Jason Wells

Note: This is the 5th in a series of entries in my Glacier National Park travel photo journal. If this is new to you, please start with the first one for the full story of our adventures.

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September 10th. Struck camp early and quickly loaded the van. We were in a hurry. The plan was to hike Grinnell Glacier. This was the centerpiece of the trip, as far as I was concerned. To do that, we needed to drive to Many Glacier Hotel and catch a boat from the lake it’s on to the trailhead. Our information was that the boat left the dock at 9am only. Miss that, we’d read, and you have to wait till the next day… assuming the service was still running. Not a safe assumption with the park shutting down for the season.

So we rushed to Many Glacier, driving fast in an otherwise placid place and time. We exited the park at St. Mary, blasted northbound on the 89, turned at the tiny town of Babb onto a road not far from the infamous Babb Bar. (In its day it ranked as one of the most dangerous bars in the country with ethnic brawls, shootings, and stabbings a regular event.)

This road lead to the Many Glacier entrance to the eastern side of the park, just north of Lake Sherburne. There we returned into the park. As I drove in, a ranger flashed her lights at me. I slowed down. Turned out a herd of cows was crossing the road not far ahead. Speeding into that would have been nasty.

We plowed on and soon arrived at the hotel. It is a truly beautiful old lodge, and I’ll describe it a bit more later. We got to the dock, but unfortunately, despite my efforts, we were late, and had missed the boat we wanted to catch. Fortunately, our information had been wrong! There was another boat coming in 45 minutes. We were able to get tickets for that one. That saved the day. No boat, no Grinnell Glacier Trail.

The boat ride took us across Swiftcurrent Lake, to which Many Glacier Hotel is adjacent, to a land bridge with a short trail. This led to Lake Josephine. Our tickets gave us another boat ride across this lake too. On the far side was the trailhead.

The trail isn’t that long, perhaps 6 miles round trip. It can be rugged if you aren’t an experienced hiker. It ascends a foot or two with each stride. When you start the trail at the lake, the glacier itself can’t be seen, but as you climb higher and higher, you’ll eventually see it.

The hike to Grinnell Glacier was absolutely gorgeous. Honestly, it was the best hike I’ve taken in North America, and I’ve been around a bit. The photography will describe it far better than any words of mine.

The air was a bit hazy but cool and incredibly crisp–beyond crisp. I felt as if every breath I drew cleansed my lungs. It was a strong hike but the kind that makes you feel healthy and just glad to be alive. I was happy to share this experience with Heather.

Bears were reputedly present in this area, searching for huckleberries. As I mentioned earlier, we saw none. I called out anyway along switchbacks and other parts of the trail without good forward visibility.

There is a rest area close to the top, complete with benches and clean outhouses, and we took a breather with a few other hikers. There we had a light, high-energy lunch of a couple Clif bars and water from the hydration packs. There were bighorn sheep on a snowpack near the rest area.

And at last, we were at the glacier.

As you can see, it’s partially melted. This was in September, not the summer. But there it was. It’s a very special place, and not just because it’s vanishing soon. It is quiet. You feel absolutely surrounded by wilderness. There’s no civilization to be seen in any direction; just a few intrepid hikers sitting on the rocks, enjoying the view with friends or meditating.

I walked out onto the glacier, avoiding the wettest areas. I’d seen a few animals do it, so it seemed likely to be safe. I broke off a piece and ate it.

Eventually we headed back. We saw a lot of hikers we’d passed on the way up and others we hadn’t. A few were struggling and ready to turn back. I tried to encourage them with news of the rest area not far ahead (this really should be mentioned on the boats) and by showing photos of the glacier on my camera, which they still couldn’t see. I think it helped some of them keep going. Few seem to make it all the way to the glacier, despite the shortness of the trail and its relative proximity to Many Glacier.

The downhill was very quick, and near the end I was beginning to feel it. The hike took us about five hours total, the bulk of the day. It was mid-afternoon when we returned to the dock at Lake Josephine.

There we encountered a few people waiting for the next boat. We chatted with them, and several were curious about the glacier but didn’t make the hike, so I showed them the photos I took on my camera. The oohed and aahed, and I told them how they were vanishing.

Then we took the boats across the lakes and back to Many Glacier Hotel. The day had grown long, and I was exhausted but exhilarated. We checked into the hotel, and there we had dinner and spent the night.

It was the only night there we didn’t camp in the van, and it was absolutely worth it. The architecture is Swiss alpine, and in the middle is a vast atrium with thick couches, a giant fireplace and rough-hewn support beams. It was built in 1915 and had survived a major fire. Our room had very old-fashioned fixtures and plumbing sticking right out of the ceiling. There is no WiFi, no cable and no TV. The furniture is very high quality, and old, perhaps antique. I loved it.

We had only managed to get the room by the skin of our teeth. Heather had called in the day before, while we were on the road, but they said they were completely booked. Major disappointment. Then they called her back later, but then we weren’t in cell phone range. Later she was able to retrieve the voicemail, then she called them back and luckily, it was still available. We took it. As it turned out, it was the very last night of the season for the hotel. Booking the hotel is not easy; they book over a year in advance. All of 2012 had already been booked. So we’d been extremely lucky. If you ever go to Glacier National Park, I highly recommend staying there if you can.

The true eye-popping spectacle of this landscape really can’t be captured adequately in little photographs. It is just so vast. I took a couple photos and later created this panorama shot to attempt to convey a sense of the vast beauty that is the setting of this lodge.

This is from the perspective of the parking lot up on the hill. A trail leads down to the hotel itself. Behind the hotel, to the west, is Swiftcurrent Lake. Further past that, rising at the center right in the photo, is Grinnell Point. To its right, farther on, is Mount Wilbur.

What a day.

Note: This is the 4th in a series of entries in my Glacier National Park travel photo journal. If this is new to you, please start with the first one for the full story of our adventures.

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September 9th. Morning. We struck camp. A pattern we established without trying, due to the rhythms of exploring the park and the lack of open camp sites. Today we took Going-to-the-Sun Road east. We would spend the bulk of the day on this 52-mile highway.

Going-to-the-Sun Road runs through the heart of Glacier, connecting West Glacier to the town of St. Mary, another park entrance on the eastern side. It’s been there since 1933, built under a New Deal program, and is a National Historic Landmark. When completed, it must have transformed access to the park; I understand it used to take several days to cross the park due to the rugged terrain. It’s somewhat difficult to drive–not so much because of the steepness and twists and turns, but because the natural beauty it presents you is so spectacular, it’s not easy to keep your eyes on the road.

Parts of the road shut down in the off season, but it was still fully open. There was a lot of construction, mainly shoring up stone support walls and fixing bridges. There’s been a lot of damage over the years from avalanches and traffic. Traffic was pulsed by the construction crews. We pulled over several times for up to half an hour. People would kill their engines and walked around a little, take in the sights. I took those opportunities to take pictures and write terse proto-notes for this journal. It was very windy.

It is a two-lane highway, but only just. Vehicles were slower and smaller 80 years ago, and this road cuts it close even by the norms of the day. There are size restrictions, and if you’re oversize, do not attempt. Parts were narrow enough that I nosed the van through them carefully. That said, the road is quite drivable, even with the construction.

We passed by people biking the road. Very impressive. This road cuts across the Continental Divide; it’s not exactly flat. Sometimes they passed us too, not ensnared by construction traffic. On this road we also saw our first jammers. More on that to come.

We stopped briefly at the very crowded Logan Pass visitor center, mainly for driving/bio break and to get out snacks for the rest of the drive. It was getting close to noon. Logan Pass the halfway point and summit of the road. There are some great trailheads here, but it wasn’t on the agenda. I checked it out anyway. Seeing the trailhead leading up into the mountain peaks got me itchy to see a glacier first hand. I went back into the visitor center and spoke to a ranger. She advised hiking up to Grinnell Glacier, which you can do pretty conveniently from the boat dock at Many Glacier Hotel. But we’re not there yet.

There is a dramatic change of scenery once you cross the Continental Divide. What had been dark green vegetation became golden and almost arid. I drove on to St. Mary, descending rapidly on the smooth, now traffic-free road. We had very late lunch at a nice little place in town.

There’s a campsite near the town of St. Mary, also called St. Mary. I had wondered if our late arrival would be a problem–in Apgar, virtually all the spaces would have been taken by late afternoon–but it was almost empty. We had our choice of dozens of spots, and found a very nice one. We unloaded the van and set up camp. Then I took a nap in the van and Heather read in the treeshade. As evening approached we drove back into town. There was a motel with laundry and showers and took advantage of them. It had been almost a week since we left San Diego and the clothes were piling up.

We had plans for the night. There is an  astronomy group outing on a regular schedule, every Friday I think. It’s led by a professional astronomer associated with the park. We saw a posting for it in camp. Seeing the planets and the stars, out here in the wilderness, far away from any city lights: it sounded great. It was a 10-minute hike from our campsite, so I left the van behind.

We joined a small group of people. The astronomer got out a large, luggable reflecting telescope and pointed it into the night sky. Unfortunately, there was a problem. A wildfire was burning out in Montana somewhere, not in Glacier but upwind of it. It gave a smoky haze to the atmosphere, causing poor seeing. But we made the best of it. Jupiter was dramatic and beautiful nonetheless. It slid across the telescope in just seconds; the speed was impressive. It gives you a strong intuitive feel for the wild motion of the solar system.

The condition that evening were supposed to be good for seeing the aurora. The astronomer suggested relocating the group at a higher point, hoping for better seeing. He gave Heather and me a lift there, and most of the rest of the group went too. I can now say I’ve seen the aurora… technically.  Masked by the haze of the night sky was a faint whitish glow. The astronomer said that was the aurora, and took a photo of it with a camera that drew out its optical characteristics more than the naked eye can. I believed him, but I wouldn’t have noticed it unless he pointed it out. It was disappointing. I’ve always wanted to see the aurora, and when he said it was there, I’d imagined vivid, luminescent colors in the sky. But it wasn’t to be. Anyway I hadn’t expected to see it, so it wasn’t a great loss. And seeing the planets and constellations out in the mountains was really great. I would recommend it to anyone; it’s a very special way to experience the park, to know it’s natural beauty as park of the cosmos. Afterwards, the astronomer gave us a lift back to our camp site.

Note: This is the 3rd in a series of entries in my Glacier National Park travel photo journal. If this is new to you, please start with the first one for the full story of our adventures.

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September 8th. Ate breakfast in camp, then packed all the food back in the van. I forgot to mention, you never leave food out; bears are everywhere, it seems, and not hesitant to dine on human cuisine. The rangers are very strict about this. They have metal food boxes installed by the camp sites, or you can do as we did–move all the food back into the van each night. (In bear country, camping out of a van has profound advantages over tents.) We then proceeded to Apgar Village for more information and firewood.

We had registered our camp site at Apgar only for last night. Our original plan was to camp this evening at Avalanche, up Going-to-the-Sun Road, where we were to spend the day. But it turned out the Avalanche camp site was closed for the season, so we came back to Apgar and got a new camp site. A lot of things begin to close in early September; they begin shutting down various park services, roads, lodges and restaurants in stages. We didn’t know this, and there were more than a few very cool experiences we very nearly missed. Something to keep in mind if you visit.

The famous Going-to-the-Sun Road bisects the park east-west. We took it eastbound from Apgar along Lake McDonald to our destination, the Avalanche trailhead. We intended to do plenty of hiking in Glacier, and Avalanche is a nice little starter trail.

The parking situation at the trailhead was not good. It pays to get there early, way early. Luckily I found a spot that didn’t quite look like one, so it was still unoccupied. I took the risk. Every other space had a car, and unparked people were hovering over them, waiting.

We sprayed on sunscreen, put on our hydration packs and hiking boots and took off. (Great hiking boots are crucial out there, they make all the difference.) The hike to Avalanche Lake and back is about 6 miles round trip; short, not all that crazy steep and, well, gorgeous. I think the photos speak for themselves.

(Note. I’ve posted all photos in their original resolution; to see it, just right-click on the photo and save it. If you see one you like, take it; it may make a nice desktop wallpaper or screen saver image.)

The trail to Avalanche Lake cuts through coniferous forest, and parallels a small stream, part of which cuts deep into the rock.

The trail is easily accessible and popular. We saw plenty of people on it, but it wasn’t overly crowded. About half way up the trail, I saw a big group of people heading down. Apparently there’d been a bear sighting. I was told it was a black bear, one of the two kinds found in the park; the other being grizzly. Of the two, most would prefer encountering a black bear, if they had to choose. Grizzlies can be nasty. I talked to several of the returning people about what happened. Apparently, they just saw it on the trail as they were heading up, so they just turned back. The bear followed them for some distance; that must have been invigorating.

The news provoked most of the hikers to return back to the trailhead, but I wasn’t willing to do that unless I had to. I didn’t know much about bear country dos and don’ts, but I wondered if this was an overreaction. This was our very first hike, and I didn’t want to call it off on account of someone seeing a bear. I had bear spray with me–out there, you’d be nuts not to–and bears really aren’t that aggressive if you don’t surprise them. And the prospect of seeing a wild bear was exciting. So we kept going. I scanned the forest all around me, looking for bear shapes or motions. I kept the bear spray very handy. My senses were alert, almost tingling. Knowing a huge, potentially lethal animal is out there, somewhere, really brought the hike alive for me.

Up the trail we went, surrounded by superb natural beauty. Soon we saw Avalanche Lake. It has the clearest water we’d ever seen, a rich cyan. We lounged at the lake for about fifteen minutes, cooling bare feet in the icy-cold glacier melt water, then returned down the trail.

As it turned out, we saw no bear. Someone said it had bounded off the trail and gone down the hillside. I stopped and searched for several minutes, but apparently, it was gone. And that was the closest I got to a bear on the entire trip. Despite all the extensive precautions–bear-proof food boxes and dumpsters, nagging rangers, bears spray, bells–we saw not even one. And they’re supposed to be all over the place in Glacier. I guess we were just unlucky. Or lucky. Or both.

We hopped back in the van and drove back to Lake McDonald Lodge, which we’d passed on the drive up to Avalanche. There we had an early dinner. I had an emu burger for the first time. It was a little dry. Afterwards we explored the rocky shore of Lake McDonald nearby.

We then drove back to our camp site, unloaded the van, set up camp and built a big fire and had some drinks. The stars were bright that night, and the air was so cool and clean.

As I was leaving the office, I saw a gorgeous sunset over Point Loma. All dark roses against blues. I took a quick snapshot of it before I hopped in the car and headed home.

It’s a gorgeous Sunday afternoon and I’ve been outside enjoying it. This year’s wet spring has caused an botanical eruption in all of my gardens. Check it out.

The front terrace. When Heather and I moved in, this had been a dehydrated little green lawn. We tore it out and planted pineapple sage, rosemary, thyme, lavender, cycads, an orange tree, heather and morning glories. The three rosemary plants along the front are flowing over the front of the terrace like waterfalls and are ready to take over. (In case you’d been wondering, we’ve been developing a combination of Mediterranean and semi-tropical gardens front and back.) This terrace now takes a tiny fraction of the water the original lawn did, thrives in the blazing sun, and unlike the lawn, it’s beautiful.

This is in the side alley next to the house. We planted this sapling Mexican lime tree just a couple months ago, and it’s covered with tiny blossoms. We planted the surrounding clumps of lemon thyme the same afternoon, and each is now easily twice the size it was that day. We haven’t watered it; it just grew. The thyme is delicious.

This is the back patio, just behind the pool. When I bought the house in 2006, these queen palms were hardly shoulder height, and the dwarf palms were thin little things hardly a foot tall. Now the palms are 2-3x taller and the dwarf palms are so lush you can hardly see the terrace anymore.

This year’s basil crop in the herb garden. I planted it in March, but only three plants. Another seven germinated unattended; I just noticed them growing all over the place. (See the tiny ones in the back?) Presumably they came from seeds produced from previous years of basil. I expect we’ll be having a whole lot of pesto with seared ahi this year, but we can’t possibly eat that much basil, so I’ll give a lot away. The plant at the bottom right is garlic. It germinated by itself as well, I found it growing in the compost–it had been discarded from dinner one night–and seeing its success, transplanted it. Aside from that and a little watering it now and then, I’ve done nothing; and it’s tripled in size.

When we moved into the house, this strip of land out front was encased in severe, soulless concrete. I asked Brutus to jackhammer it off and then planted a line of seven fan palms. These were originally growing as tiny weeds along Scott St. in Point Loma, so I dug them out with a spade, took them home and grew them in the herb garden till they were big enough to thrive on their own. I have room for two more at the end and a couple more I can transplant; I may do that another time. I can’t believe how much nicer this is than concrete.

The valencia orange tree. We brought this with us when we moved from Solana Beach. For years it had struggled, producing no oranges. And this year–bam! I see the start of at least 10 oranges.

Cycad, lavender, and a monster rosemary bush. In the back, the pineapple sage and a pine tree that I discovered in the terrace out back a few years ago.

You know, until I took that botany class a few years ago as I pursued my philosophy degree from UCSD, I really had no idea what a green thumb I was blessed to have. I love watching these natural, evolved, elegant machines build themselves with such subtlety and grace, reacting to the environment, follow cycles of light and dark, wet and dry. As yet there is no engineering or technology as sophisticated as a single cell of these plants, nothing nearly capable of taking photons from the sun and applying them to dirt and water to build and reproduce themselves. I’m not sure if it’s common knowledge, but the full breadth of photosynthesis is still not fully understood by science, and no one is capable of building a truly photosynthetic technology. Think of that. I’m surrounded by literally mind-boggling beauty.