17 June 2012

Last Saturday we drove to Montana where we met up with Becky's mom and dad, and Sarah, Joe and Zina.  We spent the week driving and hiking in Glacier National Park.  This is a view of Two Medicine Lake on the eastern side of the park.  Steep-walled mountains and rock formations carved out by glaciers in the last ice age 10,000 years ago dominate the landscape.  As we looked at the U-shaped valleys left by the ancient glaciers, we realized that even at their largest size, the modern glaciers are tiny in comparison.  One of our motivations in going to Glacier was to see the glaciers before they disappear.  In 1900, there were 150 glaciers.  Only 25 remain.  We're not sure we ever saw a true glacier as snowfields look like glaciers until they melt.

  Steep-walled mountains and rock formations carved out by glaciers in the last ice age 10,000 years ago dominate the landscape.  As we looked at the U-shaped valleys left by the ancient glaciers, we realized that even at their largest size, the modern glaciers are tiny in comparison.  One of our motivations in going to Glacier was to see the glaciers before they disappear.  In 1900, there were 150 glaciers.  Only 25 remain.  We're not sure we ever saw a true glacier as snowfields look like glaciers until they melt.  In the photo, we are standing in front of Avalanche Lake.

We hiked every day, sticking to shorter hikes with neat features.  This trail that loops between McDonald Creek and Johns Lake passes through a tunnel underneath the famous Going-to-the-Sun Road.  In the photo are Helen, Brandan, Gibson, Abe, Grandpa Larsen, Zina and Sofi.

Steep mountains and melting snow equal waterfalls.  We don't know the name of this stunning unmarked waterfall on the southern tip of the park.

Here's a photo of Abe, Helen, Brandan and Gibson at Running Eagle Falls.  These falls are also called Trick Falls because water pours over the falls in two places: over the top of the rocks and through a cave about halfway up the falls.  When the water level is high the water flowing over the top covers up the water coming from the cave.  And when the water level drops later in the summer, water only comes out of the cave.

Looking at a topographic map of the park, we found Helen Lake running into Elizabeth Lake.  Our Helen's middle name is Elizabeth.  These lakes are high up in the park and would be a challenge to hike to.

Brandan picked up a handful of rocks to represent the many colors we saw.  The gravel along the streams is very colorful and the same colors are repeated in the large formations.  Millions of years of geological history are exposed in the park, the whole story laid out for the most amateur geologist to read: Layers of mud in an ancient lake, compressed into sedimentary rock, lifted by tectonic movement, then carved into fantastic shapes by glaciers, exposing bold stripes of colored rock.

Of course all those flat rocks begged to be skipped.  By the end of the trip, all the kids had learned how to skip rocks.  In the photo, Joe, Abe and Brandan are skipping rocks across the stream and into a small pool out of view.

June in the park can be cold and wet.  We got good advice from a pair of Swiss tourists, "There is no bad weather, only bad clothes."  Even though we were visiting before the peak of tourist season, the parking lots were full.  We saw license plates from 46 states and 6 Canadian provinces.  (Massachusetts, Delaware, Rhode Island and West Virginia are the plates we missed.)  The photo shows Zina and Sofi dodging a puddle.

The kids all completed the Junior Ranger requirements.  The photo shows them being sworn in.

It was surprisingly easy to see mountain goats in the park.  They move across the faces of the highest peaks like tiny white specks.  If you use binoculars, they look as big as ants.  We drove to Goat Lick Overlook to see some goats closer up.  This part of the park has natural mineral deposits that entice the goats out of the mountains.  From this viewpoint, the goats look as big as beetles.

Here's the best view of a mountain goat -- a stuffed specimen at the East Glacier Lodge.

Going-to-the-Sun Road was closed in the middle due to snow and avalanche danger.  Most of the road is open to hikers and bikers and we hiked up for a couple of miles.  The small group of people in the bottom of this photo are watching bears on the slopes above-- 3,4,5?  It's hard to say how many bears as they moved in and out of the brush.  The bears were far enough away to be harmless.  If they knew we were watching them, they didn't seem to care.

We stayed in Columbia Falls for the week.  Sarah brought some crafts for the kids.  One of the projects was making footprint butterflies.  In the photo, Sofi is painting Helen's tickly feet to get ready to print onto paper.

Here's a photo with Gibson and his completed butterfly picture.

Grandpa Larsen brought wood burners and the kids burnt their initials into slices of tree trunk that Sarah brought.  They made the "tree cookies" into necklaces.

Grandma Larsen read Gibson several bedtime stories.

One evening a beautiful double rainbow appeared over the valley where we stayed.

 We drove through Northern Idaho on our way home.  Becky's dad was born in Kellogg, Idaho and she had never been this far north in Idaho before.  We stopped in the charming town of Wallace, Idaho where he had worked in a silver mine.  The town was considerably less charming 100 years ago, when a forest fire killed all the trees and smelters for the silver mines were polluting the air.  It was a good bookend to our trip -- the glaciers may be melting in one part of the world, but forests are regenerating in another part.  The earth is unimaginably old, gloriously complicated and drenched with beauty in every corner.