Glacier National Park and a surprise pow-wow!

Glacier National Park is a stop we wanted to make because in just a few more years, the glaciers for which it is named will not be there anymore.  In fact, in 1850, there were 150 glaciers in the park.  Today only 25 remain.  By 2020, all are expected to be gone. 

 

We got to the park late in the season, and the main road, called the "Going to the Sun Road" was already closed at the highest pass.  We could not go the whole way through the park, but explored what we could of the eastern side of the park.

 

We did some hiking - the views were incredible. This is one of our favorite parks so far. 

 

 

 

 

Coming at this time of year has its advantages...there were no crowds to deal with.  And, since they had already turned off the water for the season, we got to camp in one of the park campgrounds for free!  We of course took advantage and had a nice barbeque.

 

 

Notice the bear spray on the table! :)

We had been wanting to see more wildlife, and we got it!  We saw this tiny little owl on one of our hikes.  It flew onto a treebranch right beside us as if to say, look at me!  And then posed for pictures for a good 2 or 3 minutes before taking off again.  Later, a park ranger helped us figure out that it is a Northern Pygmy owl, a pretty rare sight!

 

 

We saw many more bears, both black and grizzly.

 

 

This mama grizzly with two cubs was hanging out high up on the mountainside by the road.  There were a bunch of photographers standing on the side of the road taking pictures, so we pulled over.  Ricardo got out to take pictures, and a little while later, the bears came down the hill.  Look how close they were to the bears when they crossed the street! Glad I was in the car!

 

 

 

One of the photographers in that crazy bunch was Ian Cocks - check out his awesome photography on Flickr (tyblue90).  He was was nice enough to lead us to this huge moose just resting in the grass to take some pictures of it.  We never would have spotted it otherwise - it was well off the trail.

 

One day we left the Cub and took the Xterra out to do some "off roading" - Ricardo was giddy with excitement and I was clutching the dash with fear as we slipped, slid, and bounced through the mud.  We were rewarded at the end with a stunning view of the mountains.

 

 



Our last day in Glacier, we happened to hear a radio announcement about a pow-wow that was to take place in Browning, the town that we had stopped at on our way in to Glacier.  Browning is on the Blackfoot Indian Reservation in Montana.  We visited the Musuem of the Plains Indian in Browning upon arriving, but we never expected to be so lucky as to be able to experience a pow wow while we were there!  We obviously headed back to Browning for this treat.

 

There were drum circles and dancers, and all ages from tribal elders to the tiniest little kids dressed in incredible costumes participated in the event.  It was hard to get good pictures because the dancers moved so fast!  We learned so much about the different forms of music and dance.  It was a fun night, and didn't wrap up until after midnight!  It was a great way to end our visit in Montana.

Tiny dancer getting ready for the show!