06.26.09
Glacier day 4 - Lael says
Today was a full day of fabulous scenery. Our plan was to go up Going to the Sun Road as far as we could get. Going to the Sun Road is the only road that crosses the continental divide within the park. It doesn’t have the altitude of Trail Ridge Road in Rocky Mt. Nat’l Park, but it is above tree line and has a spectacular view. The road was still partially closed until they could finish clearing snow and doing repairs to make it passable after the winter hardship.
We left our lane and came across the electronic informational sign for the Park. It announced that the West Road, our side, was open all the way to Logan Pass. We’d be able to make it to the top of the continental divide. The trip was lovely. The first two-thirds of the trip were past sights we’d already seen. But shortly after the point where we turned back before, the road started to rise, and our pace slowed.
The road twists and turns ’round the sides of the mountains. If you’ve seen photographs of the park, you know that it is an enormously up-and-down place. Close uphill sides and sharp drop-offs are the rule. It’s a very narrow road. We made lots of stops and saw lots of sights. Passed through an enormous avalanche area with tons and tons of wood twisted and piled up and down the hillside. The crews had cut the right of way through the piled trees. The piles of trees were above the doors of the car.
We waited 15 minutes in line for a guide car to take us through reconstruction and we went on up the hill. We stopped at a handicap accessible overlook before we reached the summit. We went out onto the boardwalk and found hoary marmots. A pair of them were frolicking under the boardwalk. In all reality they were probably saying, “Oh, crap! There goes the neighborhood.”
We reached Logan Pass and went on up to the visitors center and while looking around I overheard a park ranger say that the East side should be open within the hour. We killed some time and had a picnic lunch in the parking lot. When we headed out we found the road open to the East. We went on over the pass.
We got down to the St. Mary Lake boat landing at Rising Sun, and turned back. We stopped at the summit again and I walked up the hill a ways to watch the skiers and snowboarders on the snowfield behind the visitors center.
I think of the environment in the pass as being an extremely inhospitable place. But there are ground squirrels on the peak. Huge ground squirrels. Fat, healthy ground squirrels. We’d seen ground squirrels further down in the valley, but they were pigmies compared to the giants at the summit.
Here and there around the park there are informational displays about the warming of the park and the change of habitat that is going on in the park. There are several critters in the park including one called a pika that cannot tolerate warm temperatures. They survive the winter by stockpiling 40 pounds of straw per pika under overhangs and in burrows. Their life cycle is dependent on the snow and growth patterns that take place at high altitudes here. They survive in a fairly narrow range of climates. That range of climates may disappear from the park.
The highlight of the day was at the end of the descent from the pass. We came around the corner and a hundred feet ahead on the road was a black bear. It was just ambling across the road. We were delighted. We only saw him for 8 or 10 seconds but it was the exciting capper of the day.
I’ve updated the gallery with new pictures from today tacked onto the bottom. Sorry, no pictures of the bear.