Exploring Glacier

The day after our bus tour we took off on our own.  As we got up in the morning, the sun cast some very nice light on the mountains.

 I thought the lodge looked particularly pretty that morning.  Then we were off for breakfast, french toast recommended by our tour guide the day before.  Essentially it was two pieces of French toast with some cream cheese and fruit filling between them all dipped in batter and deep fried.  It seemed like something you would expect to see at the Iowa State Fair!

 We drove to a part of the park that we didn't see on the tour and headed to the Saint Mary's/Many Glacier area.  We started out on a curvy road where there were free range cattle, so I was helping to make sure we didn't hit any.  We came around a curve, and there was something black on the road.  At first I thought it was a cow, and then realized it was smaller, but still too big to be a calf.  And too stocky.  And, oh my, it's a bear!  Aside from the one marmot we saw no wildlife the day before so I started screaming to Rick that it  was a bear!  Right in front of us!  He yells back that clearly he sees it too and is telling me to get the camera...  Of course my excitement made me neglect my duties and I didn't get the camera out of the backseat in time; the bear was in the woods before the camera.  We were both really disappointed.  The only wildlife we had seen the time we were out there, the first time either of us had seen a bear outside of a zoo, and we had nothing but the story.  But the day got better.

 We kept driving with a few quick stops at some touristy points until we entered the park from the east near Saint Mary's Lake.  We were headed to the Many Glacier Hotel which was amazingly gorgeous.  So much so that I'm going to leave it for it's own post as I think it was the most spectacular scenery we saw the whole week and it warrants a lot of picture space.

 As we were walking through the hotel we heard people excited about something across the lake--more bears!  This time it was 3 bears, a mother and two cubs, and this time I had my camera (and zoom) ready to go.  We probably ended up watching these guys for half an hour or so from a very safe distance (and across a lake) while we watched some less intelligent park goers pull their cars up close to these animals (they were near the road).  We even saw a car unload kayaks into the lake very near the bears, though we're fairly confident they didn't know they were there.

 The lake and the mountains in that area were amazing.  I couldn't take enough pictures and had Rick pulling over every mile or so so I could get out and take a picture.  So beautiful!

In several places around and in the park we saw evidence of fire which is natural for pine forests, but sadly most of the fires were started by unattended campfires which are not natural.  It was interesting to see the different growth stages of the burnt forest.

More pictures from Many Glacier to come soon!