Now this is nice scenery to wake up to!
Thinking of waking up, one thing that is noticeable here is how long the day is. When I went to bed at around 10:00 last night, it was still dusky, light enough to walk around without a flashlight. I happened to wake up for awhile around 4:30 am and it was already getting light! A combination of latitude and late June, I guess.
It did not get quite as cold as expected last night, but the wind blew hard all night....and also all day today. Several locals we spoke to said that yes, it is usually this windy. These are about 20 mph winds sweeping down over the mountains (which are still covered with snow). So if one is in the sun and out of the wind, the weather is quite nice, lower 60's. If you're in the wind, however, that wind-chill factor sure takes over. Brrr!
This park seems to be full of ground squirrels like these:
This one has a burrow right next to our picnic table, and Ranger has sniffed around the hole but not actually encountered the critter. He does notice their high-pitched squeaks but he hasn't been able to figure them out yet, nor has he had an opportunity to give chase.
This morning we took the Beaver Pond trail which runs above St. Mary Lake. We were on the lookout for bears, as was emphasized in the trail brochures that are given to everyone upon entry to the park. We had not yet bought any bear spray---we got some later in the day---but I could not imagine using it with today's strong winds anyway. Well, no bears (either black or grizzly) were seen along the way, but we did add a few new birds to the trip list, including the mountain bluebird.
The trailhead for Beaver Pond was at the site of a ranger's cabin, built in 1913.
The signboard described life for the family who lived there in the early 20th century, including having a mountain lion get into the attic and having a bear shred all the laundry strung out on the clothesline. Not the life for me!
We decided to have lunch at the restaurant at the St. Mary's historic hotel, an excellent salmon sandwich for me and roast beef for Dan. In order to see a bit more of the park, we drove to Rising Sun area, about 6 miles west of St. Mary along Going-to-the-Sun Road. (Going-to-the-Sun is open from the east side of the park only 13 miles in, and vehicles longer than 21 feet are prohibited west of Rising Sun.) Unfortunately it was raining by the time we got there, so we just drove through the campground (not as nice as ours) and the picnic area and headed back to our area, where a light drizzle soon gave way to more sunshine. But still that wind!
Tomorrow we cross the border into Canada.
No comments:
Post a Comment