Day trip to Glacier National Park

If you get to Montana and Glacier National Park, be sure to visit the NW side of the park, via Polebridge. We stopped at the Mercantile there the other day, had a delightful lunch of hot sandwiches baked in bread dough and huckleberry pastries -- they operate an incredible bakery in the back of the store. Beautiful place on Historic Register, and you can play a little volleyball or horseshoes while there. The outhouse was one of the cleanest I've ever seen.  

These 3 were heading to a wedding in the Park and we let them
in the entry line in front of us since they were running late.
Don'tcha just love it?

Wildfires in the West

The wildfires throughout the west have brought thick smoke/haze to the Flathead Valley, where we're camped until next Sunday. We were on the west side of Glacier National Park yesterday and the views were obliterated by the smoke so I didn't take pictures -- we have many from our last visit to that area.  A great place to track wildfires is at www.inciweb.org; there are active fires in Montana, Wyoming, Idaho, Washington, & Utah -- apparently NONE in Colorado right now!
Here's a picture I took of Flathead Lake last week, when the air was relatively clear, followed by one I took Saturday August 10th from high on a mountain looking down to the southwest.  Not a good  change!  YUK!

Hiking Jewel Basin Montana

We did an incredible hike to Twin Lakes in the Jewel Basin area, SW of Glacier National Park and just up the mountains from Hungry Horse Lake -- not sure why it's called a 'basin' since we drove up & up & up to get to the trail head, then we hiked up & up & up for what seemed like forever (and of course down & down & down).  It was SO worth it -- awesome scenery and simply great hike! Our fannies were dragging by the time we got back to the truck and headed home for a glass of wine and a rather late dinner. 

trail 8 to Twin Lakes, then loop back to Camp Misery trail head

one of the few fairly level spots on the trail

climbing up to the Continental Divide

Jamie at one of the apexes, then down a bit before climbing some more

Me, crossing a really big slide area - note the cross-slope!

looking down at Twin Lakes from the trail above

one of the lovely meadows on the east side

a small ice field in the distance

wild flowers along the trail

growing out of the rocks

horrible haze/smoke from all the wildfires - check out www.inciweb.org

this probably needs to be a painting!

Hiking the Canadian Rockies, July 2013

We visited Banff and Jasper National Parks in Alberta Canada.  The Canadian Rockies are incredible, and very different from the US Rockies.  Hiking is an adventure, always need to carry (and know how to use) bear spray, decent camera, sunglasses & sunscreen, bug repellant, rain gear, and plenty of water & snacks.  And need to be prepared to deal with aggressive hikers, uninformed/unprepared tourists, and horse do-do on the trail. Some of the best trails were closed for bear (black & grizzly) 'browse'; they're munching buffalo berries by the ton (literally) in preparation for hibernation.

This is a long blog, but we want to share the beauty of these delightful hikes we enjoyed.  This first series of pictures is from Lake Minnewanka near the town of Banff.

We left our camp near the town of Banff and traveled north to just south of Jasper.  We absolutely LOVED the town and the area and wish we had much more time there -- we only had 3 full days, but we got in some great hikes. The first hike was just outside town, on the Overview Trail, which indeed had great views of both the town and the lakes in the valley; it was a pretty good climb from the valley floor to the view points.  Getting rained on was becoming the norm; you can see the clouds moving in in the pictures.

Over looking Jasper town

Looking down on the lake

The second day took us to Maligne Canyon, a very popular and busy hike but well worth dealing with lots of people on the trail.  It's an absolutely gorgeous canyon!

We then went up-canyon to Maligne Lake, the headwaters of the river that runs through the canyon.  The beauty surpassed our expectations and we were so glad to have taken the extra time to go on up; it was a LONG day!

That was our second day in the area.  The last day we did the Valley of Five Lakes hike.  This is five pristine, turquoise lakes that are all connected, each draining into the next as the valley runs downhill.  Every lake was a treasure!

 

 

Number 1

Number 2

Number 3

 

 

Number 4

Number 5

We left Jasper and headed back south to Lake Louise, a tiny and popular tourist town.  We were lucky to snag a campsite in the NP camp there, as we did all through the Canadian Rockies.  They're just fine camps and inexpensive, and also in high demand -- I never dreamed how many RVs are out there & in Canada the rental RV business must be huge.  We only had 2 nights/1 full day at Lake Louise so we made the best of it by hiking around Lake Louise and up the Plain of Six Glaciers trail to almost where the glacier valley begins.  This was another breath-taking hike, with frequent weather changes -- hot & sunny, cold & rainy, too many horses & their do-do to avoid, and a fair amount of hikers.  These pictures are illustrative of the trek, bottom of the trail to near the top.

from the trail around Lake Louise - heading to the snow field at the top

rugged terrain

stream flowing off a glacier

me, still smiling!

more clouds moving in

Lake Louise from high on the trail

And that was that.  We had to leave the Canadian Rockies and start our trek back south.  Next stop: Skoomkumchook in the Kootenay River Valley in southeastern British Columbia.