Glacier National Park

Hey everyone.  Sorry to be so out of touch the past few days.  We arrived at Glacier National Park in northwestern Montana, saturday night.  We found a campground about 30 minutes into West Glacier.  Shortly after entering the park, you lose all cell phone reception.  So that is why none of you have heard or seen anything new on the blog.  If we don't have cell phone access, we don't have internet access.  We are currently on the outskirts of the park, doing some laundry, and we have access here, so I'm just trying to fill everyone in on the past few days.  We've been hanging out at the campground, and we took the scenic drive through the middle of the park.  Really magnificant wilderness out here!  Everything is so beautiful and many of it has been untouched for thousands of years!  Our current campground had a ranger talk last night, which we went to, all about bears.  How bears act, and live in the park, and how we as visitors can possibly incounter a bear, and what we can do.   Well this was much needed knowledge I'll tell you.  The ranger was really amazing as well as the one we talked to in the Badlands.  You can feel and see their enthusiasum and their passion for their job which can make your experience at the park all the better.  Anyway that same ranger was leading a hike this morning from our campground to Avalanche Lake, about 2 miles.  I really wanted to chicken out this morning and just say I'm too tired, or some excuse for not going.  Well God was really nudging me in a big way to go on this hike.  It was as if he was saying to me, "stop being afraid of everything and go on this hike!"  So I gave in and got Gus out of bed, ate breakfast and packed some lunch and water, and met the group to start the hike.  Man the scenery was amazing and was totally different way to experience the wonders of the park besides driving through it and stopping now and then to see a view.  The ranger showed us a lot of really old trees and rocks that have been there for 600 years or more!  We saw a gorge that was made by crystal clear glacier water, so amazing, which runs down from the glaciers in waterfalls, and cut away huge rocks to form the gorges, and lakes, and streams.   The trees and vegetation are amazing to look at as well and how different it can vary in different parts of the park.  Some huge areas have undergone forrest fires, and burn thousands of acres of the park.  Since the park is a protect and preserve kind of place, they don't remove these dead or burned trees and limbs.  Instead they decompose over many years and go back into the ground to nourish the next new plants that will grow there.  Recycling so to say.  Anyway, we got to the lake and sat to eat our lunch in the beauty of it all.  The ranger told us it would look like paradise and it sure did.  Like a tropic island!  Lush green plants, flowers, and trees surrounding the trail leading up to the lake itself.  We hung out for a while, saw a chipmunk up close in person.  The ranger said he would be hanging out there for a while, and if anybody wanted to head back feel free to do so.  There was many people out to the lake as well, and we decided to head back to the campground.  There was some periods of time walking back that we didn't see anyone on the trail.  We were surrounded by wilderness, trees and rocks and flowers, and the sound of the water flowing through.   We remembered from the ranger the night before if you're on a trail by yourself you should make noise to let the wildlife, (especially bears) aware of your presenc so you won't startle them.  So when we didn't see anyone around we started making noise.  Well, about half way back to the site, we had come up a hill on the trail, and the path ahead turned around this big rock.  We were about 30 feet away from the rock and what do we see but a big black bear come from behind the rock and onto the path ahead of us!   We stopped in our tracks, and just starred in awl at the bear.  He did the same as us.  We were pretty scared at that point but trying not to panic.  We started making a lot of noise as loud and as much as we could. The bear seemed pretty calm and docile, and walked a few feet towards us, then it headed down the bank towards the water, and out of site!  Gus and I just stood there in disbelief at what had just happened.  Our hearts were racing a mile a minute.   We stood there a minute waiting to see if anything else was coming behind that rock!  Nothing came so we started walking again.  Man that was some experience!  The word we decided to describe the feeling is "crazy awesome"!  The next couple we passed a few minutes later we told them we saw a bear, and just to make lots of noise.  The woman looked pretty scared.  I don't blame her but I would want to know a bear was nearby.  We also saw a white-tailed deer, which was so cool.  We were a bit closer to her and she seemed like she didn't mind that we were there.  We walked by her a bit until more people came by and then she got scared and ran away.  The rest of the way back was fine, of course we were still in amazement, and looking for another bear that maybe coming our way.  When we got back to the campground it was just starting to rain, and we got to our campsite and sat down outside on a rock to take a much needed break!  We saw a white-tailed buck walk next to our site, and earlier at the start of our hike we saw a snow shoed hare.  So all that I believe is why I was nudged to go on the hike today!  We are very glad that we did!  Well I won't be updated the blog again for a few days or so, whenever we have service again.  We are heading to the East side of the park tomorrow going to St. Mary campground.  We are very much anticipating our two friends Paula and Kevin to come in tomorrow from PA.  They are working on a tour of the park, and we get to hang out with them a few days before the tour starts!  We're so excited, so bye for now.