Monday, July 27 Many Glacier

We were up early to get a campsite at Many Glacier. We arrived at 7:45 at the campground and were by no means the first people there. Gone are the days of getting there at 11 a.m. and getting a site. We got a site that was ok, and had a nice talk with the guy who was leaving it. He had just been to Yellowstone and had a cool wolf sighting there, and he had also been to up to Bowman Lake. We set up and I made smokies and eggs in the saucepot, as we discovered we had left the camp frying pan at home after I brought it in to wash it.

The Slopes of Mt. Henckel above Many Glacier Campground

We did some bear-scoping but saw nothing.   So, we did some wildlife drives. We had talked to one ranger when we were scoping at the pullouts by the hotel road and he told us there had been a black bear around. We then drove past the hotel road and there it was, 30 feet from the road with people getting out of their cars and walking down. The bear got spooked and went into the trees and we went to the next pullout and stopped. The ranger came up behind us and we told him where the bear was and that people were getting too close. I was watching through the sun roof for it to come out of the trees down and behind us (a safe distance, of course) but he didn’t.
We decided to head into the Park Café for lunch and made a few phone calls. Rosie hadn’t wanted to hike the first day. We stopped at the Gladstone cabin but they weren’t around. We went back to the hotel and read for a while in the annex, watching the slopes across the lake for wildlife.  When we were leaving saw a black bear crossing the river just below the hotel falls. We stopped and I had Rosie get out to get pictures

and then I started getting nervous because once again, people were getting too close. He went in the woods and Rosie and I turned back towards where we’d seen the other bear earlier and there she was again! She got spooked and we went up and turned around so we went back by the falls and there she was, on the rocks not far from the road and people were walking within 10 feet of her. We zoomed down to the ranger station and I’ve never driven that fast in my life in this park – I ran in, told them to get arranger down there NOW and went back. The darker bear had moved off but the other was still there with people way, way too close. Finally a ranger showed up and we left. I just do not understand people who approach bears. There is so much information out there, including what is given to you when you enter the park, telling you the dangers of bears. Do people not read it or do they genuinely think these animals are not dangerous? I worry that people will push them until the bear retaliates by mauling them and that the bear will be blamed, and if you are stalking a bear you have only yourself to blame for getting mauled, no one should blame the bear. They are just trying to find food and they need a lot of it. I get very, very upset about this. Rosie was saying the park needs to hire me as a patrol to keep the bears safe. I’d do it for free, if they gave me a uniform. NO one listens to me when I don’t have one. They think “Who the heck are you?”.

We went back to camp and had ramen noodles and French bread for dinner. Then we did another bear drive and on the cliffs East of the hotel there was a really interesting black bear with unshed blonde hair on her back and very dark fur everywhere else. It was fun to watch her forage and it was nice that she was across the river and a safe distance away where no one was going to pursue her, so I didn't need to get upset!

We went back to the parking lot and there were Jim and Karen with their big scope looking at a goat up on Grinnell Point. We were looking around and Rosie spotted a griz up there too! He was steadily going towards the east and the place where he would go around the cliff face and out of sight. There was also a goat…we were first watching him and watching him look down and that’s when Rosie noticed the griz. While we were watching the griz and goat, a coyote came into view too! It was exceptionally long and lanky for a coyote, enough that it caused me to look really closely several times to make sure it wasn’t a wolf – but unfortunately it was only a coyote. Darn! THAT would have been really awesome, to have a wolf, griz and goat above us on Grinnell Point. He finally went out of sight. Jim and Karen and Dave were going to attempt a summit of 8084 (an unnamed peak above the Iceberg Lake Trail)  the next day so Jim and Karen parked their truck in our campsite to sleep in for the night to help get an early start the next day. We made a fire and had popcorn, a very nice evening! It was fun to spend some time with them.

Sunday, July 26 Medora to Glacier

So much for sleep…the trains go by periodically all night and I heard them all. It wouldn’t be so bad if they only blew their whistles once or twice, but they blow them repeatedly…like 8 or 10 times, every time they go through. So, they wake you completely up! I finally got up around 5:30 since I was awake (due to a train), and went for a half hour run. It felt great to stretch my legs afer a long day in the car the day before.

The Little Missouri River Near Our Campground - Medora, ND

I got Rosie up to shower and we were on the road by 7 a.m. We made pretty good time with stops at the border, Glendive, Glasgow, Malta and Havre.

"The Centennial House"

We've driven by this house on every trip to Glacier...it's north of Glendive on Hwy. 200.  Montana's Centennial was in 1989.  This appears to be an abandoned house.

We took Hwy. 200 west of Circle and then cut up to Ft. Peck on Hwy. 24. This is a pretty road with a lot of badlands, and very little traffic. It is also fossil country and sometime I’d like to work on a paleontology dig out there. This is truly the land of wide open spaces...you rarely see another person or car and when you aren't at the bottom of a hill, you can see forever.  I love it!

We stopped briefly at the lake created by Fort Peck Dam

and then continued on our way on Hwy. 2, that "High Line" road across northern Montana that I love.  We've always driven by the "Sleeping Buffalo Rock" but this time we stopped.

Sleeping Buffalo Rock

Because it's behind a barrier it's hard to see, but you get a sense of the resemblance to a sleeping buffalo.  At the same site:

We pressed on, making good time.  As we got close to Browning, the skies to our south grew black…really, really black. And north of us it was pretty gray. We hit some rain after Browning but still made it over St. Mary ridge without a storm. We got to Johnson’s Motel in St. Mary and called Kathy, who was driving back from Babb in pouring rain but it hadn’t hit us yet…5 minutes later it did. We joined Kathy, Bruce, Alex, Nate, Lynn, Lisa and Dawn for family style meal at Johnson’s restaurant. It was a really great dinner, especially after eating sandwiches for two days! Then it was off to Many Glacier in the pouring rain.

The Mountains Behind Many Glacier Hotel

 

Thankfully, Jack Gladstone’s performance was at Many Glacier Hotel instead of the campfire circle, because that would not have happened on a night like this. Scot and Mariah had saved us seats. It was a wonderful show, as always. Mariah warned us that Jack was going to sing “Old Shep” and he did, and dedicated it to Rosie and her "best friend", Hayden -  and later to dogs everywhere, here and watching over us from heaven. Rosie didn’t cry, but I did. It was very sweet and thoughtful of Jack.

He also sang some songs that he doesn’t do very often such as “Roman Road “ and “Wolf”, which of course is one of my favorites. He gave us some background on the Blackfeet view of the reintroduction of wolves to Yellowstone which was very interesting and contradicted what I had heard before, that the Blackfeet are anti-wolf. That never made sense to me.  They actually formally supported the reintroduction.

After the show we helped Jack take his equipment out to his van since he is still recovering from his surgery and then the plan was to head to the Cattle Baron for a “brouhaha” as Mariah called it. But the Cattle Baron had run out of food! How is that possible? !? So we went to Two Sisters for pie instead. It's always fun to hang out with them.