Daddy/Daughter 2010 part 7...the final installment.

August 29

Yuck.
It rained all night. Hard enough that when I put my hand on the tent floor sometime in the middle of the night, it felt like a waterbed from the water running under the tent.

Uh-oh.
It's also cold. Probably 40* when I get up to make coffee. It's still drizzly with a low ceiling of clouds. The mountain tops are covered in snow. Sheesh.

I make the executive decision to forgo breakfast in camp. I get the truck started to get the heat going, wake up the girls, and off we go back to Johnson's RV camp/laundry/ect...and restaurant. I figure that since we have been able to stay below our budget, a hot breakfast is in order. So we head east out of the park.

Here's what it looked like across St. Mary Lake;

We head over to Johnsons for french toast and cinnamon rolls with hot chocolate. We take our time in there and thaw out gradually. Several really miserable looking bikers drag in and drop their gloves on the hearth in front of the fire place. I did mention this is August right?

After we eat we head to the St. Mary Visitor Center. They have a half an hour long movie about the history of the park, and some good displays throughout the building. Afterward we jump on the bus again and head up Going to the Sun Road. We figure we will ride all the way to Apgar if the weather is going to be weird. We can see the visitor center on that side of the park and just kill some time while waiting out the weather.

As the bus climbs up the mountain, the driver tells us that there has been a decent snowfall up at the pass. He guarantees that no one will get stranded up at the pass, but he won't guarantee we can make it back from the other side. OK. We will take a ride up to the pass and see what happens from there. The ride is actually kind of boring. We have spectacular mountain vistas to admire out the bus window like this;

Awesome views of the St. Mary valley.....or not.

Going to the Sun Road my butt. All we can see is clouds. Oh well, there was a camaraderie amongst our fellow passengers that we were all in this together and there wasn't much that could be done about it anyway. We did score big tough guy points with our mostly retired companions when they found out that we had camped through the storm last night. Or they may have seen me as an abusive father...whichever, there was more conversation than usual among strangers. Having finally completely thawed out, and  while now enjoying the heater and the gentle rocking of the bus....it was getting kinda drowsy in there. You know how that is. I became vaguely aware of my eldest earnestly engaged in a conversation with a couple from Pennsylvania. She is not very shy (anymore) about striking up conversation...with anyone. I don't know where that trait came from, as her mother and I are pretty anti-social whenever possible. Anyway, once I heard the conversation delve into her past gastro intestinal health issues, I figured it was time to reel her in a little. Later, the gentleman would say to me "God bless you...your're going to have your hands full with those two". Well yes sir, He has blessed me, more than I deserve, and yes-I have my hands full. But what a cool ride with those two.

As we ascend above the clouds, the landscape has been changed significantly since yesterday. A four inch snowfall will generally have that effect.

Approaching Logan Pass

     The wildflowers were still pretty though;

I was getting kinda concerned about the whole getting back from the west side of the Divide thing, but the bus driver said that it had only rained on the west side and it would be fine. Good deal, cause it looked kind of nasty to the east from Logan Pass

As we disembark the bus, a lady from New York who was travelling with her sisters looked at all the snow and offered to put us up in the extra room they had at their hotel if the weather was bad that night. Very thoughtful.

Once we are actually convinced that we can continue west and come back, we board another bus and head for the Avalanche Creek area. By the time we get there, the weather has gotten a little better, probably in the low 50s and kind of a misty rain. There is a trail here that goes through an old growth forest of cedar and then follows Avalanche Creek up to Avalanche Lake. Its about a 4.5 mile round trip and if the weather would hold, would be a good lunch hike. We pack the stove, soup and drinks and off we go.

When we hit the Trail of the Cedars it's still raining, so the girls seek shelter.

The cedars were impressive and the creek was beautiful. Check it out;

Avalanche Creek

nice hat

The rain was light enough that it didn't bother us, so we decided to head up to the lake. Em was in a hiking mood. Jori wasn't as sure. Jori sometimes hikes like a butterfly....over here on this side of the trail...then over there to that side of the trail....then maybe backwards for awhile. She probably sees more than we do, but covers the least amount of ground. Em wants to follow the trail and get some miles in. Consequently, there were several times that Em was sort of frustrated with our pace and asked to go ahead of us.

I wasn't really excited to let her take off on her own. This is big time bear and mountain lion country and while the chance of something walking out of the woods on the trail to eat my daughter is slim, the phone call home might not paint me in the most favorable light. So the deal was that Em could hike out ahead a little ways where we still had easy eye/voice contact.

A little while later Em was maybe 30 yards or so ahead of me when a black bear walked out of the woods onto the trail about 10 feet in front of Em. Swell.

Em froze in her tracks. I continued to walk towards her sorta curious as to what was going to happen next. We had talked about this situation before, but I didn't know if she'd remember. I was worried she would run away or scream or do something that would scare the bear.

Meanwhile, the bear seemed pointedly unconcerned with my little drama, he was effectively vacuuming as many huckleberries off the surrounding bushes as he could. Fortunately, neither of my daughters are berry flavored.

As this is going on, more and more people are arriving on the trail. Em looks at me impatiently and makes a motion with her hand like she's taking a picture. She's irritated that I have not arrived with the camera yet. I guess she's all good with the bear. I finally get close enough to take a picture just as the bear walks into the bushes on the other side of the trail.

He just walked into the bushes on the left side of the trail in this picture ...kind of a pretty spot huh?

Unfortunately, as soon as I took that picture, the batteries in the camera died and the spares were back at camp. Great. I take the batteries out, warm them up and manage to fire off one bear photo...you have to trust me, that is a black bear in there.

Big fun. Em was really psyched about this and we stayed until the bear wandered out of sight. Jori kept telling me in a quiet voice that we were too close. Later she would describe this as one of the best parts of the whole  trip.

After the excitement subsides, we continue our hike to the lake.

Avalanche Lake

After lunch we hike back to the bus stop. We have the whole bus to ourselves on the return trip to Logan Pass. The girls take advantage of this by sitting in every seat on the bus.

We get back to camp just as the sky starts to clear and the sun cracks through the clouds in a few places. Just in time to make dinner. Here's the view from camp.

Since the weather has cleared up, tonight will be a big campfire night. Tomorrow is get away day when we will break camp and give ourselves plenty of time for the long trip home. The tent is still sitting on water, but we managed to keep our bags dry.

August 30

We get up to  sunshine...good deal. The plan for this morning is to take our time and get the truck cleaned and organized and get all the camping stuff dry and packed. We won't be using it anymore this trip. As a matter of fact, the old Coleman tent, which we have affectionately called the purple people eater may have seen its last big trip. We began to have some issues with the zippers that might not be repairable. Too bad, we've only gotten about 13 years and several hundred nights into it. Not too bad.

The Purple People Eater...going out a hero.

I release the girls to explore the campground while I get the final chores done. It's that time when a long trip winds down and I get a little depressed...or maybe melancholy is the better word. Every time we take one of these trips I try to savor every bit of it that I can. It's never far from my mind that the someday in the near future it might not be fun for the girls to go camping with me anymore. It's enough to choke a guy up.

So I have gear spread out all over the place, the tent and fly are draped over some bushes facing the sun to dry, the air mattresses are learning against trees and the sleeping bags are spread over the table. I can hear the girls down the road on the bikes laughing and yelling to each other. The sun is out and we will be on our way home in a couple hours. Another successful trip.

I take a walk to take the garbage out and Jori runs down to catch up with me, she wants one more picture with the mountains behind her...

We get all the gear packed efficiently back into the truck, check the oil and leave the campground. We are going to stop by the visitor center one more time. Jori has finished her Jr. Ranger book and wants the badge to pin on her hat. She also wrote a thank you note to the ranger that did the fire side talk on wolverines the other night. So we do that. We also notice that the mama osprey at the nest by the center is feeding her babies. Nice touch at the end.

We leave the park and stop at the gas station down the road to fill up and get out. When I go in to pay, the clerk asks where we're from and what did we see. He tells me about a spot up the road, the opposite way of home, that has a lot of active bears. He mentions that he was up there a couple days ago and saw about a dozen grizzlies. Apparently the berries have ripened in this river drainage and the bears are gorging for winter. An adult grizzly bear needs to put on several hundred pounds over the fall to make through the winter. One ranger told us that the average adult grizzly will eat 100,000 berries a day. Wow.

The area he's talking about, Many Glacier, is about 10 miles north of here. There is a 16 mile long road that leads into the interior of the park from there that follows along Swiftcurrent Creek. This is supposedly where the bears are bein busy.

What the heck. It's only another 56 total miles to a 1305 mile ride home. Off we go on one last adventure.

It's a beautiful area, and would be worth the trip even without the hope of seeing more bears.

At the end of the road is Swiftcurrent Lodge. It's pretty spectacular. Maybe someday....

     The lodge sits at the end of the road. We don't see any bears on the way in, but as soon as we leave the lodge parking lot we see something on the hillside across the road. Actually we see four somethings, because its a sow grizzly and three cubs. Never seen that before. We watch them for awhile until they move out of or sight. As it was they were so high up on the hillside you could barely see them without binoculars.

We leave that area and drive another half mile when we see a cinnamon colored black bear and then a mama black bear with three cubs and then a little further we see one last black bear on the side of the mountain. We are almost back to the park's border when we see the last bear. We pull off the side of the road and the girls sit on the roof of the truck so they can see above the roadside bushes. Very cool and a great way to end the trip on a highlight.

We all know that this is it so we watch the bear for a long time until he lumbers into the forest. I announce the official end of the adventure portion of the trip and tell the girls to saddle up. Jori hops into her spot behind the drivers seat. Em just doesn't want it to end. She stays up there hoping for another glimpse of the bear. No deal. I finally have to order her down. She complies and leaps from the roof. Unfortunately, she is not entirely familiar with the finer points of BASE jumping from the roof of an SUV and catches a boot on the open window of the truck. This causes her heel to come up rapidly....good thing Jori's face was there to catch it flush. The ninja-like belly flop of death continues for three more feet until Emmers splats onto the pavement of Many Glacier Road. Rats. And with an audience too.

Jori in the meantime has started that horrific scream that takes a second before it starts and then goes on until your ears bleed. Em, who I am more worried about at the moment, is strangely silent. Uh-oh.

Turns out that she is acutely aware of the group of bear watchers in her presence and refuses to lose control in front of them. I take this as a positive sign. She gets up gingerly, walks behind the truck out of sight and lets it go. I rapidly inspect her for the broken bone I am convinced I will find sticking out somewhere around her elbow. Concurrently, I steal a peak at Jori to see if her left eye has been kicked out or pushed in. She appears to be intact.

Good, maybe only one of them will have to be airlifted to Kalispell or Mooseknuckle or wherever the heck they airlift clumsy flatlanders. Good grief. After a while, it appears all will survive. Jori will come home with a nickle sized bruise on her cheek and Em has some roadrash on both elbows and one hip. I'm going to call it a win.

Figures. We have been in the woods and mountains for almost two weeks. We have seen all kinds of wild animals and their carnage. We've hiked on precipitous mountain trails, hopped across icy rivers on wet boulders and ate chow mein out of a can with no ill effects. Now, in literally the last moments of the trip, it all almost splatters on the street. Thank you God for having your hand on us.

Now we can go home. We leave St. Mary, Montana at 3 pm on Tuesday. We get home around lunch time on Thursday. Its a long long way to get here. We decide that we probable won't try to make a drive like that again. We have preliminarily voted to go back to Colorado next year. Maybe we can talk Mom into going with us.

We like to keep lists and a journal so for our record, we drove 4,808 miles on this trip. That was including the better part of three days at Glacier when we took shuttle buses. Yikes.

The girls added Montana and Idaho as states that had not visited yet.

We visited 4 National Parks (Badlands, Yellowstone, Grand Teton and Glacier).

We passed through, camped or hiked in 13 National Forests or Grasslands (Buffalo Gap, Black Hills, Big Horn, Custer, Shoshone, Bridger-Teton, Caribou, Targhee, Beaverhead, Deer Lodge, Helena, and Flathead).

We saw some animals that the girls have never seen in the wild before including; Grizzly bears, black bears, grey wolves, golden eagles, and mountain goats.

Mostly, as usual, we collected some awesome memories of time well spent with each other. We prayed together every night in the tent and we discussed some really important family issues (which you will be reading about here soon).

We were privileged to live in some of the most spectacularly unbelievable places that exist on this earth for two weeks.

How cool is that?

.....to be continued in 2011.

Daddy/Daughter part 6...is there an ending yet?

Not yet. Be patient, this isn't necessarily for you anyway.

August 28. Glacier National Park

It got cold overnight, but nothing crazy, 35* or so. We woke up to mule deer and woodpeckers in camp.

That there is a regulation mule deer butt.

We had oatmeal, cereal, hot chocolate and coffee for breakfast and headed out. We decided to try something different for us today. Glacier runs a pretty good free shuttle bus system along Going to the Sun Road. There was even a bus stop in front of the Rising Sun Motor Inn, which is just a two minute walk from the campground. They run one shuttle as a loop from the east side starting at St. Mary visitor center and it makes several ( 7 maybe?) stops on the way to the Logan Pass parking lot. There is also a west side shuttle that runs from Apgar to Logan Pass. Pretty neat.

This is especially useful for a couple of other reasons. Primarily because the ole Durango is having a bit of a rubbing brake problem which may soon turn into a grinding brake problem. This has prompted a certain level of consternation 1300 miles east of here.

We are also on a budget, so if I don't have to pump any more 3 dollar and twenty cent gas into my truck, it would be OK.

So despite the fact that I have always been bothered by bus stops in National Parks, I'm trying to go along with the program. Of course, the girls think it will be fun. Neither of them has ever been on a city type bus.

So off we go. The buses come by every half an hour so we don't wait long and soon we are bouncing along on our way to Logan Pass. We have identified the Highline Trail as our target trail for the day. This is a trail we had decided to hike months ago, but it was unsafe in the high winds yesterday.

It's still a little chilly out and overcast, but not bad, probably around 50*. The trailhead is across the road from the visitors center and follows the Continental Divide north. It first drops into a small forest before climbing. Here's the beginning;

Highline Trail at Logan Pass

Em is a little fired up about this hike;

We get through the pine trees and ascend to the real trail which has been carved out from the side of the mountain. The beginning of this section is narrow. Like really narrow. They have thoughtfully bolted steel cables to the side of the mountain to try to minimize the likelihood that you will walk off the side of the mountain and plunge to your spectacular death. Rangers don't like that.

Like so;

Easin on down the Highline.

Here's a couple more that I like;

                  Here's 75% of TEAM RUFF

Jori tells me, " Hey Dad, if you slipped, you could land on a car all the way down there and that could kill you. Then another car would hit you and knock you off the side of the road into the valley and then a grizzly bear would eat you!"....ummm.. how bout no.

But, she's right....Going to the Sun Road is below us a ways....see?

Jori and Em ponder the funny side of mortality

This one shows how the trail was cut as a shelf on the side of the mountain.

We hike about two and half miles along the trail and find a dry waterfall that we can sit in to eat lunch. There were no places that you could walk off the trail to sit down. The widest part of this trail is probably about four feet across and it's pretty heavily used. So we found a waterfall that was dry and broke out the PBJ bagels.

Not a bad lunch spot eh?

Eventually we pack it up and hike back towards Logan Pass. As we head through the forest, Em makes an astute observation..."Wow, Pops, up hill is alot harder"....brilliant.

We cross the road and are back in the bustle. Now we just wait for the bus to come fetch us.

Bus stop in front of the Logan Pass Visitor Center

As we head back down toward camp, it begins to rain lightly. We decide that this may be the perfect time to go get some laundry done. We load up and head to the town of St. Mary, only to realize that there isnt a town  of St. Mary. It's really just a crossroads. After several inquiries at several establishments, we learn that there is  a laundry at the RV campground up the road where it would be OK to do our laundry. It isn't very clear to me if it's really OK or just OK with the guy at the gas station, but we head that way anyhow.

We end up at Johnson's RV camp/hotel/restaurant/ laundry/propane gas sales place. Em stops in the office and gets a pile of quarters, we throw all our clothes in two washers, set them for cold and let er rip. What could happen? They're just camp clothes anyway. While we are there the drizzle picks up to a steady shower. The clouds are getting lower now so that you cannot see the peaks anymore.

It's also getting colder.

People are talking about snow. In August.

The attitude to take at a time like this is of expectant curiosity right? I mean, Chicago has some messed up weather, but it doesn't snow much in August.

Cool.

We finish laundry and head back to camp. I set up the stove on top of the cooler and open the tailgate of the truck as an awning so we can be dry when we have dinner.

Chicken chow-mein with rice and a Power Ade chaser in the rain....now we're roughin it.

The rain isn't going to stop and it's still early, so the girls watch a movie in the truck (I can't believe I just said that) and I read and write for awhile. Around 8:30 or so we head for bed.

Stay tuned. I think I can wrap it up with one more entry tomorrow (ish).

Daddy/Daughter 2010 part 5

August 27

After leaving the Sunrift Gorge area ,we go to the trailhead for St. Mary's Falls. It's a little over a mile to get to the falls on a good trail.

Here's the first part of the trail.

Heading out on the St.Mary's Falls trail.

After passing through the meadow area, we head down the path into the forest and toward the river. The trail closed in a little and made you remember the grizzly bear warning sign at the trailhead.

This is a nice hike. Not crazy far, and the forest is beautiful. We were also very well protected from the strong wind that was blowing. After 20 minutes or so or easy downhill walking, we came upon the river and the falls.

The first glimpse of St. Mary River just below the falls. 

The blue color of the water is due to the work of the glaciers in the mountains. The way it was explained to me is this; the weight of the glacier pushing debris over the limestone mountains grinds the rock into powder. This powder is called glacial flour. It flows with the ice melt into the creeks then rivers and lakes. Since it has the consistency of flour, it doesn't sink like heavier dirt, rocks or sand does. It suspends throughout the body of water. When sunlight hits the water, the flour absorbs the different colors of the light spectrum except that funky blue-green color, which is reflected. I don't understand that part, but I heard that explanation several times.  Whatever. It's beautiful.

Here's the falls.

Emmy and Jori at St. Mary's Falls

Here's another good look at the color of the water.

After hiking this trail we head up Going to the Sun Road to the Jefferson Glacier overlook. It's the only glacier left that can be seen from this road. We also learned somethings about glaciers that we didn't know. Those rangers know a lot of stuff. We were told that with some small variations among scientists, the four defining features of glaciers are 1. the ice must have a particular measurable density. 2. the ice must be a minimum of 100 feet thick. 3. the glacier must have at least 25 surface acres. and 4. the ice mass must move. Interesting.

Here's the view of that glacier.

Jefferson Glacier from Going to the Sun Road

As we proceed up the road, we noticed that there were still alot of wildflowers along the road and in the open meadows. Here's a sample;

As we continue up toward Logan Pass, we follow along the valley. On the left as you climb the road are a series of mountains;

This row of mountains forms the Continental Divide in this area. Logan Pass is the first "low" spot that you can cross the divide. There is a visitor's center up there and several trailheads. The visitor's center sits at 6,646 feet. With the high winds (gusts into the 45 mph range), we were not going to do any serious hiking up there right now. We did go a little way on the Lost Lake trail which runs behind the visitor's center toward that pointy mountain in the background.

Lost Lake trail. It was cold and windy up there.

We crossed over the Divide and began to lose some elevation on the west side of the Divide. We found a spot along McDonald Creek for the daily lunch hike. We packed up the backpack with the stove and lunch and hiked along the creek until we found a spot out of the wind to set up the stove and have lunch.

We had to build a wind break to keep the stove going.

Daddy/daughter camping lunch..it doesn't get much better than this. (photo courtesy of Jori)

The lunch spot was neat. Besides being somewhat protected from the wind and thus warmer, the creek was really pretty through this area.

McDonald Creek

Another look at pretty water and my pretty girls.

lunch hike at the Emerald Pools

After the luchtime hike, we drove the rest of Going to the Sun Road. We went to a general store in West Glacier where we grabbed some ice cream, and then we turned around and pointed the truck toward camp.

Along the way we decided to stop at the Apgar area. This is just north off the road and consists of a developed area with food, camping, boat dock and restaurant. We had discovered this area during our research of Glacier National Park over the last year. On the GNP website they have several webcams that we had been following. Here's one of them;

http://www.nps.gov/webcams-glac/mcdcam.jpg

We have been watching that little boat bobbing around out there since ice out earlier this year. It was kind of cool to see it in person. We tracked down several others, but the favorite was the Ospreycam. This camera is pointed at a huge osprey nest which is built on top of a pole next to the St. Mary visitor center on the east side of the park. We got to stand underneath that nest and watch mama osprey feed her chicks. Here's the link for that one (I don't know how long the NPS will keep this one active);

http://www.nps.gov/webcams-glac/osprey.jpg

Anyway, we head back to camp and start dinner. The girls have a board game out to play while they wait. While we're at the table, we have a couple visitor's to our campsite.

Mama mule deer comes to visit

 We have dinner and then head over to the fire circle for a Ranger Talk. The subject tonight is on wolverines. There is a population of wolverines in GNP. The girls get to participate and we learn alot about these animals.

We also manage to find some cheap cotton work gloves at the Rising Sun General store which is just a two minute walk down the road from the camp. The forecast is for dropping temps and rain in the next day or two.

After the ranger talk (which was so good that Jori would later leave a thank you note at the visitors center), we head back to camp and make a fire. We sit around for awhile and then off to bed. Another successful day.
Part 6 to come.

Daddy/Daughter 2010 (part 4)

After the hike from String Lake we decide that its time for showers. Today is the 5th day in the woods so maybe  it's time. We head over to Colter Village. Showers are $3.75 each...geez. At least they're clean.

When we get out of there it's about lunch time. We decide to park at the dam by Jackson Lake and hike the shoreline trail south until we find a good spot for lunch. The girls would like to get in the water here too. So we go in a little ways and find a nice spot where you get get down to the water with only a little climbing. The girls get busy in the lake while I make lunch. This is one of the great things about camping/hiking with them, they want to do stuff I would never consider. Like going into a freezing lake.

Emmy and Jori looking for cool rocks in Jackson Lake

During lunch, while we are sitting looking at the mountains, Jori says "Dad, those mountains are awesome, they are sooo Tetony"
Ya they are.

We had back to camp in the early afternoon. We have decided that we have been remiss in spending time by the fire and just enjoying camping. It has been more work than usual to camp. The bear rules require that everything that has a smell has to be put away whenever you're away from it. So we get up in the morning and take out the food box and cooler, take out the stove and put it together, make breakfast and eat and then after we do dishes, everything has to be put away again. The same goes for dinner time. Kind of a pain in the butt. We have also stayed out late looking for animals more than we usually do. All this has led to a shortage of fire gazing and that is unacceptable. As this is where we generally solve the world's problems.

So we formulate a plan. I'm going to do the mid-trip deep cleaning and reorganization of truck and gear. The girls are going to hang out in camp and do whatever they want. At this point it appears that they each have a sketchbook in hand and are designing dresses. I guess we can't be mountain men all the time. Then we are going to have an early dinner, we have decided that the canned chicken chow mien is great camp food. You know that stuff with the big can and the little can attached to the top? Add two bags of boil-in-the-bag rice and we're rockin. Once dinner is put away we are going for a quick safari then back to camp for a fire.

Here's our camp at Signal Mountain.

Signal Mountain Campground site 67

While I'm making dinner, a couple of bikers move into the campsite just behind us. They were probably 20 feet behind the picnic table in the picture above. Hmm. These guys are some grizzled, hard core looking bikers...like me, but with better mustaches. Any way, Em notices that one of the guys, I think his name was Ax, was having difficulty getting a tent stake in the ground. Before I know it, she has grabbed our hatchet and gone next door to ask if she can help this guy get his tent staked. Uh-oh.

I thought that they might eat her.

Apparently all was well, she returned a minute later and reported that they were "sweet" and had figured it out on their own. I was proud of her and kind of embarrassed of myself. I don't think I would have gone over there.

We have dinner and head back to the Oxbend Bow area. We found a gravel road that goes back aways that I had never noticed before and gets you away from the parking lot. The road runs along the river and ends at a bend in the river which affords good view in both directions. There are only about five people hanging out here.

We watch for a while and of course, don't see any moose. A women comes over to show us where a black bear came out of the woods last night to go for a swim. So we hang out here for a little bit. We don't see any bears, but we do see two bald eagles glide down stream about 20 feet up. Very impressive. Then, as they pass by us and continue downstream an osprey comes out of the woods at about a gazillion miles an hour and attacks the eagles. I assume these eagles passed a little too close to the osprey nest and mama was POed. She chased them down the river until they perched in a dead pine tree. She told them off loudly and then she headed back.

We get back to camp a little before dark for a change and get a good fire going, make an improvised version of s'mores (Chips Ahoy with marshmallow in between) and get down to some serious talk. There is the appropriate amount of skygazing (everyone got to see a shooting star), and then to bed.

One night every trip the girls insist on story night once we are in our bags for the night and tonight was that night. The good news is that it's always the same story so I don't have to try to invent anything. They want to hear the story of my proposal to Amy when we went out to Colorado in '96.
They are very particular. They want the story to begin when I went to Grammy and Pumpa to ask permission, and then has to include the whole trip we took. They have heard this story every time we camp, and they remind me if I miss a part-they know it as well as me. Fun.

In the morning we make oat meal, hot chocolate and another fire. When we got up it was 28*. We take our time getting camp down, today is moving day. We are heading north from Grand Teton to Glacier National Park. It's a shade over 600 miles so we'll take our time and see how much of it we feel like doing today. We get camp all cleaned up and are heading to Jackson by 9:45

We go over the Teton Pass and go through the Swan Valley. We stop in Idaho Falls for lunch. It's getting hot. Kind of a shame that the air conditioner bonked out in Billings a week ago. When I check later on I learn that the high temp for this area today was 102* No wonder.

We drive until late afternoon when a really spectacular thunderstorm hits us near Butte. We are getting blown all over the highway and it is stifling with the windows rolled up. We stop in Butte and decide to have dinner at a Perkins. The power in the restaurant goes out and comes back on three times while we're in there. Then the storm goes bashing off to the east and the sun comes out. And the temps dropped about 15* Good time to boogie on.

The drive from Butte to Great Falls is through intermittent rain and smoke from a forest fire. The interstate here is very curvy and with a lot of elevation changes. It would be alot of fun in a sports car. Not so much in an aged Durango with bad tires and a luggage carrier on top.

We make it to Great Falls so we only leave about 2 hours of driving for the morning to get to the park. Good plan.

In the morning we drive through Browning on the Blackfeet Indian Reservation and then up into the park. As we go through the St. Mary entrance and head for the visitor's center we notice the wind, crazy wind. Like a lot of miles per hour. There are white caps on St. Mary Lake.

St. Mary entrance

White caps on St Mary Lake near Sun Point

 It is beautiful though. We stop at the visitor center and get our books stamped. The is the centennial of the park so they have a special stamp which is kind of neat. After talking with a ranger, we decide to stay at the Rising Sun campground near St. Mary. One of the nice things is that it's in a forest and pretty protected from this wind. There is also a great view of the mountains right from our tent.

Rising Sun Campground site 56

We head out on Going to the Sun Road in search of a hike or two that would be in a canyon to avoid the wind. Out of the wind is nice, sunny and about 55*

Our first stop is the Sunrift Gorge. This isn't a big hike, but there's some nice scenery here.

The girls head under Going to the Sun Road looking for stuff to climb

They're so cool.

That's enough for now...back later with Part 5