Many Glacier, Glacier National Park

Last day at Glacier National Park – or at least last day for the American side of Waterton-Glacier International Peace Park. What to do? Head back to Many Glacier, for perhaps one more chance to see one of the actual glaciers that the park is named for.

On the way, we stopped at this funky purple barn-looking building that housed Two Sisters Café.

In Montana the huckleberry is King. Maine has its lobster; Louisiana has its crawfish; Montana has its huckleberry. From the drugstore back in Ennis to the grocery store in St. Mary, we’d seen store shelves laden with huckleberry everything: huckleberry-scented candles and soaps, huckleberry salt water taffy, huckleberry jam, huckleberry margarita mix, huckleberry BBQ sauce, you name it. Drive for miles without seeing anything but ranches and farms, see a billboard in the distance, draw closer … see that it advertises the huckleberry delights that await you at _____’s in the next town up the road.

So even though Two Sisters does not specifically have signs that make reference to huckleberry, you get the idea that “Great Pies and Yummy Shakes” must include … you catch my meaning. Plus the building is purple, i.e. huckleberry-colored. (Wonder if Glidden makes a special paint color for Montana?) On the entrance door, a sign that says “No Guns, No Bearspray.” (Hmm …) A friendly greeting as soon as we stepped inside. The intention was to get breakfast – and neither of us is against having pie for breakfast. But then there was this unusual menu item: Trout and Waffles. Had to try that, right? We split an order of that – amazingly well-prepared rainbow trout with a crispy, delicate waffle. And can you guess what kind of syrup? Ha! THEN we each got our pie, and having eaten far more than we intended, set back on the road for Many Glacier resolving to do extra walking to atone for our sins of gluttony.

First stop was Many Glacier Hotel, on Swiftcurrent Lake (which, curiously, they call “Lucerne” at the hotel), to make arrangements for a boat trip. Except 1. the boats don’t allow dogs, which I kind of expected, 2. the boats can only take you so far and then you have to hike the rest of the way to the glacier – and those hiking trails were not yet fully open because “winter” cleanup was still in progress, 3. there  was a pretty stiff breeze and a pretty fair chop on the lake waters, and I’m “sensitive” to bouts of seasickness. Honestly, had we been assured of the reward at the end – seeing a glacier – I’d have risked the queasiness. But it just wasn’t worth it.

So we explored the area around Many Glacier Hotel, and Sue and I each took a turn looking around inside. What an incredible place to spend a few days! If you got the “right” room – one overlooking the lake – you wouldn’t even have to leave the room to enjoy magnificent scenery.

After a while, we headed on out toward the head of Swiftcurrent Trail, for a nice hike out to Redrock Falls. First thing we saw on the trail was this patch of curiously-bent trees. Back in the day, Native Americans would deliberately bend trees to create trail markers. But these trees seemed awfully young to have been old-time trail markers, and besides, they seem to contradict each other, don’t they? So maybe there’s a more natural explanation, like snow and ice pressure.

The next few photos were taken along the trail.

Then we got to Redrock Lake

and then Redrock Falls

Coming back out of the falls area, we lingered on the banks of the lake.

On the way to the falls, I had noticed what I thought looked like very large footprints on the shore, going right into the lake – I supposed it had been a fly fisherman in hip waders, though I wouldn’t have discounted the possibility of those prints having been left by “someone” else. On the way back, and on the opposite shore from the prints I’d seen, Sue began trying to puzzle out something she’d seen in the water; she’s ever on the lookout for birds, but this “bird” hadn’t moved at all. So she pulled out her binoculars, studied the thing for a long time, then quietly handed the binoculars to me, saying simply, “Tell me what you see.”

I looked, and looked, and although the binoculars help a great deal, I’m fairly nearsighted. I didn’t really know what I was seeing. She made me look again: “Look until you see the curved horns.” Oh. Yeah. Curved horns like a Bighorn Sheep. “Now look down – doesn’t that look like a ribcage?” Oh. Indeed it did. Finding a slightly better place from which to view, we agreed: Definitely the remains of a Bighorn Sheep. And those tracks I’d seen? Very, very likely the grizzly who had killed it. Well, we knew that we’d be subject to encounters with wildlife. But … Yikes.

Still further on back around Redrock Lake, we spied a moose across the way. And then, very close to the trailhead where it all began, this decidedly less scary, gentle and very beautiful deer.

It was like she had come to bid us goodbye from Glacier. 


More photos from the Forces of Nature Tour at Flickr.
Click here.