| MONTANA Day 4 and beyond |
| Continue to Day 3 |
| Continue to Day 3. |
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| Farewell to Many Glacier. Here are the rapids at the lake outlet. We continued back to the Going-to-the-Sun road, stopping at Sunrift Gorge, which is a little upstream from the picture at left, but doesn't make a very interesting picture. On to the hike to St. Mary's Falls (below). Doesn't look like much, but there's a much more powerful top section. We went up to the top, where Louise was very careful, then a few feet upstream, where she was far less careful and slipped on some fungus, eventually catching herself with her excellent hiking shoes and a patch of clean rock. I don't want to dwell on how close she was to the water, or how steep the rock was, but I'm pretty sure that moment will be etched in our memories forever. |
| By this time, Maddie was exhausted, and wanted to do little more than get to Whitefish and the hotel, and play some computer games. She'd been a TREMENDOUS sport to this point. Hell, even including this point. Many two-mile-plus hikes over some interesting terrain, and a lot of time in the car. We considered a brief hike on the other side of Logan Pass , but the "Approx. time to park: 30 minutes" sign deterred us. Anyway, it started raining, so we hit the road. |
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| Whitefish, a cute ski resort town. Not my picture. |
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| Below, the view from the trail up Big Mountain. The summit was sensational, but I didn't take any pictures. Mountain ranges were visible in the distance, but not stark enough to make a good picture. But there were 360 degrees of them, which was stunning. |
| Arrived in Whitefish, swam in the indoor pool, ate dinner at a very good Italian restaurant, walked around town, slept like the dead. Lou and Maddie left the next day-- I stayed for a conference and took another hike that evening up Big Mountain. 4 miles, a half-mile rise in elevation, almost all of that rise in the last mile. |
| Postscript Great trip, and did and saw almost everything I wanted to. Two big omissions: never saw a moose or elk, never had huckleberry pie. I did have: huckleberry vinaigrette on my salad; huckleberry cream soda; huckleberry frozen yogurt; huckleberry wheat bear; huckleberries themselves; (all delicious) but no pie. I'll survive. Maddie did toss me a bone, leaving me a moose drawing when she left. So I guess it was a complete success. The End. |
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