The drive from Havre to Hungry Horse was uneventful thank you God and all four tires worked wonderfully. We finally reached the mountainous portion of Montana; who knew it was mostly flat farmland? We arrived at Canyon RV nestled in the trees in a little town called Hungry Horse on the west side of Glacier National Park. We planned an eleven night stay to carry us through Labor Day weekend. It is a very nice quiet park, but has no place for the dogs to run as the owners won't even allow them on the trail down to the river supposedly due to bears - yeah right.
Glacier National Park is very large with the Going to the Sun road winding thru the middle from west to east. It is a beautiful 48 mile drive that takes about two hours. The glaciers are melting so fast that scientists predict that they will be completely gone by 2020. The two sides of the park look completely different; the west side is forested with lots of high peaks and the east side is brown grassy rolling hills. You will notice that most of the pictures have an intense haze to them from all of the fires burning in the area. Still beautiful but the smoke is evident.
Lake McDonald. The water is crystal clear.
One of the many crystal clear creeks along the Going to the Sun road.
Glaciers at the top of Heavens Peak
Waterfalls everywhere, this one is Pritchard Falls
Peg was so interested in the geology of the area that we bought a Geology book at the visitor center and drove the road again stopping at all of the geological formations. The next 15 pics are her visual explanation of some of her favorite geology in the park. Reader beware!
This sedimentary rock is red due to the presence of iron creating Hematite. The wavy surface is caused by the action of water currents, waves, or wind when the area was covered in a shallow sea and water level was fluctuating near the shore. They are called Ripple Marks.
See the smooth, bowl shaped cavity formed in the stream bed by the grinding action of stones whirled around by eddying water currents? They are rightfully called "potholes".
These sedimentary beds were laid horizontally and became tilted during the uplifting/raising of the Rockies 100 million years ago.
This Mt. was first sculpted by a glacier. This shows the erosion of the Mt. by stream, wind and ice which started in earnest 20,000 years ago.
Glaciers are a large mass of ice formed by the compaction and recrystallization of snow, moving slowly by internal flowage and slippage at the base downslope due to gravity. This pic shows how the main glacier cut a broad U-shaped valley through the terrain 2,500 million years ago!
This is Clements Mt. an excellent example of a "matterhorn", a pyramidal peak carved by glaciers from three or more sides.
This is a "hanging valley", a tributary glacial valley lying at a high level on the steep side of a larger glacial valley. Streams tumble, as this one is, from the tributary valleys that were left "hanging" above the main valley after the ice melted away.
These irregular fractures are called "mudcracks" which formed by the shrinkage of clay, silt, or mud resulting from drying in the air after water receded.
These are thick beds of limestone and dolomite. The sediment they formed from was first deposited over 1 billion years ago, 500 million years before the fossil record even began.
The remaining pics of my tour are of Stromatilites. This was my favorite thing to see in the park. I will first explain what they are and from that I think you will also find them very cool. Basically, they are the fossil form of ancient algae. They were the FIRST photosynthetic plant form on earth. They are very similar to the blue-green algae that live in present-day seas and had much the same metabolic processes, which was to consume carbon dioxide from seawater and release oxygen as a waste product through photosynthesis. As a result this ancient algae was a major factor in producing the oxygen-rich atmosphere that allowed development of other oxygen-consuming life forms on the Earth. It is the oxygen we are breathing today! Removal of carbon dioxide from seawater caused the formation of large quantities of calcium carbonate rocks, which contributed to the carbonate rock layers in the park, most abundantly, limestone and dolomite.
Classic "cabbage head" shape
The algae secreted a sticky, jellylike ooze that trapped fine sediment precipitated from the seawater. The trapped sediment in the algal mass produced the wavy lines you see in this and the other pics.
My favorite picture of all.....Wall-O-Stomatolites
Since dogs are not allowed on the trails within the park we also toured the Flathead National Forest which goes for miles and miles in every direction. The hiking trails here in Montana are intense with very few short (3-4 mile) moderate hikes to be found. We hiked Phillips Trail above Flathead Lake, the largest fresh water lake west of the Mississippi. It had beautiful views of the lake. The water is so pristine - perfectly clear. After the hike we walked a nature trail down to the water's edge and Peg went for a swim in her clothes - she couldn't help herself. She could see down to the bottom as far as she could go. It was wonderfully refreshing.
Flathead lake from high up on our hiking trail.
The water in Flathead Lake was cool and look how clear!
Calcite and Peg enjoying the glacier melt that helps to fill Flathead Lake
We drove up to the Upper Stillwater Lakes area one day to take another hike, but never found it. We ended up back on some gravel roads for miles without a trailhead to be found. The websites make the directions sound so easy. The park owner did tell us about a couple of great places to take the dogs running and swimming so we went to Lions Lake where Calcite had a great swim and there was a trail we hiked through the woods.
We drove to the Many Glaciers area of the GNP in the northern section on another day. This was a beautiful drive promised to have an abundant amount of wildlife: mountain goats, bears, elk, moose etc. of which we saw absolutely zero. We looked and looked, just dying to see a bear somewhere, but no! The only wildlife we saw were squirrels, chipmunks, one marmot, one pheasant, a couple of osprey and a few deer. Peg did get a glimpse of what she thought was a bear cub's rump running through the roadside shrubs, but when I turned around we couldn't confirm or deny it's existence.
Here is a very photogenic prairie dog. He was also making very cute chirping sounds.
Here is the Marmot, right Scheppy?
Here is another beautiful waterfall.
We also drove up the west side of the park all of the way to the Canadian border - 24 miles of a very bumpy gravel road through the primary forest. The border crossing was closed, but it was fun to see the area that far north.
Peg is standing on the Canadian side.
This is the ditch that separates the U.S. from Canada. U.S. is on the left. Peg is standing in Canada.
A. would not go to the other side because the sign clearly states that pedestrians are not to cross into Canada. We all know that A. is the rule follower.
We drove to another hike around Holland lake in an area southeast of the GNP. It was a beautiful hike around another pristine lake up to Holland Lake falls. This whole area is just filled with views of the glacier filled mountains and clear beautiful lakes. It was a great hike enjoyed by woman and beast.
The pictures don't do it justice oh and this is labor day weekend - note the "crowds"
Peg climbed up this huge precipice to get to the top, clinging on for dear life. Yeah, right.
Coming soon.... Challis Valley, Idaho; Yellowstone and the Grand Tetons
I've been waiting to hear about your trip. I think we will be doing this in the next few years so I'm glad your trip was a success!
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