247:365 Headwaters of Missouri River

We left Glacier National Park and headed south yesterday.  We stayed at Wolf Creek, just north of Helena in the Belt Mountains.  It was a beautiful drive.  The Missouri River flows through there and we must have crossed it at least eight times.  Since we were driving right by the Three Forks, we decided to stop and see where it all starts.  There are three rivers that flow in to start the Missouri River.  They are the Madison, Jefferson and Gallitin Rivers.  To see these three rivers flow so gently in to each other to form the Missouri, it's hard to imagine the havoc that has been wreaked all summer long down it's entire length.

246:365 Bumble Bee in Flight

We spent the day driving across the Going to the Sun Road and I have lots of photos of mountains and lakes, but this was my favorite of the day.  I caught this bee flying.  I cropped the picture to take out a lot of wasted background as I was using my 28mm lens for the scenery. 

245:365 McDonald Lake

We spent the day at Big Mountain doing a lot of fun things, like alpine sledding and zip lining.  If you ever get the chance to go zip lining, you have to go.  Do NOT let fear stand in your way, it is a great thrill. 
We have decided that we will be going back to Glacier National Park and going over the Going to the Sun Road though, as it was so foggy they first time we came over that we couldn't see a thing.  We have come this far and it would be a real shame not to see everything.  Here we are back at McDonald Lake in the evening and will be heading back over to St. Mary in the morning.  I love the light and shadows on the mountains in the background.

244:365 McDonald Lake

We spent last night at an inn right on McDonald Lake at the east entrance to Glacier National Park.  It was raining late yesterday afternoon and evening so we didn't get to do too much.  It also rained during the night and the clouds were really low this morning as we were getting ready to leave.  I stood on the shore and snapped a few photos before it started to rain again.  It's a good thing that I did, as they are the only photos that I took today.  We went white water rafting in the afternoon, and I wasn't about to take my camera along for that.  The water is running kind of slow this late in the season and they were only class I and II rapids.  It was fun and made me want to go on some bigger rapids.  I hope some day that I will.

243:365 Swiftcurrent Lake

We woke up this morning to lots of clouds and fog.  It makes for gorgeous scenery.  We headed over to drive the Going to the Sun Road from east to west.  Brandy had given us a geology book about the road and we were planning on stopping at each of the stops to learn a little bit about the geology of the area.  We made it to the first stop, then missed the next couple.  After that, as we were driving up the hill, it got so foggy that we really couldn’t see anything anyway.  And there was road construction on top of that.  By the time that we go to Logan’s Pass, it was so foggy that we couldn’t see across the parking lot.  After leaving Logan’s Pass, the weather cleared up (we were driving down the mountain) and it was beautiful.  The afternoon did bring thunderstorms though, so we are stuck inside for the time being.  I’m hoping for better weather tomorrow.  We are on the south end of McDonald Lake and I was hoping to get some good sunset photos this evening, but it doesn’t look like that’s in the cards for today.

242:365 Grinnell Lake and Hike

It’s great camping!!  We got up early this morning and headed over to take a lake cruise on Swiftcurrent Lake.  After a short hike we ended up on Josephine Lake and cruised that lake to the other end, where everyone got off the boat and hiked about a mile to Grinnell Lake.  This hike was led by a naturalist, so we learned a lot of interesting facts about the vegetation and the glaciers and lakes.  All in all it was about a four hour trip.

We spent the afternoon driving up to the Canadian side of Glacier at Waterton.  They have quite the little village there with a lot of little shops and places to eat.  It was a pretty drive.  We drove back to Many Glaciers and had supper at the Lodge and enjoyed a beautiful sunset over the mountains. 

241:365 Glacier National Park

We spent the night in Cutbank, MT last night, and got up early to drive to Glacier National Park.  We decided that we would go to the northern route first, then head back south in a couple of days and travel on the Going to the Sun Road, which crosses the park from east to west.  We found a campsite in the campground, and then headed out to find something to do.  As we were leaving the lodge, we spotted a big black bear along the side of the road.  Of course, we stopped to take some photos, but I must have been too excited, because all of the pictures were blurry!!  Then we headed to the little village and there was a big group of people looking up at the mountain over the store watching a mama grizzly and her two cubs.  They were quite a ways up the mountain so we needed binoculars to see them.  On the way in to Many Glaciers, we had noticed a trail leading up to a waterfall, and we headed back out to hike that trail.  We parked along the road and I was inside the van getting my backpack ready and Jeff told me to come out and look across the road.  Here was another black bear!!  I was a little bit more prepared this time and the photos did turn out a little bit nicer.  We hiked the mile and a half UP to the waterfall even after seeing all of these bears.  I was a little nervous, but there were other people on the trail so that helped a bit.  It was great hike and the views were fantastic. 

Later in the day we tried another trail that was right in the area where we were camping.   It was supposed to go to a lake, but we never made it that far.  It was getting late and we had already gone about one and a half miles, so we headed back.  This trail was quite a bit easier than the first one though.  I went to the evening program at the campsite and learned quite a bit about glaciers.  The most interesting thing is that they expect the glaciers in the park to be completely gone by 2020.  Global warming is definitely having an effect here.