Off to tour Glacier National Park, the 10th National Park The Park spreads into Canada as well as the US known as the Waterton Glacier International Peace Park. It took the Rotary clubs of Montana and Alberta 30 years to accomplish this. It is home to 1.4 million acres, 1200 species of flowers, 200 birds, 60 mammals, 700 miles of trails, 76 paved roads, 200 lakes, and 100 waterfalls. "The Crown of the Continent" by George Grinnel.
The East side of the park is desert compared to the west side that gets 10-15 inches more of rain a year. The park is on the west corner of Montana and the picture below shows the park. If you cut the park in half, this is the trip we took on the red jammers.
We took Rt 89 form Browning to St Mary. St Mary Lake is 255 feet deep, 11 miles long and 1/2 mile wide. It is the second largest lake in the park and a mere 55 degrees at the moment. The lake turns turquoise depending on the sediment.
We are off to ride the Jammers which are bright red. They travel the 50 mile road called Going to the Sun Road which was completed in 1932. The highest peak in this part of the park is Mt Cleveland which is 10,446 feet.
We see some breath-taking views and sights including climbing snow fields . The kids immediately collect snow to put down our backs! As we travel through the park we are on the lookout for Grizzly, black Bears, elk, moose, Rocky Mountain goats, long-horn sheep- the usual suspects. We didn't see much except goats, The end of the tour takes us to Lake MacDonald which is 450 feet deep, 10 miles by 1-1/2 miles and mighty cold!!!
There have been many fires in Glacier over the years. In 2007 11,000 acres were burned and the latest in 2015 burned about 5,000 acres.
At the end of our Jammer ride and tour we ended up at Lake MacDonald where Amanda and David decided to wade in the water and freeze their feet!
Now we are going back to Glacier Lodge to do laundry.
see you tomorrow....
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