On our last night (Friday, Sept. 3), we decided to drive up to the lodge at Many Glaciers to hike and maybe get a nice sunset shot. After checking out various trails (and starting off on one that's clearly intended for horses, given the urine stench and hoofmarks), we found the Swiftcurrent Lake Trail, which went around the lake and was only 2.4 miles long. It seemed a safe trail--lots of other hikers, close to the lodge. We were not wanting any bear encounters. But we don't always get what we want!
Here's the view from the lodge side looking across the lake.
These trees caught my eye. I wonder what caused them to be so distorted.
At about the halfway mark in the trail, we crossed over a bridge and I took some shots looking straight down at a tiny "waterfall" below the bridge, using the bridge to prop the camera so that I could use a slower shutter speed. I'm loving taking shots where I "slow down" the water!
Just a little further, after the split off for another trail (Grinnell Lake, perhaps), we came upon some people standing stockstill in the path. They motioned to us and said there was a bear. Having seen a black bear along the shore during our boat ride earlier that day, we just figured it would be another black bear.
Not so. About 50-60 foot down the path, there was a huge mama bear and we soon realized this was a brown bear. She was almost blondish in spots. She was ambling along the shore, to the right of the trail (within feet of where we would have passed if someone hadn't stopped us). Then she stood up to reach some delectable morsel in the tree.
She doesn't look as big in the photo as she did in real life. But, after hearing another one traipsing around in the hills above us, we decided it would be prudent if we turned around and headed back to the lodge parking lot. When we got past the boat dock and the little bridge, we looked back across the lake and saw the mama grizzly being followed by not one, but two cubs. It scares us to think what could have happened if the cubs had come down the hill with us between them and mama. Or if hikers coming from the other direction had scared her in our direction. This was close enough for me (even if it didn't net me a great photo).
Instead of heading back to East Glacier, we stopped in at the St. Mary's entrance and drove up to Wild Goose Island to see if we might get a nice sunset photo. No such luck there, but it was still a nice place to sit and reflect on the day.
As we made our way to the exit (and the long drive via Browning back to East Glacier), we saw these clouds that lit the sky on fire.
The drive home through the Blackfoot Nation was uneventful (because I was able to brake before hitting the horses walking across the road just beyond one of the many sharp curves).
The following morning, we had breakfast at Luna's in East Glacier before heading for Kalispell, Montana. My hubby read the headline in the Great Falls (Mont.) newspaper, and I heard it as "Moose turns head ..." and thought, wow--a moose turns its head and makes the front page. But it was actually the people who were turning their heads:
From Glacier, we drove to Flathead Lake on Sept. 4, where I did some research for a novel I have set there. I'll share more about that later in a writing-related blog. Then, on Sept. 5, we headed down the western side of Flathead Lake to I-90 and across northern Idaho to stay at Pullman, Wash. More about our visit to the Palouse area of Washington in my next entry!
