Thursday, September 26, 2013

September 25, 2013

Today started out looking pretty bad weather wise but we decided to head back to the mountains anyway.  Tom figured we could go looking for bear so he loaded up Alice's pockets with honey nut granola bars and some huckleberries...that should do the trick. Huckleberries are to Montana like blueberries are to Maine...a cash crop. After driving to the park entrance we decided to hike the Avalanche Lake Trail.
We are 2 miles from the lake, we've got a bottle of water, 4 granola bars, it's 45 degrees and we are wearing sneakers. (credits to  Blues Brothers for those that got it)  Besides that, we were not the oldest ones on the trail.  There was one woman wearing her slippers on the Cedar Trail which was actually a boardwalk for a short distance.

 These first 2 pictures show that the leaves haven't really changed much so far.





Before we got to the Avalanche Lake Trail there was a boardwalk that took us through a stand of Western Red Cedar.


 Some of them can grow as big as 13 feet in diameter as high as 230 feet, and can live for 1000 years.



 These small brooks were more active because of the light snow melt.


 You can see little streams of water coming down the mountains.


 This is a closeup of the previous picture for those who don't always wear their reading glasses.


We only got up to about 3300 feet today with a temp of 45 degrees.  it's is still another mile up to Logan Pass and another 4000 feet up to some of the mountain tops.


 You can feel the cold can't you?


The other day I mentioned that the predicted date for the last glacier to disappear was 2040.  The real date is 2030.  Don't worry, maybe they can petition for a change in the name of the park to "No Global Warming Here" National Park.


 We finally reached Avalanche Lake.  The lake was cold, greenish colored, and quite clear.  With all the other people around we decided that it was OK to have a granola bar and not worry about being bear food.


 Grammie did great hiking.  She kept the pace up in front and nobody passed us on the way up but we did pass several couples. 


 On the way back down we finally spotted some wild animals foraging for food.  I think they could smell the empty granola packages in our pockets.

It turned out to be a great day.  On the way back to Columbia Falls we had a piece of Huckleberry Pie...with Ice Cream.

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