Glacier National Park - 8/6/11

For our last morning in Glacier we decided to go back and visit the Avalanche Creek area. John wanted to hike to Avalanche Lake and I wanted to shoot the gorge some more. So we each did our own thing. John's hike would have taken several hours, so he decided to only hike that trial for an hour and a half. I made sure he has the bear bell so he could make as much noise as possible and there were a lot of other hikers out too so I wasn't too worried. Thought the next morning we did read about a bear attack elsewhere in the park of a hiker from Minnesota who was alone, armed with a bell and bear spray and still was attacked!

We also made a pit stop on the way out to another turnout area along McDonald Creek where we hasn't stopped previously.

Since it had rained the night before there was a really large mist/fog bank that was rolling in a providing nice clouds.

This was literally the last picture of the trip!! We kept saying all we we'd get the touristy shot in front of the park sign and literally pulled off as we were exiting! After this picture we went into Kalispell and Whitefish and fell in love - they are really cute, especially Whitefish - that is where we want to retire!!

Glacier National Park - 8/5/11 (McDonald Creek)

Because we liked this area so much we decided to return to this section along McDonald creek before going to dinner and back to the chalet. Big dark clouds were starting to roll in so we didn't have long to work, but they did make for some good lighting and moody effects.

I think this is my favorite - the clouds were magnificent!

This shot was taken literally seconds before the sky opened up one us!

This was another pano I took when we first got there.

Glacier National Park - 8/5/11 (Mountain Goat)

My reward for successfully negotiating the return along the cliff that is Highline Trail was to come across this beautiful male Mountain Goat. These quickly became my favorite animal there (next to the juvenile triplet puma sighting!). I was able to get within 7 feet of this one and he was pretty cool with that, thought I probably should have not gotten so close. Oh well, I got some great shots so it was worth the risk!

YOu have to love their little chicklet teeth - they are so perfect!!

Glacier National Park 8/5/11 (Highline Trail)

Another hike we attempted was the Highline Trail. John had made it a little further than I did because I was again mortified of the icy snow on the trail close to the edge of a cliff - I thought it more prudent to stop before I ended up part of the landscape.

Thankfully the snow had melted and I was able to go a lot further, but again, as with climbing an ice covered mountain, venturing out always seems considerably easier than getting back to where you started.

The hightline trail, as I previously mentioned, starts out pretty easy in a semi-wooded valley between mountains. However, it take this turn and is literally carved into the rock on the side of the mountain with a pretty sheer drop off on the one side. Mercifully you are provided a lifeline - a 1/4 steel cable covered with garden hose. Again, going out is easy - you are on the side of the "road" with the cable - coming back, you are on the wrong side of the "road."

It took me little while at our turning around point to psych myself up enough to go back but at that I made way for hikers coming in the opposite direction to go around me - I wasn't gonna be the one on the cliff side of the road if you know what I mean. Thankfully the other hikers must have seen the fear in my eye and were pretty cool!

See, the beginning of this starts of pretty nicely!

Then you get to this cliff action and it starts getting a bit scary - at least for me!

That line along the middle is the GOing-To-The-Sun road...which was below us!!

After the cliff face, the trail mellowed about and looked like a big pile of rocks. That snow patch up ahead was where I called it quits...the idea of slipping and sliding off that this was too much for me! Yea, I know, I'm a sissy!

Still, the view was pretty spectacular!

This is Garden Wall up close and personal.

You can see this is where the trail heads back to the cliff part of the trail.

See those teeny tiny hikers? This will give you an idea of scale - note the sheer drop off! Somewhere in there is my friend the garden hose covered cable.

Glacier National Park - 8/5/11 (Hidden Lake Trail)

Yes, the saga of Hidden Lake trail continues. We thought certainly by the end of the week we would be able to make decent progress up this trail and at least get some better shots that we did previously. So after the initial thrilled of shooting the Big Horn Sheep wore off we set out to give it another go!

While the snow had significantly receded since our first attempt nearly a week earlier, there was still quite bit there. One thing about climbing this stuff, it is super easy to kick in your boots and make snow stairs to ascend. It is an entirely different matter getting yourself back down!

Given that my knees are fairly unstable since my knee surgeries, and since my center if gravity is a lot higher than it used to be, I was not feeling at all comfortable with my ability to extricate myself from that mountain once I'd gotten up.

So I told John to continue on without me and I ended up sitting on the boardwalk steps (the few that were snow bare) and shot the following series of pictures in between tears - yea, I kind of cried a little up there because I was frustrated at my inability to safely get where I wanted to go, especially since the WIld Goose Island sunrise shoot was such a bust, but at least I ended up with some nice images.

This is the boardwalk that heads up to Hidden Lake - it looks a hell of a lot steeper coming back down, trust me!

This 'dead tree' laying in the snow is a trail marker for when there is a lot more snow. When we first arrived these were being held up by snow and went down pretty deep. However, the fact that they get 48-100 feet of snow annually means they are as effective as toothpicks in the dead of winter!

This is actually looking north. This is the famed Garden Wall. On the other side of this (and there is a trail that goes here) is the Grinnell Glacier and a bit beyond that is Many Glacier.

These are Glacier Iris and they were blooming in increasing numbers the whole time we were there. They look like a cross between a lily and a tulip, very pretty and very abundant!

This is that sam marmot from the week earlier that loved to pose for photographers.