbid photos in which a person could be recognized) and that is this blog post.  The first photo is the one I posted to their wall.  You can go to their Facebook page to see all the submissions.

Along McDonald Creek, early June.

Looking through a year's worth of Glacier adventures is a pretty good way to psych myself up for getting out there this winter.  For some reason, looking at all the things I've done makes me think of all the things I have yet to do.

D near the Apgar Fire Lookout, viewing Lake McDonald, ~May.  The Mt. Brown Fire Lookout was on my list last winter/spring but never happened; it sits across the lake.

Phrase of the Day.

I indulged D in watching Jurassic Park after dinner, and he repaid me by jokingly referring to VelociBears.

I will now, Never Hike Again*.


*(in bear country)

Quote of the Day.

M - Did you know Beargrass is closely related to Trillium?
D - Plants are inscrutable like that.

(D's botanical interest only goes so far...)

The Bears.

The first bear of the year was a Black Bear.


In early May we were walking along what appears to be (in season) a horse trail, along the Middle Fork of the Flathead in Glacier, from the parking lot at the beginning of the road to the Apgar Lookout Trailhead toward the east... and in a bit of a ditch, or a trench or something, we almost walked by it, and then I turned my head and saw it looking at us.
At which point I chasticed D... he was in the lead, he was supposed to be on Dangerous Wildlife Patrol. Yet I was the first to see it.

The second and third bears of the year were Black bears at the National Bison Range near Moiese, MT. We were in the car, one was far off, one is below. We watched him scratch around and nibble something for a few minutes.

The Forth Bear of the Year was The First Grizzly of the Year.

Last Sunday D and I had parked the car at the Avalanche Campground (the most easterly point you can currently reach from the West on Going to the Sun Road) then got on our bikes. We had seperate destinations, so D quickly outpaced me. He parked at The Loop and took the trail toward Granite Park Chalet, then summited Swiftcurrent mountain and skied as long as he could back down. I saw his bike when I rounded The Loop and kept going up Sun Road.

Snow Cave with a view! This opening is only about six inches wide.

I road to the point where the plowing stopped.

I then strapped on my snow shoes and kept going. Not long after the snow quality led me to remove my snow shoes and just walk, though it was still difficult it was easier in regular footwear. There were no recent tracts through the huge avalanche snow drifts across the road, which I'd been hoping for. Just very faint and melted out ski tracks. I turned around far shy of my plan and took a few pictures on the way back to my bike.

Looking down McDonald Creek, the road where I started is just visible on the left side of the river.

My mission for the day had been to see what I could find growing in the seeps along Sun Road. I also walked a bit out the Granite Park trail to a large stream that crosses the trail to see what might be out there.

Things up there are still just starting to peek out, it was hard to find fully open flowers, but lots of little buds trying to make a go of it.

This little guy had about four inches on either side before a snow bank started again. I wish I could take a GPS coordinate and then go back once a week for a month to watch it grow and bloom... too bad it's a two-three hour bike ride to reach it, and once the road opens to cars will be in a spot you wouldn't easily be able to stop at.

I took my time on the return. I find out and back hikes are great for flower foraging, as you can search seperate sides of the road on the way out/up and back/down and find flowers you never noticed the first time.

D quickly caught back up with me as we both rode back to Josey at Avalanche. While recounting our days as we rode along beside each other (one of the joys of having an entire road free of cars) we rounded a corner and I quickly alerted D to the friend who wanted to meet us.

It just kept walking down the road toward us, and we started backing up and softly but firmly calling out to it. Forgive the pictures, as my priority at the time wasn't on adjusting camera settings...
after it crossed the road it continued walking toward us...

but finally turned off down the embankment to the river. At which point several cyclist going both up and down the road, caught up to us and we related our story, and then we all rode down the road a hundred yards to a break in the trees where we could better watch it swim the river and completely and totally disappear into the dense brush on the far side.

The rest of the ride was uneventful. It was a good day. And I have another 6 or 8 (still sorting through) species for my Glacier Flora Photo Project. And a nice sense for how the flowers are slowly making their way into the higher elevations. One week can make such a huge difference for one species, and no difference at all for another. Watching the timeline unfold may end up being the most interesting aspect of this whole thing.

I should not forget the forest for the trees... (or the larger geographical-biological trends for the close up shots of flower petals...)

now to sort through more photos.

Budda's Laugh.

Other things I've found while trying to put my garden in place...

Chess Pieces
2 strands Indoor Christmas lights
3 legged dog ornament
cell phone - Nokia
3 broken garden trowels and a garden fork
4 different types of tomato cages/stakes
Bop-It
2 bird feeders
2 foot tall Cross - Christian
1 leather glove
some other random stuff I can't remember...

all of these items were found thick in brush or buried.  Suffice to say when I went to tackle the overgrowth, I wasn't expecting to find a small thrift store in the weeds.

Thou Shall Go to Glacier.

The Flathead Valley is a Special place. I don't know many people who would deny that... in one form or another.

There are 33 miles between our front door and the enterence to Glacier National Park. The following pictures were taken along the first 25 miles of the route we drive to get there. It is not the signed route, it is a back way.

The following are photos of signs that contain The Ten Commandments.

1) Along a Golf Course.

2) Private Yard #1.

3) Chapel.

4) Private Garage.

5) Church Yard #1.

6) Private Yard #2

7) Church Building

8) Church Sign (almost doesn't count because it also has service times, etc, on it

9) Church Yard #2

Also on the Golf Course - there are two of these along the way, "Quotations" from "God", and there's another board with a quote from Ezekiel :) But they don't exactly count...

So, that's, like, one Ten Commandments per every three miles.

I guess my only issue is that none of the signs are large enough, or close enough to the road for a person to actually read the commandments. Everyone obviously knows what they are... they're a bit distinctive, with the traditional, Moses, two big tombstone-esque slabs, I'm not sure why anyone bothers with the words.

Quote of the Day.

Enjoying a quiet evening at home. D on the computer, me cooking...

D - Can I read you something... cycling related, but also cosmotology related???

M - Oh, Please!

(but then I was disappointed)

see Here.

Quote of the Day.

(D shows me a trip report on BackpackingLite.com of a 9 day trip in the Wind River Range)

M - There's an exhaustive gear list but no milage figures!!!
D - The people on this site care more about gear than miles.
M - What's wrong with them???
D - They're old and slow.