Glacier the final submission The hike out of the Bely River Valley was incredibly muddy. It was a testament to why pack animal and pedestrian trails are not always a good idea. In some spots we were literally slogging along through 6 inches of mud. With a full pack this is a little challenging at times. It required a bit of focus on each and every footfall. Other than that it was a great morning with a high big blue Montana sky. It was a little chilly when we got going and the vegetation was still very wet from the rain and snow that fell earlier so we were hiking in our rain pants, and considering the muddy conditions this was OK. We saw a couple white tail deer in one of the meadows not far from where we camped but other than that we didn’t see any wildlife. I think I mentioned before we got our back country permit that we had to watch the National Park Service video that tells you how to keep from being eaten by a bear, or how to enjoy your last moments alive playing dead before you get eaten by a bear. They suggest making a fair amount of noise and other such measures. This might not seem like such a big deal but after hiking a while, you really are more focused on simple things like breathing, checking out nature, or in our case that morning, not slipping and sliding in the mud. So we weren’t making all that much noise until we came upon a moose trail that crossed our path. I was amazed. I am very familiar with deer trails here in Ohio and so when I came upon what looked like someone had driven a roto-tiller across the trial it took me a little while to recognize what I was looking at. Rachel had continued on down the trail a bit and I called out to her to stop and check this out. So she came back and we took a moment to ogle the moose tracks and how much it had cut up the soil coming off the hillside and going down into the valley. As it turned out it was a good thing I called out. Shortly ahead of us the trail took a hard bend around a hillside. Rachel was hiking ahead of me and I saw her jump like she had nearly stepped on a snake. She turned and pointed at the ground and shouted something like “look and the size of these frikken tracks”. And yes my friends, a grizzly bear had been walking down the trail right toward us. I think when it heard us talking about the moose trail it had turned and headed down toward the river. As we continued to hike out we saw that the bear had also been walking the trail for quite some time, so it is quite likely that he detoured to avoid us. I took a picture of one of the tracks next to Rachel’s hiking boot for perspective. The funny thing about this was after seeing the bear tracks, we were both much more vocal for the remainder of our hike. About 11:00 we heard some folks coming down a series of switchbacks and they were making a lot of noise. We had stopped to take a break and when they passed us they said they had just seen a mother bear and a cub. The cub had climbed a tree and the mother bear had crashed off into the forest. Shortly after that Adam caught up with us. We figured he would catch us before we hit the trailhead as he was about as Rachel and combined and we had to take two and a half steps for every one of his. Anyway, we hiked out the rest of the way together and offered to give him a ride back to the train station. We had enjoyed our conversation with him the night before and it didn’t seem right to leave him sitting at a trailhead waiting for three of four hours for a shuttle. We enjoyed a spectacular drive down the east park boundary and really got a better since of just how big the park is. Something like 1500 square miles. The train station is right by the East Glacier lodge, which I wanted to check out anyway. These big old lodges are the source of great controversy in the park system. The overhead is huge and they need so much work. There is an on going debate about taking them down. When you see them however it is a look back into the grandeur of a different time. After dropping Adam off we continued to drive around the park with intentions of camping near the main gate. We were both looking forward to a shower and greatly disappointed to find out that none of the camp grounds in the center or on the west side of the parks had showers. So we decided we were heading for a dinner and a motel. After checking in at Cheap Sleeps getting a great shower I took my little girl out for a Montana steak dinner. Needless to say we had a good nights cheap sleep. The next day we planned on car touring the western portion of the park. This gave us yet another reason to drive past this coffee shop we had eaten at on our first morning in town. This place had killer breakfasts with wonderful muffins. I have to say that most of the meals I have bought in Montana have been pretty good; couple exceptions being one lunch at some casino near tiger town with Hollister, and a non descript burger in Zortman. That aint odd bad though! The west side of the park is where the big fire was a few years back and is it equally impressive as the east side in a very different way. We drove to a little town called Pole Bridge. Never saw the pole bridge but I am sure it had to be there. Nothing much else was. There is an amazing little mercantile store surrounded by a cluster of little buildings about 2 miles outside of the western park gate. This is at the end of maybe a 20 mile drive on a gravel road. We drove up to a beautiful place, Bowman Lake I believe, and took a hike and had lunch. And there I found one of the things I had hoped to find. Incredible quite. This is something I have only experienced a few times, where the quite is so profound it is stunning. This is something that should be protected just as much as piece of art or any endangered species. I could go on about this and perhaps I will some time, just suffice it to say it was something that I hope I would get to experience on the trip and on the west side of glacier we found it. On our hike out was stopped and took some photos by the lake, watched mayflies hatch off the water, and marveled at the total beauty on the place. While we were walking back to the car, we heard what we thought at first was someone turning a radio on. It was a fellow who had just sat down and strummed his guitar the waterside several hundred yards away. It was as loud as a ghetto blaster. We took our time getting back into town where we sat about preparing for our departure. Clothes to wash, equipment to UPS back home and a few more souvenirs to buy. The last element of the adventure was getting out of town on the last flight from Kalispel and then the last flight out of Chicago. Hurricane Gustave carried us out there and Hurricane Ike welcomed us home.
