Crypt Lake

Monday was our first "big" day hike. I was trying to decide between two popular hikes in Waterton (Crypt Lake or Carthew-Alderson), but as it turned out, only one of them was even passable due to snow. So, Crypt Lake it was!

We had a very clear, warm day for the hike. The only drawback was that since you have to take the boat to and from the trailhead, you have to be on a schedule. We checked out of our grand little cabin and drove down to catch the 9am boat out. There were two possible return times--4pm or 5:30. We decided we'd shoot for 4.

The hike is fairly strenuous--about 11 miles round trip, with 2300 ft in elevation gain. We also took a little side trail to "Hell Roaring Falls" which added a bit of time (the falls were not really *that* spectacular we thought, but we DID see some very fresh bear scat on the trail--like still steaming fresh. We never saw the bear, but some other people on the hike did. Luckily it just ran off and it was no big deal.) Anyways, it was a great hike but we did have to hurry at the end in order to get back in time for the 4pm boat.

There was a fair bit of snow towards the end, which made things a bit more interesting and a little more strenuous, but the snow conditions were not dangerous (no steep snowbanks near cliffs or anything). I was a little nervous in a few places, but if I had slid down the snow I would only have gone a little ways and then stopped--no fatal injuries possible.

At one point you have to climb up a ladder and through a tunnel, although it really wasn't nearly as extreme as I had been led to believe--no big deal at all.

We managed to lose one of the two cans of bear spray we had with us somewhere on this hike, so if anyone finds one lying around up there... In case anyone is snickering at the idea of "bear spray" like I did when I first heard the term (for some reason it sounded funny to me, like bug spray that repels bears instead of bugs or something), it's actually very serious stuff--like super powerful mace spray that, when sprayed in the face of a grizzly, is very effective in convincing her not to maul you.

Actually, for some reason the loss of the bear spray made me very grumpy for a little while--probably because it was Kevin who lost it (it probably fell off his pack at the lake where we ate lunch--but it's so much easier to be grumpy at someone ELSE for something like that), and it's rather expensive--$30-$50 depending on where you buy it. Actually, this can didn't even belong to us but to the Bad Rock B&B owners, who had lent it to us. We had bought one more can, so that we could each have one. So we figured we'd just have to give the one we bought back to them instead since we lost theirs. Not to give away what happened later, but my grumpy "how could you have lost that??" reaction definitely came back to haunt me later! I got over the grumpies soon, though, and then we could enjoy the rest of the hike. :)

When we returned to the townsite we got smoothies at a little coffee shop and then drove back down to the good old U. S. of A. I made Kevin stop at the Bison Paddock first though--and we saw a bunch this time! Yay!

The border crossing back into the US was a little more involved on the way back (they looked in our trunk, etc.) but still not too bad.

We had dinner (and pie of course, since that is what they are famous for) at the Park Cafe in St. Mary. We had an interesting conversation with a ranger who was sitting next to us who happened to be the guy in charge of all of Waterton National Park. He was interested to hear what we thought while we were there, but I think we hit on a touchy subject when I mentioned how much more expensive the entry fee is on the Canadian side to enter Waterton than it is to enter Glacier on the US side ($35 gets us in for a whole YEAR to Glacier, but it was $47 for just three days' entry fees into Waterton). But, he did mention that they are thinking of doing a combination pass option--maybe we helped persuade him to work more to get that going. :)

Anyways, we stayed the night at a place called the "Bessie Shannon bedroom" at the Johnsons of St. Mary, which was an interesting place. It was a huge room (2 queen beds, 2 easy chairs, TV with satellite channels, fridge, microwave) that sits above their restaurant. It was eclectic and cluttery, with lots of old dolls and knicknacks and such--much like staying in at your old grandma's house--except a lot more expensive! Everything around there is expensive, though, because there's about 3 different choices and that's it. The East side of the park is VERY small--very remote with a few little stores, a couple of restaurants, and lots of demand. Which all adds up to expensive. It was nice enough, though. The Johnsons also had a campground and some cabins, and they had a laundromat and free wifi, which was good news (even if it was PAINFULLY slow--just ask Kevin.)

I tried to do laundry that night, in fact, but I didn't have any quarters, except Canadian ones, and the office was closed. Instead, we washed out a few things in the sink and saved the rest for tomorrow. We were pretty pooped from our long day, so we were happy to relax and just go to bed!

A Waterton Sabbath

We spent Sunday in Waterton Lakes. Unlike Glacier, inside the park boundaries of Waterton Lakes there is a little townsite with shops and houses and even churches. I discovered that our Church even has a little chapel in Waterton Lakes, and a congregation that meets during the summer only. That was one of the reasons we worked it out to be in Waterton on Sunday--it made it easy to attend church and still have time to take in some nice scenery.

So in the morning, we got up and ate our "self-catered" breakfast from the B&B, then drove down the dusty dirt road to the highway and then down the highway to Waterton townsite. Our B&B was about 30 minutes north of Waterton. I *tried* to get us lodging right in the townsite, but everything was either booked up or else cost $300 a night! The place we stayed was actually pretty pricey too, but not *that* bad. It was a fantastic place, out in the middle of nowhere. It was this big, fancy, spacious cabin with a kitchenette and living room. And a wood-fired hot tub, which we LOVED. The cabin was in the midst of rolling prairie land, overlooking a river below (with the mountains in the background). No cell phone reception, no internet access--just sitting under the stars relaxing in a silent hot tub with the river babbling below you...Ahhhhhhh.....

Anyways, I digress. Where was I? Oh yes--we went to church. We went expecting a tiny little Branch, but the place was packed! I guess they have a lot of tourists and summer employees that attend throughout tourist season. I was surprised to find that they only had Sacrament Meeting and Sunday School, though--so church was only 2 hours instead of 3.

After church we had a picnic lunch and then drove over to check out the "Prince of Wales" hotel (remember that $300 a night price tag I was talking about earlier?) We sat in the lobby and enjoyed their live piano music as we looked out across the lake. We could see a bunch of people having the $30 "High Tea" service, with lots of fancy pants pastries and stuff. We chilled for a while in the lobby and enjoyed the same views but minus the pastries.

Next we drove to a place called Cameron Lake. Kevin skipped a few rocks, and we walked around the lake shore. Cameron Lake was really lovely--and you don't even have to hike to it. Big payoff with little work! :) We also did a short walk through the woods to a smaller, less impressive lake called Akamina.

We drove along a roadway in the park just for a nice scenic drive and saw our first bears--a momma and two cubs. They were walking along the road. Being that our car top was down, Kevin didn't want to get too close, so our picture looks mostly like brown blobs. But they are bears, I promise!

We took a drive through the "bison paddock" too, but they were all hiding in a grove of trees and we could barely see them. AND I forgot to bring my binoculars--dang! I was sad.

We were about ready for dinner by this time, so we headed back to the B&B. We had bought stuff the day before to cook on the outdoor grill for dinner, which we did with much success...EXCEPT for the part where we melted the grill brush that was sitting on the upper rack! Oops! Kevin worked reeeally hard to get the plastic all off of the grill so that it wouldn't be ruined, but there was no hope for the brush itself. The owner was really nice about it, though. I think it helped that the occupants of the other cabin had just broken a whole coffee table, and the grill brush paled in comparison.

Grill brush snaffu nothwithstanding, it was a really nice Sabbath--relaxing, inspiring, and all-around pretty perfect.

Going to the Sun

On Saturday, after another scrumptious breakfast from our B&B, we checked out and took off driving. The plan for the day was to drive across the famous Going to the Sun Road (henceforth referred to as GTTSR), doing a couple of hikes along the way. Then, we'd head up to Canada where we'd spend the night.

In case you haven't heard of the famous GTTSR, I shall explain. Back in the 20's, the National Park Service decided to build a 50 mile road straight across the interior of Glacier National Park, winding up around mountain passes and back down as it traverses east to west. It was quite the engineering feat for that time (and still, really), and it continues to be a major feat each year to get the road plowed for the tourist season. (The plows have to deal with up to 80 feet of snow on that road!!) In fact, this year, they only finished plowing it a couple of days before we drove it, because of a series of snowstorms that came in May.

I was very glad that it was open, and also that we had fantastic weather that day and could enjoy the whole thing with the roof down in the convertible. (Well, except for the "Weeping Wall" where we opted to put it back up briefly...) The whole thing was...hmm, words fail me. Spectacular? Awe-inspiring? Unforgettable? Check, check, and check. The most beautiful drive I've ever been on? Yes, I think so!

About half way across, we stopped at Logan Pass, which is also the highest point on the road (well, actually we stopped lots of times before that for pictures, but this was the first "real" stop). I had plans to hike the short (3 mi round trip, if I remember correctly) trail to Hidden Lake, which everyone says is a not-to-be-missed hike full of alpine meadows brimming with flowers, spectacular mountain scenery, and a gorgeous lake at the end.

The only problem? Logan Pass was still covered by about 5 feet of snow! Not to be deterred, we decided to snowshoe it. (Our awesome B&B host lent us a bunch of equipment, including snowshoes, crampons, and hiking poles. Thanks, Mark!)

I was excited because I've always wanted to try snowshoeing. It *was* lots of fun, but it was also quite exhausting to snowshoe up those hills! I think the snow made it much more strenuous than the hike usually is, so it took us probably a whole extra hour. When we got to the lake at the end (which was still frozen over), we ate our lunch while fighting off aggressive ground squirrels.

Overall, it was still a fun and beautiful hike, although I sure didn't see any wildflowers! Maybe someday I'll get to hike it later in the summer.

After we got back to Logan Pass, we climbed back in the car and started the descent down the other side of the pass. It continued to be beautiful, and we continued to be flabbergasted.

We had intended to do another short hike to a waterfall at the end of the road, but since Hidden Lake took longer than expected, we opted to save that for another day.

Once we made it to the end of GTTSR, we turned north and headed up towards Canada. We were planning on spending the next couple of days in Waterton Lakes National Park, which is across the Canadian Border. Glacier and Waterton are really one continuous park--it just changes names when you cross the border. In fact, the two are officially known as the "Glacier-Waterton Internationl Peace Park."

I'll talk more about Waterton later--for now, all you need to know is that we made it safe across the border, checked into our next B&B, bought some outrageously expensive groceries, and ate dinner at a place called Zum's. We split a milkshake for dessert, which the waiter insisted we drink the "cute way" with two straws rather than two cups. Awww.

And THEN, went back to the B&B and relaxed in their WOOD-FIRED HOT TUB! More on that (and pics!) later too. For today, I'll just leave you with the vision of us driving off into the Canadian sunset.

Five Years' Celebration!

Friday was our actual anniversary day (FIVE years--I *still* can't quite believe it's really been that long). We planned an action-packed adventure of a day to celebrate.

First of all (after an amazing breakfast made by our B&B), we went to Whitefish Ski Resort and did their ziplines. It was way fun, even if only 3 of the 6 were open that day (at least they gave us half our money back, though). We splurged and bought some of the pictures their professional photographer took of us, because they were MUCH better than ours! (Plus, I couldn't exactly get out my camera right in the middle of a zipline). What a blast! Someday we'll have to go back and do the other 3. :)

After ziplining we went back to the B&B and ate some brown bag lunches we had made, and put our swimsuits on underneath our clothes because next up, we had whitewater rafting on the schedule! We went with Glacier Guides, and it turned out to be a private rafting trip for the two of us, because no one else had signed up for our time--score! We had to wear wetsuits because the water was barely above freezing--coming, as it did, straight from melting glaciers. It was my first time rafting ever (I've done canoeing and kayaking before, but never rafting). I thought it was quite thrilling, but Kevin (who has been on lots of rafting trips) thought it was a little "tame." Nevertheless, we had a fun time. At the beginning it was rainy and windy and we were pretty cold, but it let up later and we had nice weather. The mountain views in the background were a definite bonus.

We splurged AGAIN and bought a picture from their photographer too (we couldn't even take our camera on the raft for fear of it getting wet and ruined). Perhaps I was too caught up in our fun day to really make a wise economic choice about the photos, but hey--they're fun to have.

After rafting we went back and changed again, then went to dinner at a place called the Three Forks, which our B&B host assured us was a "four star chef at three star prices." It did not disappoint! I'm trying to remember exactly what we ate, but mostly I just remember it was good. I know mine was some sort of meat (chicken?) involving a sauce with huckleberries.

We unfortunately had to do our laundry that evening (what a romantic anniversary activity, right?) but at least the B&B had machines we could use, which were located in a game room with a pool table and an air hockey table, so had good entertainment while we waited for the dryer. Even if Kevin DID win practically every game....

Our first day in heaven. I mean Glacier.

On Thursday, we got up early (although not as early as the day before!) and flew to Kalispell, Montana. I was relieved to find that our backpacking packs fit in the overhead bins with lots of room to spare, and we didn't even have to wrestle anyone to the ground for the space. We had one layover in Minneapolis--not too bad, especially considering we were going on frequent flier miles.

We arrived in Kalispell about noon, and went and picked up our priceline-bid-for Mustang convertible. I was soooo excited to get that car--I bid just a little higher than an economy car would have been, and the bid was accepted--yay! It was a pretty sweet ride, I must say--and SO great for taking in all those mountains!

Anyways, we immediately put the top down and drove the 30 minutes or so to Columbia Falls, where were staying at a Bed and Breakfast called the Bad Rock B&B. We stopped along the way and had some incredible sandwiches at Montana Coffee Traders (but no coffee, don't worry).

The owner of our B&B was a retired nuclear chemist with a Southern accent and a humorous disposition. Their B&B was outstanding--highly recommended if any of you all are ever looking for a place to stay in Columbia Falls, Montana. :) We chatted with the owner a bit, unpacked our stuff, and then headed off for our first foray into the park.

We hiked to Avalanche lake, which was a nice easy hike to start out with. It's four miles, round trip, with just 500 ft elevation gain. Most of the hike was through some lush wooded areas, along a rushing river and deep gorge. Then at the end, the landscape opens up to this gorgeous lake surrounded by cliffs with numerous waterfalls streaming down them. We thought the hike was beautiful and we were very impressed by the scenery.

After the hike, we drove back to Columbia Falls, stuffed ourselves with ribs and fry bread from a restaurant called the Back Room, picked up some groceries at the Super One grocery store nearby, and then turned in for the night. What a great day! One of my strongest memories from that day is just how GOOD everything smelled. All that crisp mountain air. The area was filled with cedars and pine trees, and driving around with our open aired car was just so invigorating.

The vacation begins...

Last Wed, we left our house early--in the middle of the night, really, as far as I'm concerned. It was *before* sunrise (I know, I know--there's a sunrise too?? Who knew?). We'd called a taxi the night before and scheduled a 5:15am pickup. (I couldn't bear to ask any of my friends to give us a ride at that ungodly hour). I had good intentions of getting ourselves to bed early the night before, but it was not to be--with last minute packing to finish and Kevin trying to finish work stuff up and so forth, it was after 1am before we went to sleep. So, needless to say, we were tired.

We caught the 6:05 Amtrak train to Chicago--we paid extra for a sleeper car, which we have learned from past experience is TOTALLY the way to go--comfortable, private, free meals, treated as a "first class" passenger (allowed to board early and so on), and of course, the seats fold into beds! Awesome. We thought we'd be able to get some z's on the way to Chicago, but actually neither of us ever did fall asleep. We did eat a nice breakfast and at least *tried* to sleep, but we arrived in Chicago still groggy and sleepy.

This vacation was actually all about Glacier National Park in Montana, but I decided to tack on some sightseeing in Chicago before and after, since our plane left from there anyway. So the plan was to spend the day in Chicago, then sleep at a hotel near the airport before our flight the next morning. We "only" live about 3 hours south of Chicago, but we rarely make it up there, and there were lots of things on my list that I'd been wanting to see.

I'd planned a jam-packed day of fun sightseeing stuff in the Windy City, but it turned out to be the Rainy City that day, so things had to be rearranged somewhat. Ironically, I had previously spent like 30 minutes agonizing over whether or not to take up precious luggage space by packing the umbrella. I finally settled on bringing one, but when stashed our bags in a locker at the Amtrak station, I forgot to take out the umbrella from the bag. So, naturally, it was raining steadily when we exited the station. It made me grumpy, but actually it wasn't *too* much of a disaster.

We spent the morning by going to the top of the Sears Tower (actually called the Willis Tower now) and standing on their glass-floored skydeck, wandering among Impressionist masterpieces at the Art Institute, and eating lunch at on the 7th floor of Macy's (formerly Marshall Field's).

Then, we took a bus (and consequently learned what it feels like to be jammed into a sardine can) to Navy Pier, where we got tickets for a river boat architecture tour and for the ferris wheel and other Navy Pier rides. We had bought "Go Chicago" cards, which covered everything we did this day and saved us lots of money. They were only good until 5:30 that evening, but in the case of the architecture tours, you just showed the card and then could pick up tickets for tours later in the day. Also, the man at Navy Pier told us the ride tickets didn't expire, even though the Go Chicago cards did. So, having picked those up, we had our evening activities all set.

We next rented bikes (also covered by the Go cards) and rode them along the lakefront down to the Field Museum and the Aquarium. By this time, it had stopped raining and was instead swelteringly hot and humid. But we enjoyed the ride nonetheless. The museum and aquarium were neat, but we were really running out of steam by this time, so we left a bit early to give ourselves plenty of time to ride back before the bikes were due. It's a good thing we did, too, because it started raining as we rode, and as we were arriving back at Navy Pier, the rain started to be torrential.

We decided now would be a good time to go inside and get some dinner. I was hoping that by the time we were done, the rain would have stopped or at least let up, but oh no--if anything, it was raining even harder. AND, there was a tornado watch and/or warning (we heard different things from different people), so pretty much everything was shut down for the evening--our architecture tour was canceled, and the ferris wheel wouldn't be running. I was able to get a rain check ticket on the tour, and luckily our Navy Pier tickets didn't expire, so we could use them when we got back to Chicago. But, it was a little disappointing to not go up on the ferris wheel and see all the lights at night, especially since we had done that the night we got engaged! Ah well. We were so tired by then, actually, that it was somewhat of a relief to just take a taxi to just ourselves to our hotel for the night and rest.

It wasn't the perfect start to our vacation, but we did have some good times that day. The crowds and heat/humidity certainly made more more excited to be going to Montana the next day!

Quit bugging me!

Yesterday I decided to work in our garden--pulling weeds and harvesting some green beans and so forth. (It really needed it, since we've been gone out of town for a week and a half and weeds grow like, um, weeds around here.) It was late afternoon, not dusk or anything, but I still got myself about 10 enormous mosquito bites that itch like the dickens. (Do the dickens itch?) These are not your run-of-the-mill bites, either--we're talking like two inches across, giant welt-looking mosquito bites. AND, to top it all off, I got stung by a bee or hornet or wasp or some such painful stingy creature. But, I did get a nice juicy bell pepper out of the deal. Not much of a bargain, actually, I have to admit.