Glacier National Park Part 2

While here in glacier we took the Red Bus Tour, drove the park road and also took a boat tour.  All were a lot of fun.

Today we did another longish hike up to Iceberg Lake.

 The lake is up there somewhere.

 The hike to the lake is very popular. From this hike you also see a waterfall and have the option to hike up some more to a tunnel through the mountains used to allow people travelling through the on horses.

 Earlier people had seen moose and bear off this trail but we never spotted either one.

 In the picture above you can see the actual Iceberg Lake. It was really neat and some people even were crazy enough to take a dip in the lake.

At the bottom we finally spied a bear!

 Not as much fun to see in a parking lot but at least we got to see this little guy.

And lucky for use we never saw his mom.

 We also took a drive across the border into Canada to visit their portion of the park.

 We saw another bear along the road!

 At their portion we stopped at the Prince of Whales Hotel.  They do high tea here but we didn't partake.

We did buy some Maple Cookies!

They also have a big lake which is the namesake of the park. Waterton Lake!

Waffles sounded great but we didn't have any.

Glacier Big Hike #1

For our first big hike in Glacier we started at Siyeh Bend and hiked the pass back down to another spot on the park road.  Using the park shuttle made this really easy and we didn't have to worry about driving into the park and finding parking.

The hike was really great. So many different views along the way, specially when you go from one side of the mountains through the pass to the other side.

Of course every great hike ends with Pie and Ice Cream!

More BLM Camping and Whitefish Mountain

 We stopped in a small town for iced coffee and a walk around. They were having a street festival with old cars and stuff.

The old cars out west are amazing, here is another old Jeep I'd love to own.

 After lunch we continued driving up toward our next stop some BLM Land up a mountain that has a Hot Springs onsite.

After an 8 mile dirt road up the mountain we were there. It was actually a very smooth dirt road.

 The hot spring goes way back but back in the day it was more rustic. Later it was shutdown for years but has been re-developed and it open again.

With our parks pass it is free otherwise it costs 5$ on the honor system of course it isn't manned.  But there are changing rooms and two tubs like this one.

 Since we are camping right here we managed to get them to ourselves a couple time. It was a weekend so 5 or 6 other cars of people did pop in now and then.

The view from the campsite was pretty awesome.

It even has a fancy sign which is out of character for BLM anything.

The dirt road continued over the mountains from Idaho into Montana. A nice woman came over in a beat up old truck camper and told us stories of how she had been here several times over the last 50 years.

 Back on the road the next day we stopped for lunch at this roadside museum. OK it was more of a junkyard organized like a museum.

It was a good way to take a break from driving, the West doesn't have nearly as many quick on the road side type of attractions as other areas of the country.

There is hardly a giant anything (Ball of twine, fruit etc.) to be found.

 We are staying in Kalispell MT a few days before heading into Glacier NP.

Nearby is Whitefish MT where there is a big skiing mountain. We almost came here last winter to ski but plans changed.

 Instead we are here in the summer and hiked to the top.

Craters of the Moon NP

 Craters of the Moon is really cool, it is a very recent at least in geological terms lava flow and eruption.

These awesome flowers don't seem to mine growing in volcanic debris.

While hanging out here we caught up with "Wild Bill" and his 2 dogs Owen and Glacier.  We did a few hikes and also drove out to see one of the first nuclear nuclear power plants.

Aaaah here is a Jeep Scrambler Pickup one of my dream old cars!

 My first tech job was at the Foxboro corp where I wrote the embedded software for some devices that measured the flow of materials. This is a old old predecessor of the meters I worked on.

 Checkout these wild trail description signs! They give you so much detail you almost can skip hiking the trail entirely.

Never seen any like it at any other park. But they seemed brand new.

Fossil Butte National Monument

Wall of fossils at Fossil Butte.

An ancient lake that spanned 4 different states once existed here. And it left behind more fossils than you could ever imagine.

 But even more fun than the National Monument was a fossil quarry on private land that we went to in search our own fossils!

 We spent a good half day splitting rocks open and finding fish fossils.

There is a small chance you find other things like leaves, shrimp or even turtles.

That was our pile of mine tailings.

 And this was the cliffside where we were splitting off of.

The owner was great and kept checking on us making sure we were finding stuff and having a good time.

 When you are finished they let you use some saws to cleanup the rocks containing your fossils.

We found dozens of intact fish and hundreds of fish where we had cut them in half.  And that was just in a half day.  Looking at this hill there are millions and millions of fossils waiting for people to split open.