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.