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May, 2006
Glacier: The Crown Of The Continent

I first visited Glacier National Park nearly twenty years ago and I was immediately struck with the beauty, the diversity, and the sheer magnitude of the place. Having now returned many times, I find it no less captivating for being a bit more familiar.

At left is not only one of the best photos I've taken in Glacier, it's one of the best photos I've ever taken. I visited the park with my friend James Frank, a professional photographer, in August of 2002 and found this field of beargrass blooming with Heavy Runner Mountain and Reynolds Peak as a backdrop. We returned one sunny morning a few days later to catch the sun rising over the tall peaks behind us.

As luck would have it, just as the sun lit the beargrass in the foreground, a storm blew up from the valley below, the clouds quickly rolling across the peaks. Within a few minutes of this photo, the clouds had completely swallowed the mountains and we had to hustle to safety.

Beargrass isn't a grass at all. It's an easy mistake to make , however, because of its long, thin, evergreen leaves. But no one would mistake the tall (3-4 foot) flower spikes for a grass. Its three-part flowers are a typical form for the lily family, of which this is one of the most spectacular native species. The mildly fragrant blooms appear in early summer and sometimes cover the subalpine slopes. I photographed about 70 different species of flowers during my two weeks in Glacier in the summer of 2005, but I chose this as the first in this article, since beargrass is found in this area and nowhere else. Do the bears like it? I know that I've seen places where the bears have dug up whole plants, but probably just while looking for grubs and insects that might live beneath it.

Sunrise, of course, is a photographer's busy time, and Glacier offers many places for spectacular sunrise vistas. This photo of the first rays of sun hitting Grinnell Point was taken from just above Many Glacier Hotel. To the left of the point is the Garden Wall and Salamander Glacier, to the right is Swiftcurrent Pass.

This evening view of Swiftcurrent Lake, the hotel, and the mountains beyond was taken from the south end of the lake. The hotel is a beautiful landmark, built by the Great Northern Railway as a destination to bring more people to the park by the only conveyance available at the time: the train.

Not everyone enjoys hiking as much as I do, and for those folks a trail ride can be just the thing. A full stable facility near the Many Glacier Hotel outfits horseback rides to Cracker Lake and other nearby destinations. In the photo at left, some hard-working cowgirls brave the very early morning in these northern climes to bring the horses up.

A common sight above timberline in the summer is the mountain goat. These rough-and-tumble characters are very much at home here and aren't particularly  perturbed by humans. They are, however, very powerful creatures with very sharp horns and humans do well to keep their distance. Goats are fearless climbers who can go just about anywhere, and are more often killed by lightning than by predators.

George Bird Grinnell was one of the first people to map some parts of what is now Glacier National Park, including this area where Salamander Glacier still clings to the sheer cliffs of the Garden Wall above Ice Lake. (The Garden Wall is just as steep on the other side.) Grinnell was a pioneer of the conservation movement. Schooled literally by John James Audubon, he had an early interest in his (middle) namesake. A friend of Theodore Roosevelt, Grinnell was instrumental in establishing Glacier National Park, as well as founding the first Audubon Society, dedicated to preserving not only birds, but all wild creatures. Note the piles of rock and gravel at left brought down by last winter's snow.

For those who think that global warming is just something cooked up by tree-huggers, I've provided this picture of the cirque from above. In the foreground is Grinnell Glacier, with Salamander Glacier and Ice Lake beyond. When Grinnell came here in the 1890s, the two glaciers were connected and ice covered the whole lake. For perspective, the black band of diorite in the Garden Wall at left is about 250 feet thick.

Glacier National Park is named for the effects of the glaciers in the past, which is profound. Before the ice got to them, these mountains were taller than the present-day Himilayas, but today there are only five peaks in the park over 10,000 feet. But the glaciers that remain are still potent. At left is a picture of some of the large (10- to 15-feet wide) crevasses on Grinnell Glacier, which are very hazardous.

The mountains of the park are composed mostly of sedimentary rocks formed in an ancient seabed nearly a billion years ago. At that time, there was virtually no oxygen in Earth's atmosphere and the dominant life forms were tiny cyanobacteria. (For more about bacteria, see Bacteria Art.) Still found, largely unchanged, on the coast of Australia, these primitive creatures build stromatolites, mounds of mineral deposits, which form the round blobs, a foot or two across, that you see here. (These have been squished by eons of intense pressure from overlying rock. To see what they look like when a glacier scrapes them off, double click the picture. Single click to restore the original image.)

The trail to Ice Lake and Grinnell Glacier is a popular one, partly because it follows the south-facing slope and melts off early in the spring. But that slope, with breathtaking views but few trees, is sunny and hot in the summer. So most hikers relish this spot, where the trail follows a ledge of rock through a little waterfall, which, ice cold, feels quite refreshing. A few years ago I saw, loping up the steep slope above the falls, the one and only wolverine I've ever seen in the wild. Relatives of badgers, wolverines are groud-hugging, dark brown hunters, the most dangerous mammals, for their size, in North America. Don't mess with 'em.

Summer in Glacier is just a few weeks wedged between spring and fall, so flowers can bloom most anytime. This globe flower is usually associated with spring, but where the snow lays heavy and long, it often doesn't send up this pretty white flower until July. And within a few days, the petals and yellow anthers fall off and the seed head in the center grows and expands. To see the result, double click the image. (Single click to return.) A similar species in the Northwest is known as the Tow-Headed Baby.

The views along the trail are well worth the walk. The tallest peak here is Mt. Gould, named for one of Grinnell's friends. It's part of the same ridge as the Garden Wall, and isn't much higher, and not among the tallest peaks in the park. To its right is Bat Wing and below is Grinnell Lake. The aqua water is caused by glacial flour, the finest dust created when the glaciers upslope grind away the rock, which reflects lighter colors of sunlight hitting the water. As I was walking down the trail, I saw what I thought was a log floating in the lake, but it swam across. I met some hikers who said they had watched that big moose swim out on the shore to the left of the photo.

I took this shot of the lake's inlet from the trail, using a telephoto lens. Here meltwater from the glaciers above flows into Grinnell Lake. You can clearly see the glacial flour flowing into the already cyan-colored water. Contrast it with the clear water flowing in from a different stream at upper right. A grizzly bear walked up along this stream shortly before, but at this distance you couldn't see it in the photo if it was there.

I was fortunate to see some bear interactions on a recent trip to Glacier, and to watch from a comfortable distance, which makes the photos a bit fuzzy. To the right, a big male grizzly stands up on his back legs to watch a sow and her cubs walk by on the slope below. Male grizzlies take no part in raising the cubs and in fact will often kill them. Sometimes with the death of her cubs, a female will return to breeding. Bears are dangerous to humans, but usually keep their distance.

The sow spotted the male on the slope above and quickly led her cubs out of danger. Note that one cub is dark brown and the other more of a cinnamon color, natural variations that carry through to adulthood.

Moose are a common sight in Glacier as well, sometimes spending the whole day wading through the shallow lakes and eating the underwater plants. Weighing nearly a ton, big bulls are quite formidable and are as often involved in human injuries as the bears. "Velvet," a thin layer of blood-rich skin covered with fine hair, covers the antlers at this time of year, but it will be worn off by fall.

The advantage to photographing flowers instead of wildlife is that flowers hold still (except in the wind) and almost never trample or eat the photographer. These small yellow columbines cover the slopes in summer. The name "columbine" refers to the word dove, and it's easy to see a dove's long neck, spread wings, and wide tail in this photo. I've also photographed red columbines (Big Spring Country), white miniana columbines (Tetons), as well as the classic blue columbine, the Colorado state flower (Flowers).

But the flower to the right was a real find for me. This is called a limestone columbine and it grows only on limestone outcrops above timberline. A rare flower, I saw only a few plants and even fewer blossoms, but at least I found this one prime specimen to photograph. (The photo came out pretty well considering the wind was blowing nearly hurricane force.) I've seen many other species reduced to cushion plants above timberline, but this is the only time I've seen a cushion columbine, where the leaves grow only an inch or two above the rocky ground. The flower, however, is huge in comparison, the size of most other columbines, and a deep sky blue.

Sperry Chalet is a classic of stone architecture, built by Italian artisans for the Great Northern Railway on the trail to Gunsight Pass. The railway built lodgings like this about a day's horseback ride apart throughout the park. The chalet still offers hikers and riders a dry bed and a hot meal, or even just a place to sit by the wood stove in the dining hall on a rainy afternoon, sipping cocoa and writing in a journal.

The Lake McDonald Lodge is another of the classic accommodations built by the railroad. Both interiors and exteriors were built in a rustic style to try to blend with the surrounding scenery. They succeeded so well that it's hard to imagine the sites without the structures. The Swiftcurrent Lodge has suffered some damage from the extreme environment, but the Lake McDonald Lodge, on the more protected west side of the park, is still going strong. Shown here is the interior of the two-story atrium in the lobby. Note the rough wood of the railings and the Native American designs in the chandelier.

Going To The Sun Road, which crosses the top of Glacier at Logan Pass, is the only through road in the park. But it's without a doubt one of the most beautiful drives in the nation. It's open to private cars but the classic red touring cars are a great way to go. They've been reequipped with clean propane engines but you still get the running commentary of the colorful gear jammers.

Glacier has many large lakes, some of which can be crossed in a boat like the Sinopah at left. This beautiful wooden craft is named for the mountain that stands above its destination. It runs across Two Medicine Lake several times a day during the summer, saving hikers nearly two miles of walking alongside the lake. It's also a great way to avoid bears and bridges.

"I can see why you'd want to avoid bears," you're thinking. "But bridges?" The first time I visited Glacier was in June of 1988, when snowdrifts still covered the trails in spots. I had to play in Chinook, Montana, that night, but I thought I could walk around Two Medicine Lake easily enough. But when I was more than halfway around I came to this wooden bridge--but the park service rolls up the wood in the off season to prevent snow damage. The creek was at peak runoff, twice as full as it is in this shot. I had to inch my way across on the heavier cable that supports the wood planks, trying to steady myself with the very shaky top cable. Never again.

Penstemons ("five stamens," which the blossoms have, along with five fused petals, two on the top, three on the bottom) are common flowers, but they really come into their own in Glacier. I found at least half a dozen different species, and in places they covered entire mountainsides. The one at left is called Lyall's Beardtongue. The "beardtongue" refers to one of the stamens, which is sterile and hairy and lays along the bottom lip of the corolla, a distinctive characteristic of the family. Most flowering plants have both male and female sex organs in their flowers, the stamens being male and the stigma female. See the glacier lily below.

The west side of Glacier is much different from the east side, which is similar to the Colorado Rockies with which I'm quite familiar. The west side is the easternmost outpost of the Northwest forests, with trees like western redcedar, larch, birch, and alder. So a hike up to Avalanche Lake is in some ways more like a walk in the Olympics or the Cascades than the Rockies. This shot of Avalanche Gorge was taken in the soft light of evening, which allows a slow shutter speed to soften the flowing water. Avalanche Lake, an easy two-mile hike, is a favorite with humans and bears alike. Remember the old adage: You don't have to be faster than the bear, just faster than the other people you're with.

Whenever I'm hiking on a sunny day, passersby always comment on my good fortune, but they don't realize that for some photos, especially flowers, cloudy days can be much better. This fleabane daisy is still dotted with raindrops from an earlier shower.

Glacier became a national park in 1910, but it wasn't until the following decades that many of the trails were built, often by Depression Era labor forces like the WPA. The builders of the trail from Lake Elizabeth to Ptarmigan Lake had a problem at the top of the pass, however: rocky cliffs on both sides. So instead they blasted a tunnel through the solid rock, the only tunnel I know of that was created for a hiking trail. From this, the north side, you can see one of the five peaks over 10,000 feet in the park, as well as Lake Elizabeth and Canada off in the distance. The metal doors are closed in winter to prevent the tunnel filling up with snow.

Glacier or avalanche lilies are in the same family as beargrass, but they have very different lifestyles. Glacier lilies grow from a small perennial bulb at the first sign of spring. In fact, the plants have a very strong metabolism and give off enough heat to grow and even bloom in a small opening that they create under the snow, only to appear as if by magic when the snow melts. This picture shows the three-part symmetry of the lily family: six petals, six stamens, and three lobes on the white stigma below. Like most spring bulbs, they bloom and then quickly die back, awaiting the next spring.

Glacier could have been named "Waterfall National Park." The plentiful winter snows and the horizontal layers of the prevailing sedimentary rock are perfect for spectacular waterfalls. The mile and a half trail from Virginia Falls to St. Mary Falls has many other, smaller but still beautiful falls. This shot of St. Mary Falls, on the main tributary to very large St. Mary Lake, was taken in the afternoon, so the fast shutter speed captured the fine detail of the cascading, ice-blue water.

I've seen loons and wood ducks in Glacier, two beautiful bird species. But for fun bird watching, I'll take these little gray chaps anyday. Called ouzels or dippers, they nest behind waterfalls and find their food under that rushing, ice-cold water, where they can flap their wings and fly to swim. They eat mostly larvae, especially those of the caddis fly, which build their own elaborate casings and creep along the stream bed gathering algae and other small organisms. The name "dipper," in addition to their frequent chilly dips, comes from the characteristic dipping motion they make when not in the water, flexing their legs as though saying, "Man, that's cold!" Here, a mother searches for food for her newly fledged chick.

Virginia Falls, about a hundred feet tall, is one of the best hike destinations in the park. An easy, relatively short trail leads the hiker past many falls, with this spectacular waterfall at the end. You can walk right up to the edge of the pool at the base of the falls and feel the chilly rush of misty breeze that the waterfall creates. Another smaller fall just below this makes this one of the really great views in the park. One note of caution: around streams and waterfalls, the noise of the rushing water can make it hard for you and the bears to hear one another. Keep your eyes open so no one is surprised.

Flowering plants and insects developed simultaneously millions of years ago, and their lives have been interwoven ever since. This tiny spotted saxifrage, shown here about twice life size, guides bees and flies to its nectaries using a very elaborate and beautiful series of tiny colored spots that range from magenta through red, orange, and yellow.

Matahpi Peak towers over Siyeh Bend across from Piegan Pass, where I took this shot. If you look close, one of the rocks in the foreground is actually a hoary marmot, a year-round resident of this rocky, wind-swept alpine country. The word "hoary" doesn't refer to any moral failing, but rather refers to the grayish fur on the back of the marmot's neck. Compare this photo to that of the yellow-bellied marmot in the Tetons. (The term "yellow-bellied" refers to their bellies, not their courage. Marmots can't seem to catch a break.) This family group warned me of the approach of some horses.

When I first saw these horsemen, I assumed they were one of the trail ride groups I'd seen saddling up at Many Glacier, judging by the lack of headgear that usually marks a dude. As it turned out, they were very experienced riders, most of them native Montanans, who had started at the Canadian border and were riding to the southern border of the park, which would take them a couple of weeks.

Their leader, the man in the blue shirt, said that the trail they had just come up was the roughest stretch he'd ever done, and that included the Bob Marshall Wilderness to the south of the park, one of the largest remaining stretches of wilderness in the lower 48 states. I'll vouch for the fact that the wind was blowing a steady sixty miles an hour or so, with even stronger gusts, which carried their hats across the valley before they could dismount to catch up with them. One of the horses had partially thrown a shoe on the steep, slippery shale of the trail, where a slip easily could be fatal to both horse and rider. But they were in good spirits and their sturdy horses and obstreperous mules waded through the deep snowbanks with ease.

As I said earlier, winter never seems far away in Glacier. Here, a young raspberry bush seems to show fall colors even on brand-new leaves. Actually, the reddish tinge in these leaves comes from pigments that act as sun block to protect the delicate tissues. The raspberries on the eastern slope and the huckleberries in the western part of the park are the major food source for the bears, other than careless hikers. I generally sing loudly when I'm hiking alone in bear country. So far my singing career hasn't taken off with bears any more than it has with humans, but I'm not sure I want to attract a crowd of either one.

Eventually, though, fall comes for real, bringing fresh snow to the high peaks and turning the huge stands of aspen on the eastern slope of the park yellow, gold, and red. (Aspens are connected underground, so what appears to be a number of trees may be only one, which helps explain the large patches of color on the slopes.) On the east, the park borders on land belonging to the Blackfeet Nation, who once had this whole area to themselves. They are still actively involved in maintaining and caring for the park. Their good stewardship is evident in the unspoiled condition of the land; we have a lot to learn from people who are in it for the long haul.

Fall also often brings forest fires, especially in dry years. Unlike the case in Yellowstone, where well-meaning park personnel and ill-informed politicians decided to suppress the natural fire cycle, Glacier has had little interference from man, so the fires, while still extensive at times, don't cause the kind of severe damage that the 1988 fires in Yellowstone caused. Here you can see smoke still rising from the burnt trees on the far shore of Lake McDonald. If you look close, you can also see the smoke from last night, which, having cooled and grown heavier, seeps out across the lake. In the foreground are birch trees in fall color.

In his plea to Congress to set aside Glacier as a national park, George Grinnell described it as the "Crown of the Continent." The description is apt. Triple Divide Peak forms the watershed for streams flowing to the Pacific Ocean, the Gulf of Mexico, and Hudson's Bay in Canada.
Glacier is also an intersection of several different ecosystems, resulting in some of the greatest natural diversity in North America.

St. Mary Lake and Wild Goose Island, Sunset

Part of the purpose of the Lewis and Clark's Corp of Discovery was to establish the border between Canada and the United States. (The Marias River, into which flows Two Medicine Creek, is named for Lewis's lady friend.) When they first saw this range, they called it the "Rocky Mountains," and the name stuck for the entire cordillera that stretches from Alaska into Mexico. (They also named the grizzly bear, with which they became all too familiar. The "grizzly" part comes from the bears' lighter, grayish fur, not from any grisly habits.)

Glacier has a sister park across the border in Canada, Waterton National Park, which together form Waterton/Glacier International Peace Park, the only trans-national park in the world and a tribute to the long-standing good relations between the two neighbors. Perhaps it takes a place as special as Glacier to remind us that, for all our differences, we all share this beautiful and ever-changing planet.

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