Sweet Fatigue and Hail to the Marmot

Vacation isn't over today, but it really is.  Last day in Glacier and then we head back to fly out of Salt Lake City. 

Today was a sweet day.  We dropped off Nick for his dare-devil hike at 9:30am and didn't see him again until 3:30pm.  Cathi and I started off on a hike from the visitor center.  She had a knee replacement 6 months ago, so she has to be careful about how far she goes.  Today she was the poster child for knee replacements as she hiked a large portion of the Hidden Lake hike!  We had a great time scaling the mountain, talking to strangers and each other, and dodging small animals that seemed to be drawn to her.  She may be Cinderella, I'm not sure.  ;)

From there we went exploring in Apgar Village, which is inside the park, but nothing like the park.  A few hotels, gift shops, restaurants, and wait for it... WiFi and 4G.  We had a nice lunch and then headed back up the hill to wait for Nick.

When I say headed back up the hill, I mean about an hour drive.  :)  Things take a while when you're driving 25-40 mph.  

As we got settled we saw Nick Timmerman emerge from the trail exhausted, dehydrated and wearing his spare shirt on his head.  He found a couple people to hike with the last 2 hours as he was going through Grizzly country.  I introduced myself to the people he was hiking with which was funny, because as we were all exchanging names Nick and the hikers also exchanged names for the first time -- after two hours of hiking together and talking.  Apparently hikers just mostly talk hiking shop.  :)  

Also... a group of them hiking were charged by mountain goat on their hike, while on the overpass.  Nick said they had to cling to the mountain wall as the goat went running by.  Probably more dramatic than it sounds, but still a pretty amazing adventure while on a mountain overpass.  

So, that's the story about these happy trails. :)  Hoping all our family and friends can make it to these great places at some point!  My sister Mel texts me after every post and says she's on the next plane. lol.  :)  Hoping she gets here with or without me some day!

Until the next time!

Nick heading out on Highline Trail!

See the line through this picture?  That's what Nick is hiking on!

A Marmot that came to greet him as he hiked.

Beautiful flowers on Nick's journey.  See the ant on the middle flower?  Tiny tiny tiny flowers.  :)

More beautiful flowers on Nick's hike.

Chalet 7.6 miles into Nick's hike.  Granite Park Chalet built in 1914 and 1915.  No word on how they got resources up there or how the employees get up there for work everyday!

Taxidermy Marmot in the Visitor Center at Logan's Pass.  Love those teeth.  :)

Beautiful flowers and baby evergreen on Cathi and my hike of Hidden Lake.

Marmot posing for his senior pictures on Hidden Lake hike.

Some of our views.

These are all starting to look a little the same to me.  :)

Trying to get a picture of Nick's hike from our the view of our hike.  The major line through the mountain is the car road, the line above it is the Highline trail.  Really no way to show the immensity of what he hiked, but an attempt.

Blessed to have great parents and great in-laws.  So glad my mother-in-law was able to come with us.  Nick and I have been married for 17 years, which means in this picture I'm as old as she was when Nick and I got married and she and Jeff  and the boys became my family.  I've learned from her and laughed with her a lot over those years.

Life - A Grand Adventure

Well, today started slow but turned into pure magic.  I negotiated a start time of 7:30am which seemed more humane than the 6:30am that Nick was proposing.  His hearts desire for many years has been to hike Highline Trail.  You can see the start of the trail in a picture here.  http://www.hikinginglacier.com/glacier_photos/highline/the-ledge.jpg  He came several years ago in June and the entire area was still under snow so they shut down the passage.

Unfortunately, when we got to the starting point it was raining, windy windy windy and cold.  Quite miserable.  Cathi and I were going to start the trail with him and Nick was going to go on for the remaining 13-16 miles (depending on which way he went).  Let me tell you, there was no small amount of planning involved in having one car and no cell phone coverage for three people in a huge national park.

My big takeaway from this trip is that you canNOT out plan my mother-in-law.  If you need anything (including a first aid kit), she has it.  It's been a life saver several times on this trip.  Additionally, she always has good food with her.  YAY for us!  Also, if I was planning a crisis team, her and my dad would be my first two picks.  They seem to know how to shut the fear down and go into action.  I on the other hand would be oblivious to the fact there's an issue and would probably be trying to find a Snickers bar I dropped between my seat in the car.  What can I say... we all have different gifts.  ;)

Eventually Nick made the decision to try again tomorrow and we voted to go to Canada!  Glacier National Park is an International Peace Park that is connected with Alberta, Canada.  Fortunately we all brought our passports along, so we were golden.

Another beautiful park and the pictures will tell that story, but we also stopped and got yummy hotdogs at an awesome lunch place that served FREE POP!?  I couldn't believe it.  I think I was like a three year old that found out they were getting an ice cream cone.  Apparently saving me $2.50 is really all I need to be happy.

From there we headed back to glacier (it's now about 3:00pm) and the rain had stopped.  The wind was still whipping and was cold, but not nearly as miserable and the cloud and fog had lifted so you could actually see something.  So... we decided to head out.  Highline trail skirts the highway below and is very high in the air... oh.. and... it's a ledge on a mountain (for the cool part).  Soo.... this came with several free lectures from my husband.  I think the long and short of it is we were all comfortable doing it, but none of us were comfortable watching each other do it.  I wish we could have gone further, but we only went about 1/2 way out on the ledge and then came back.  This also included several free lectures from Nick.  It was AWESOME!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  I have no words for what holding on to a garden hose, bolted on to the side of a monolith ledge overlooking the most glorious scene (you wait for Noah's ark to land and all the animals to get out - it's that beautiful) you will ever see is like.  No. Words. I guess those are words though. lol.  :)

In the spirit of editing I'll cut to scene 3, once we came down from Highline we headed out on a short hike on Avalanche Creek.  How God dreamed up so many beautiful things in one place that man hasn't managed to destroy is still beyond me.  I have said so many times on this trip, "this is really something special."  And it is.  You feel so small... but in a good way, as Nick says.  It makes me weepy just thinking about it... but what doesn't make me feel that way.

Well... on to the beauty, enough of the words.

The fog and clouds over everything this morning.

Alberta, Canada - Watertown National Park

Alberta, Canada - Watertown National Park

Wild flowers by Highline Trail

Me!  On Highline Trail!  AWESOME!!

The view from the middle!  How amazing!

My husband, the adventurer, adventure planner and all around amazing fellow.

Nick and Cathi loving the Highline Trail.

Beauty.

Uprooted tree on the Avalanche Creek trail.

That water, is THAT blue.  No lie. Not joking. So mind blowing.

Further up the falls from the picture above.  On the Avalanche Trail.

Amazing what these trees grow in, on and around.

Cats out of the bag, Nick's a tree hugger.  :)  He doesn't even really try to hide it.

Nick lovin the land.

LOL!!!!!!!!!!!!! ha ha!!

Balance Beam

Skiing through the creek

That's all folks.  This day feels like there were three years packed into it.  Awesome, awesome, awesome.

Beauty as far as the eye can see...

We spent most of yesterday traveling from Big Timber to Glacier.  We started off from my aunts about 9:00am and didn't roll in until around a time I can't quite remember.  On the way we picked up Nick's mom (Cathi) from in Bozeman and began the next phase of our journey!

Today was quite the day!  We hit the road about 9am and got back about 7pm.  We drove for most of the time, with lots of pulling over in between as well as a boat tour of St. Mary's Lake.  The scenery was breathtaking and very different from Yellowstone.

The weather changes on a dime and today was overcast, but I think that made for some awesome scenery.  At some points you can almost touch the clouds because you're so high in the air and the clouds are so low when it's overcast.

The boat tour was fascinating as well.  The tour guide knew a lot about the boat we were riding on (build in the 1920's) as well as the geology of the area.  It was cool to be able to ask all your most pressing questions and get real answers.  For example as we were driving here about 2-3 hours from arriving at Glacier a haze started covering everything.  When I asked our guide about it today she said it was from the forest fires that had been taking place in Canada.  Amazing how far it reaches!

Beautiful start to the day

Nick and Cathi

Mountain Goat, he's in a study.  :)  He has a tracker on his neck, so he kind of looked like a large Scottish Terrier with a collar.  :)

One of the views from the boat tour on Saint Mary's Lake.

Nick at the last minute decided he'd look crazy for this picture. lol.

Where we ate our picnic lunch.  Historic lodge in at Many Glacier.

Panoramic of Many Glacier area.

Classic Nick.

Look at those beautiful low clouds... crazy.

Will Work for Sleep

I do not know where the days are going out here!  It's been between 12pm - 1am before we're ready for bed.  I guess that happens when you get in around 9pm every night!   What an adventure!

Today we drove from Gardiner, MT to Big Timber, MT, about an hour and half drive, to stay with my Aunt Glenna and Uncle Dan.  We had a lot of fun!  My mom's family is filled with great laughers.  My grandma is a professional laugher as is my mom, and my aunt Glenna is no exception.

Life out here is definitely different.  We spent a fair amount of time riding around on a gator, which city folks would think was a relation to an alligator, but it's more like an industrial golf cart.

The kids drove us numerous places, which was a little scary at first, but they did a great job.

Later we drove out again and ran out of gas.  No one but me seemed worried about it.  :)  It was fun sitting out on the top of a hill with nothing but open sky waiting for a neighbor to deliver gas.

It truly is a special place.

Where am I!? A chicken being held like a cat!  They eat watermelon and they're really soft to pet.  And Olivia (my cousin) really loves them and takes care of them.

Being chauffeured by a 12 year old.

Here we go!

One of our happy trails!

Made me laugh. lol!  :)

River by their home.

Bridge uncle Dan built.

Being chauffeured by a 9 year old.

Trip two!  We all got to go on this one!

Panoramic as we wait for gas... because none of us knew how to read the gas gauge but uncle Dan.  :)

Can you believe how beautiful it is?  Antelope ran away when they saw us.  :)

This picture of ME made us all laugh for a half hour until the gas came.  My little cousin Jacob thought it was HILARIOUS.  He asked to see it repeatedly and then would laugh his head off.  When I showed it to Nick his eyes popped out of his head and his mouth dropped.  I guess you can't win them all...

A little better...

Sun set... still waiting in beauty for gas from the neighbor.  

Driving back -- we were all a little crazy and couldn't quit laughing.  :)

Venus and Jupiter.  You'll have to click on the picture to see Jupiter, but even small you can see Venus.  It's the dot in almost the direct center of the photo.  Maybe this is why it's called "Big Sky Country."