Glacier National Park: The most beautiful place on earth...
Well, I've been back for a couple of days, but just haven't gotten the chance to sit down and upload all these pics...
The trip was absolutely amazing. I couldn't have imagined it going any better, honestly, and I was with the most wonderful person in the world for 11 days straight and I loved it.
So, there are a lot of pictures in this cut, but considering that we took around 400 of them, it was tough to even narrow it down this much...
We arrived on the 23rd tired from the driving but almost peeing our pants from the excitement. We checked in to our first campsite at fish creek and quickly set up the tarp... it looked like rain (damn it). I played a lot of solitaire on this trip. I mean a lot... and I actually won three games without cheating, so yeah...
A really charming English couple took our photo in front of Lake McDonald... one of the only photos with both of us in it the entire trip.
We drove the famous "Going to the Sun Road" on the first full day there but it was FUCKING SNOWING at Logan Pass so we didn't get to see anything! The second time we made the trip up, however, we did get this great view of St. Mary Lake
We did a short hike up at Logan Pass to Hidden Lake Overlook. Matt got some really nice photos of the foggy scenery...
Our first really big hike was done in the same day to Siyeh Pass. Ten miles in all, and I was dehydrated and really doggin it the whole time but I am so glad I made it up there because, wow, it was one of the most amazing views I have ever had! We climbed up to 8,230 feet! For reference, Mt. Ranier is 14,410 ft. When we were up there I had the only incident in my life where I actually froze because I was too scared to move across a narrow snow path around the edge of the mountain... It was pretty high up.
After our brief stay at St. Mary campground, we checked out and did a hike to Iceberg Lake. The water was even bluer than it shows in this picture.
This is a view from Swiftcurrent Lake... pretty cool
The views around this lake were just amazing. I caught a reflection in Matt's glasses.
The amazing thing is that we didn't have to go far at all to get the most amazing views in the park. This is from a dinky 2 mile nature trail near the Many Glacier Hotel
The next day we decided to get up really early and go on a hike where our hike book said we were sure to see some wildlife. If you look hard in this pic, you can see two moose babies.
Matt has an eye for good photos these days.
This is apparently my impression of Ernst (you know the guy who goes to jail and saves Christmas and all that jazz)
Last but not least we did a hike to Swiftcurrent pass. That was a doozy. The views just kept getting exponentially better wherever we went. We hiked through three miles of recently burnt forest before reaching the top.
In all we did 50 miles of hiking in five straight days. We stayed in three different parts of the park. We had snow, rain, wind and absolute perfect weather all in a week. We saw:
6 grizzly bears (two hikers were near-fatally mauled on a hike two days before we wanted to go on that same hike... yikes!)
2 moose
2 coyotes
3 foxes
3 ptarmigans (a flightless mountain bird)
1 toad
8 mountain goats
We met all kinds of really interesting characters... we drank Kokanees by the fire... I beat Matt at cribbage once, and he beat me once. We had a jam-packed adventure of a lifetime.
This entry doesn't do it nearly enough justice but we made sure to write a trip journal so we could remember it all. It was absolutely amazing and I'm not even upset that I have to go back to work because at least I'll have some images in my mind to keep me from being bored. If you want to see more photos, go to:
Matt's Webshots Page
The trip was absolutely amazing. I couldn't have imagined it going any better, honestly, and I was with the most wonderful person in the world for 11 days straight and I loved it.
So, there are a lot of pictures in this cut, but considering that we took around 400 of them, it was tough to even narrow it down this much...
We arrived on the 23rd tired from the driving but almost peeing our pants from the excitement. We checked in to our first campsite at fish creek and quickly set up the tarp... it looked like rain (damn it). I played a lot of solitaire on this trip. I mean a lot... and I actually won three games without cheating, so yeah...
A really charming English couple took our photo in front of Lake McDonald... one of the only photos with both of us in it the entire trip.
We drove the famous "Going to the Sun Road" on the first full day there but it was FUCKING SNOWING at Logan Pass so we didn't get to see anything! The second time we made the trip up, however, we did get this great view of St. Mary Lake
We did a short hike up at Logan Pass to Hidden Lake Overlook. Matt got some really nice photos of the foggy scenery...
Our first really big hike was done in the same day to Siyeh Pass. Ten miles in all, and I was dehydrated and really doggin it the whole time but I am so glad I made it up there because, wow, it was one of the most amazing views I have ever had! We climbed up to 8,230 feet! For reference, Mt. Ranier is 14,410 ft. When we were up there I had the only incident in my life where I actually froze because I was too scared to move across a narrow snow path around the edge of the mountain... It was pretty high up.
After our brief stay at St. Mary campground, we checked out and did a hike to Iceberg Lake. The water was even bluer than it shows in this picture.
This is a view from Swiftcurrent Lake... pretty cool
The views around this lake were just amazing. I caught a reflection in Matt's glasses.
The amazing thing is that we didn't have to go far at all to get the most amazing views in the park. This is from a dinky 2 mile nature trail near the Many Glacier Hotel
The next day we decided to get up really early and go on a hike where our hike book said we were sure to see some wildlife. If you look hard in this pic, you can see two moose babies.
Matt has an eye for good photos these days.
This is apparently my impression of Ernst (you know the guy who goes to jail and saves Christmas and all that jazz)
Last but not least we did a hike to Swiftcurrent pass. That was a doozy. The views just kept getting exponentially better wherever we went. We hiked through three miles of recently burnt forest before reaching the top.
In all we did 50 miles of hiking in five straight days. We stayed in three different parts of the park. We had snow, rain, wind and absolute perfect weather all in a week. We saw:
6 grizzly bears (two hikers were near-fatally mauled on a hike two days before we wanted to go on that same hike... yikes!)
2 moose
2 coyotes
3 foxes
3 ptarmigans (a flightless mountain bird)
1 toad
8 mountain goats
We met all kinds of really interesting characters... we drank Kokanees by the fire... I beat Matt at cribbage once, and he beat me once. We had a jam-packed adventure of a lifetime.
This entry doesn't do it nearly enough justice but we made sure to write a trip journal so we could remember it all. It was absolutely amazing and I'm not even upset that I have to go back to work because at least I'll have some images in my mind to keep me from being bored. If you want to see more photos, go to:
Matt's Webshots Page