The Rocky Mountains are something all Americans are justifiably proud of. Mountains anywhere are just about my favorite marvels of nature, and we are lucky to have some of the most spectacular specimens of the type right here in the land of E Pluribus Unum.
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| near St. Mary Lake, Glacier National Park |
As habitual readers of this blog know, the Rockies I usually write about are in
Colorado, and they are gorgeous there. But the northern stretch of the range, that we saw on our trip in June, has a whole different look. Even though the Colorado mountains are generally much higher (as I learned, the hard way,
losing a bet with my husband) Montana's look more rugged and spectacular, due to the lower treeline (read the blog post in the previous link for more information about this fun fact).
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| view from the trail to Appistoki Falls, Glacier National Park |
We saw great mountain scenery all through our trip. If you want to know more about how these behemoths came to be, there's a good, simple description the geology involved
here, on the Glacier Park website.
What follow are some of my best photos, in the order taken. I tried to identify the peaks, but wasn't able to do so in all cases. I took a picture of a very helpful sign at Many Glacier that labelled everything you saw there, but if there were signs like that at other viewpoints, I didn't have the foresight to photograph them. (You'd think they could reproduce those signs on the Park websites, wouldn't you? I couldn't find them.)
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| at the Pine Creek trailhead, north of Yellowstone (note Spurs flag on rental car) |
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| "top of the world" scenery along the Beartooth Highway, Montana/Wyoming |
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| another Beartooth Highway view |
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| Pilot Peak, northern Wyoming, just east of Yellowstone National Park |
Even with spectacular sights nearer at hand, you still can be awed
by peaks on the horizon. For example, the distant vista peeping above the north rim of the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone...
In addition to the parks and wilderness, metropolitan areas in Montana (yes, they do have them) offer fabulous mountain views. Especially Butte, which is all but surrounded by a funny loop in the Continental Divide. So it's not too surprising there are sights like this just outside of town...
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| a portion of Butte's big pit, with unpitted mountains in the distance |
On to Glacier, where, not surprisingly, the most scenic peaks abound...
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| Rising Wolf Mountain, at Two Medicine Lake |
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| view from the top of Aster Park Trail, near Two Medicine Lake |
Happily, these mountains are just as lovely at a micro-scale as a macro...the rocks along the trail are beautiful and fascinating:
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| bedding planes at the top of Aster Park Trail |
We were, unfortunately, just a little too early to be able to drive all of
Going-to-the-Sun Highway (or you'd be treated to 3 or 4 times as many mountain photos!). But what we saw was fabulous enough. On the west side, Avalanche Creek was as far as you could go, but the east road was clear a little further, all the way to
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more mountains so near,
and yet so far away... |
Jackson Glacier Overlook.
Even though I couldn't identify the peaks at the overlook, I obviously just couldn't stop snapping photos of them. Going by the Glacier Park topographical map on my bedroom wall (yes, I have a topo map of Glacier on the wall in our bedroom; what can I say, I'm a map geek) they are possibly Fusillade Mountain, Citadel Mountain, Dusty Star Mountain, and maybe even Almost-a-Dog Mountain. That last one is a long shot, but I had to include it because of the name.
Here are just a sample of the views on offer at the overlook...
Like with the
lakes, the crown jewel for mountain scenery is
Many Glacier. I ask your patience in dealing with so many photos of stupendous scenery...I took about 200 and it was very hard to weed them down to even a semi-reasonable number. I have not had time to try and stitch together the panoramas that my camera tried to assist me with. If I can figure out how to do that, I'll post them at a future date. For now I'll have to show you these handsome devils one at a time...
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| Mt. Gould near sunset |
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| Mt Gould in morning sun |
I really liked the shape of
Mt. Gould, it seems. I took more shots of him than any of the others. Here's a close-up of that imposing profile. The patch of snow in the shade at the far right is
Gem Glacier.
Grinnell Point is the most imposing peak in the view, right in the middle. Here are both a wide shot and a close-up. (The distant conical peak on the right in the first shot is Swiftcurrent Mountain and the wider band of snow leading off the photo's edge is
Swiftcurrent Glacier.)
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| reflected in the still morning lake |
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| the point of Grinnell Point, in late afternoon sun |
Another super-photogenic peak on the lake is
Mt. Wilbur. Seems like a more stately name would have been more appropriate, but what's in a name?
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| more morning reflections |
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| the pole on the lower right is the flagpole at the boat dock |
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| Mt. Wilbur and friends, the Iceberg-PtarmiganWall, at sunset |
I wish we could have taken a paddle out to the middle of the lake...what amazing views would that perspective yield! We definitely plan to go back, and will put that activity on our list for sure.
Believe it or not, I think that wraps up the story of our June vacation. As a reminder (to myself as well as my readers)
here's a map that shows all the stops, as best I could find them, that we made on the trip.
There won't be any new posts here for a little while, as I plan to rest from these labors. But another trip is coming up in the fall, so stay tuned!
