Glacier National Park with Paula and Kevin!

Yeah, our Pennsylvania friends have arrived!  Paula and Kevin are out here to lead a photography tour in Glacier.  There is so much to see and hike here that we have been so busy.  Since we saw the black bear along the avalanche lake trail, we've moved to a campsite on the other side of the park- St. Mary, about  5 miles from Paula and Kevin's cabin in Rising Sun.  We've been at the park now for a week and it just gets more amazing and more beautiful everyday!   I literally have taken close to 1,500 photos!  Everywhere you turn there is a breath taking view.  We've gone on several hikes all throughout the park, and each one has something different and new to offer,  whether being wildlife, trees and flowers, and views of the mountains and glaciers, or amazing waterfalls, creeks, or lakes of clear blue glacial water!   Glacier is one of many International Peace Park, one of over a hundred in the world.  We also got to learn about some of the cultural aspects as well about the native American Blackfeet tribe.  We were privileged to meet some of them to get firewood, and they delivered it to our campsite, and sat down and talked about some of the trails they really like, and the Blackfeet stories related to them.  Another member was a ranger named Ali who told us about the Blackfeet history before the park became a park.  Many people come here to seek mental clarity, or a vision for the future.  I myself have been able to reflect on my own personal growth.  It's made me see that I'm happy to have given up a life in front of the television and to go out and see these magnificent places, and meet others doing the same.  To let more important things be on the top of my priority list, such as learning more about history of the land and the people, and more about nature and it's inhabitants.   Another thing we learned was that this beautiful wilderness is being affected by climate change as everything else is.  Researchers and scientists at and around the park believe the glaciers could all disappear by the year 2030.  That would change everything here, for the earth, the wildlife, and the people.  Glacier water plays a very important role for us as a water source! So this means, "by the year 2030, Glacier National Park will then have in common what every other development has.  A name for what used to be there."- Quote from Paula.   We saw more wildlife than we ever expected!  What a blessing seeing these creatures enjoying and living in their natural homes!  We saw, many different kinds of birds, squirrels, (which to me resemble more of a prairie dog!), mountain goats with their babies, big horn sheep, a grizzly bear, (not nearly as close as the black bear!), a hoary marmot, (sort of like a ground hog with a long tail), a Pika, (which is like a chinchilla), and today we saw a moose!  So cool!  We saw different forests, some thick with tall trees not allowing much sunlight to shine below, big wide open valleys where the sky and mountains go on forever, some areas have some of both, and others have been burned from fires.  It sounds very devastating but is sometimes welcomed due to insect infestation in the trees, or an area where nature has torn down trees and a fire would clear the area.  The burned trees will eventually decompose back into the earth to nourish the soil for new seedlings to grow.  Natures way of recycling!   Some trees are hundreds of years old, and very old rocks that were placed were they stand today hundreds of years ago by the glaciers, and much of the land has been untouched since the Native Americans once set up their camps many, many years ago.  We heard a man playing a bamboo flute in an open area that just amplified by the mountains, it was great.  We had a day or too to relax at our site, make some jewelry  and enjoy a campfire.  Paula had brought us some pizza from PA!  Boy do we miss pizza from PA!  We're not quit sure when we're leaving the park.  We want to figure out where we will go next before we leave.  Until then we are soaking up this big sky country!  We still need to visit one more place in the park called Two Medicine.  It's the first visited place of the park before the park itself existed.  A very sacred place for the Blackfeet.  We very excited to see it.  Then we can truely say we saw and experienced Glacier National Park.  I also wanted to mention that we do have service at our campsite, but not in most of the park.  We also wanted to encourage any of you out there enjoying this blog, to sign in as a follower.  Doing so would be very exciting for us to see the number of followers grow, and you could make comments about our journey, also very exciting for us, and we look forward to reading them!