Waterton Lakes National Park, Alberta, CANADA

After stopping in a field for some great cloud shots, we headed north for Waterton Lakes National Park. This is the Canadian portion of Glacier.  We often tend to be in the right place at the right time.  In this case we arrived at the Prince of Whales historic hotel in Waterton on the last day it was open for the year.  The stunning Swiss chalet style building was completed in 1927 and maintains the feel of the era today.  Unfortunately, one of the two roads through the park was closed.  We spent a full day driving that road, hiking and photographing the plethora of bears before heading back to the Glacier side of the park.  It was in Waterton that we saw our first grizzly.  Thankfully, it wasn't close! 

I swear she's nice!

Ok, ok I get it already!

Animals of Glacier

Long horned sheep are nuts!

The abundance and diversity of wildlife in Glacier National Park is incredible!  Glacier is home to sixty-six species of mammals including black and grizzly bears, mountain lions, wolverines, lynxes, coyotes and wolves.  It really felt like a wild and dangerous place to be, and from my experience with it, I am much stronger and more able.
The best berry patch of the park happened to be...our campsite!  This meant bears, bears, bears! Bears where the hot topic of the campground.  From all this talking, I actually learned quite a bit about bears, their behavior and how to act in an attack.  Five black bears and two grizzly bears where residing in and around our campsite.  Rangers made frequent rounds to scare off bears by yelling and eventually by shooting them with rubber bullets.
The rules were:

Can't touch this

We could only walk Clovey in daylight and in open areas, no tent or soft shelled camping was allowed which meant we could not pop our top, NO FOOD OUT ANYWHERE/ANYTIME, you where not permitted to run in the campsite as bears would see you as prey and you always had you carry bear spray with you incase it came down to a confrontation.
Bears are typically not out to get people and are overall very timid, but as the bears became increasingly frustrated at being shooed away from their food source, they began getting violent with people in the campsite.  The rangers eventually and abruptly decided the campground had become too dangerous and closed it down without warning.  Wow what an experience!
In total we saw about fifteen bears in our six days in Glacier.  One of which was a very close encounter (from the car, thankfully).
One of my favorite animals we saw several times and also got very close to, about fifteen feet, was the long horned sheep.  They felt so majestic to me.  Almost like they only lived in books.  I loved their strong and fearless presence.
Until Glacier I had never heard of the peculiar looking white mountain goats.  They truly are a sight to behold, dwelling in the high mountains.  These goats survive winters in this harsh terrain by licking lichens off rocks with their adapted tongues! Sounds rough!
A funny animal story... I was talking with a friend in the campsite when I saw a dog trotting across the road. After a double take I realized it wasn't a dog! It was a coyote! I immediately ran to the car, grabbed my camera, ran after the coyote, jumped on a picnic table and snapped a pretty cool shot.
I hope you enjoy the pictures of our exciting animal encounters!
For a complete list of mammals in Glacier click here.
To find out more about the wildlife present in Glacier click here and select from the menu on the left.

Glacier National Park, MT - Part I

Not having ever seen a picture of Glacier National Park, it was for some reason sitting on the top of my "places to see" list.  The six long weeks spent at home were driven by getting to Glacier before the season ended.  We made it with eight days left in the three month season of the park!  Yes!! Considering school had already began there was an incredible amount of tourist. I can't imagine what the summer months must look like!
The famous Going to the Sun Rd. was completed in 1932 and to this day it is the only road going through the park.  In the same year the road was completed, Glacier became the first internationally operated national park in the world sharing the boarder between the U.S. and Canada.  In 1850, 150 glaciers could be seen in the park.  Today only 25 remain. It is estimated that by 2030 there will be no glaciers left.  I am so grateful to have experienced the park while glaciers are still present but I am greatly saddened by the inevitable disappearance of them.  I just hope that if I have children I can take them to see the glaciers before they are gone forever.
Driving along the road really felt like driving into the sun.  The fifty-three mile road hangs on the side of a mountain and is permeated with pull outs that lead to epic water falls, river access, hiking and breath taking views.  It was hands down the most beautiful place I have ever experienced: a relic of the ice age, a wonderland of nature and wildlife today.  As I like to say, "a playground for nature lovers".  We spent six incredible and unforgetable days in the park.  We plan on returning next year for more out of this world adventures!

Welcome to Montana!

Big sky country here we are! Excitement ran high as we finally reached our goal of getting to Montana and specifically Glacier National Park before it closed for the season.  Our route took us though the Bitterroot Valley where we took a magnificent hike along giant rock formations.  Darby was a notably cute town we stopped at to pick up produce at the seven stand farmers market.  The sky in Montana is two fold in size compared to any I have seen.  These gargantuan skies brilliantly lit up at sunset. Just before reaching Glacier, we slept in the nearby national forest at Lion Lake.  It was dark when we parked and in the morning we had quite the spectacular view when we pulled our curtains back!

Room with a view!

To my left: To my right

To my left

To my right

Along hwy. 93 in Idaho, you will find red rock formations with snaking rivers that are spotted with rustic log cabins. At times it almost felt like we were in the southwest.  Shortly before we reached Salmon, ID, Jadey (our WV) began screaming at us in a loud clank and squeak.  We quickly diagnosed her illness as a broken sway bar (again). A man dressed in camo from head to tow helped us secure it well enough to get to the next town.  We made it to Salmon and spent a few days there dealing with our little situation.  The town had charm but wasn't exactly geared towards our 'type'.  One bar had a sign outside that stated, "Take your granola loving, tree hugging, Subaru driving, wolf loving, politically correct ass out of here".  Since we could very well check off every item on that list, we decided to pass on stepping in! We did meet a Swiss cowboy in Salmon though and I can say without a doubt, that was a first!

Get all your essentials in Salmon

Bayhorse Ghost Town, ID

Off hwy. 75 in Idaho, in a sparsely sprinkled area of wood cabins sits the ghost town of Bayhorse.  This town popped up in the 1880's as a profitable mining town.  After many unfortunate incidences including a large fire, rich silver veins growing sparse and several severe winters the town withered away almost as quickly as it was built.  Left behind is a relic of the very hard and simple lives of miners and their families in the 18 & 1900's. This remote and snowy land tucked into a small valley between rocky ridges offered me great contrast to my life.

Hot Springs of Idaho: Part I

Visiting hot springs has been on my list of 'things to do' since we first left on our journey.  It wasn't until Idaho that we finally made it to one, or three to be exact.  Idaho is an easy place to begin your hot springing addiction.  We have a 'find a hot spring' app on our phone but it's no surprise that we typically don't have service in hot spring territory.  However, in Idaho, there is no need for such an app! Between labelled hot springs, following steam rising from rivers and word of mouth, it would be hard to miss the plethora of amazing springs.  Because the local Idahoans like to keep their beautiful state and their beloved hot springs private, we won't mention the names of the springs we visited.  I can say we found them all along highways 21 and 75.  We hope you enjoy the pictures of nature's bathtubs!

Take a bath
inside the shack