After many miles of rolling hills, farmlands and wide open northern prairie,
(Canola crops were frequent in Eastern Montana)
we were indeed delighted to reach the campground in East Glacier National Park.
I felt like we should play Rocky Mountain High by John Denver.
What a delight to get back to beautiful mountain territory.
Our group is touring in a 1937 Ford Red Bus
Our drive from St. Mary to the Jackson Glacier on The Road to the Sun.
( The Road to the Sun is not open all the way to the West Entrance, so there is only part of the road available.)
Triple divide peak - one of the few places in the world where streams feeding 3 major watersheds originate. Glacier NP waters flow across the continent to very different places, the Pacific Ocean, Hudson Bay and the Gulf of Mexico.
Driving along these glacial lakes bordered by the gorgeous mountains is fabulous!
Luckily we found a place to park for a small hike and the weather was great.
Wildflowers were beautiful and this one blooms only every 7 years.
It is called Bear Grass.
It was named by Meriwether Lewis on his expedition.
He was instructed to learn all he could about the plants and animals
and send the information to President Jefferson.
No one knows why he chose that name because it has nothing to do with the bears and it is not a grass, but the locals always look forward to the blooming.
The Jackson Glacier
Now one of the 36 remaining active glaciers.
Before the popularity of automobile traffic, there were many local guides, as well as those with the Great Northern railway that let intrepid visitors on pack horse trips. There were about 1000 horses operating in Glacier.
Tunnels were constructed for the horse traffic under the road.
Today it is a lovely native stone culvert.
Running Eagle Falls
She was a warrior who claimed fame as the only woman warrior and they rewarded her with a sacred place to honor her.
This poor baby was just looking for Mama!
Alpine lake at the Two Medicine campground.
It has been a wonderful exploration of the East part of the Park.
I'm sure that Lewis and Clark were excited to see the mountains and had expectations of finding that there would be a waterway all the way to the ocean.
Since we haven't had very many comments on Lewis and Clark lately, here's an entertaining story of some of the 'misadventures'.
Meriwether Lewis had many 'close calls' throughout the Expedition.
There was the day in May 1804, not far from St. Louis, when he started sliding down a steep cliff face and saved himself with his long-bladed knife.
How about the time he nearly poisoned himself tasting mineral samples?
Or the day near Great Falls that he remembered thqt he had not reloaded his rifle - just before a huge grizzly started charging toward him.
Or the day that Lewis got shot in the buttocks:
The final near-disaster came on Monday, August 11, 1806 when Lewis took the near-sighted Pierre Cruzatte elk hunting. In all the brush and lack of good sight, Lewis was shot in the buttocks. Don't take a near-sighted companion hunting while wearing buckskin clothes.
A very painful experience (if not to say humiliating) that took 10 days of recuperation.
