Saturday, September 5, 2015

Glacier 2015

I love Glacier.  It has become one of my happy places.  We live 2.5 hours from East Glacier.  Summer was passing us by without a visit to Glacier so during Matt's week off in August, we loaded up the car and went camping in Glacier National Park.

We knew there were a few fires in Glacier, but we decided to go for it and hope for the best.  Our first choice campground (Two Medicine) was full by the time we arrived around 11 am.  So we headed to our second choice - Cut Bank.  There were a couple spots left.  It was smoky, but we decided to stay.  The air cleared a little shortly after we set up camp. 

Cut Bank is a great campground.  It's shady, quiet, small, a little stream runs next to it, and there aren't any facilities.  Florida single me hated camping so it's funny to write that I prefer a campsite without facilities - i.e. no running water, no electricity, no showers, pit toilets - because that keeps out the RVs and the loud campers.  We were the loudest people there.  I seem to write that a lot.  My family is at a very loud stage.  Our kids are 6, 4, and 2.  Sometimes I wonder when they will find their "quiet voices."  But in the meantime, their little (loud) voices keep the bears away.

When the air cleared we took a hike starting at the Cut Bank trailhead.  I think we hiked about a mile.  Even with the smoke, it was another gorgeous part of Glacier...


Willa and I found a wildflower and a leaf for every color of the rainbow.

 
We hung out at our campsite the rest of the evening.  We ate tinfoil dinners and s'mores.  I love tinfoil dinners.  So good!  Willa is in a stage that if it looks gross, it tastes gross.  She could barely eat her dinner.  The potatoes and meatballs and carrots and whatever else we put in them were too mixed up for her liking.  Everyone else gobbled theirs down.
 
Sometime in the middle of the night, Matt and I became very aware of the smell of smoke.  I remember being too tired to look out the tent to see if something was on fire.  I figured the winds had changed and the smoke was blowing in our direction again.  When we finally emerged from our tent when the sun came up, we discovered the winds had definitely shifted.  It was super smoky and there was ash on everything.
 
We left our campground to escape the smoke and spent the day in the Two Medicine part of the park.  We were rewarded with clear, blue skies.  Matt did a little fishing.  The kids and I hung out by Two Medicine Lake.
 

I loved it there.  I loved the water.  The rugged peaks.  The smell of pine trees.

 
My kids were the only people wearing bathing suits and playing in the water.  The air was warm - maybe 80 degrees.  But the lake was cold, cold, COLD.  My kids have become Montana kids.  Heat bothers them way more than cold does now.
 

After a few hours, the winds must have shifted again and we could see smoke starting to roll over the mountains.  It was actually kind of pretty.  We couldn't smell it.  It made for some interesting pictures.  We could tell it was coming from the direction of our campground, but we still took our time getting back.


We stopped to watch a herd of bighorn sheep...

 
And we did a little half mile hike to Running Eagle Falls.
 
 


As we were driving back to the campground, we drove a little ways out of the park and got some cell service.  We learned a new fire had started during the night.  We started to worry our campground would be closed.  Again though, it sure made for some cool pictures.  It was a strange feeling driving right into the smoke. 




Our campground wasn't closed, but it was SMOKY!  Here are some pictures taken around 3pm at our campground...


 
We decided to stay another night - right in the smoke - so we took naps and went about our day.  A ranger showed up around 5 or 6 and told us they were closing the campground.  Boo!  We understood why, but why did they wait until evening?  It was smoky all day.  It was too late to find another campsite so we just headed home.  It was still a great trip.  Glacier is just gorgeous!

Sheep Creek

During Matt's week off in August we went camping... twice.  We didn't want the summer to pass us by without camping in this beautiful state we live in.  We've had a busy summer with tons of company, our big Oregon trip, and a few mini trips.  Between all of that and Matt's busy work and church schedules, we hadn't found an opportunity to camp.  So we made it happen in August.

Our first camping trip was to Sheep Creek in the Little Belt Mountains.  Rain was predicted, but we risked it and ended up with fine weather.  It was chilly - it got down into the 40s during the night.  But the days were warm enough.


We camped at a fishing access point with a pit toilet.  We saw a few other fisherman, but no one else was camping.  All was quiet - except for the elk we could hear bugling in the distance and our children.

Wild raspberries were ripe along the river.  Willa and Oliver ate every one they could find...



 
Matt and the kids fished.  They didn't catch anything the first day.  The second day, an old man took us to a little fishing hole he had luck at.  Clark caught a little trout on the first try.  But we didn't catch any other fish.


Willa and I had a competition to see who could find the coolest natural thing. 
I found the raspberries.  She found a bird's nest.  Unfortunately, we didn't select a judge so we couldn't pick a winner.

Willa and her nest
We spent our evening sitting by the fire.  We roasted hot dogs and marshmallows.  Oliver didn't do so well during the night.  He's barley 2.  He refused to go to sleep until it was pitch black outside - which is late in Montana in the summer.  And he got up at first light.  That made for a short night and a tired Oliver.  I was worried about him being cold in the night so I pulled him in my sleeping bag to keep him warm.  That made for a tired momma.  Willa and Clark were great.  They had cold weather sleeping bags and slept soundly.

We headed home before lunch the next day.  We actually stopped on our way home and bought two more cold weather sleeping bags.  We live in Montana.  We need winter sleeping bags in the summer when we camp in the mountains.  We didn't bother unpacking our gear when we got home since we knew we were going to camp again that week.  We just did some laundry and unpacked the cooler.