Winter Releases Its Hold on Glacier National Park–Reluctantly
©Bert Gildart: Montana is home and how wonderful it was to see the Rocky Mountains after being on the road for four months. In fact, Highway 2 from the Bear Paw Mountains just south of Havre 100 miles to Glacier National Park brought back a flood of memories, particularly when we approached old haunts.
Approaching Glacier National Park from the east can be particularly dramatic, but in the spring, snow may be falling and winds blowing.
Though the park generates its own memories, for me the view that is particularly compelling is this one just west of Browning where the road dips and then quickly ascends. To dramatize the power of the mountains, I photographed the scene with a telephoto lens, which tends to compress the scene and make the mountains appear slightly larger. As I took the photograph, the wind was blowing, rocking me at times, but then that’s spring in the Rockies. Two weeks ago storms dumped over 60 inches of snow in this very same region. After that, this road was closed for several days.
STILL SNOWING–STILL BLOWING
Yesterday, as we neared Marias Pass, elevation about 5,000 feet, it was snowing, though not sticking, reminding us that we had indeed escaped a hard winter. But conditions changed that evening. Back home, when we turned on the news, the weatherman reported the area was now covered with snow depths ranging from 2-4 inches.
Shown here are Divide Peak and the road just east of East Glacier Park, Montana. These mountains are home to grizzly bears and they cradle an infinite number of lakes, many of which are still frozen. But spring winds and warming temperatures will change all that and in just a few weeks snows will recede, flowers will emerge, bears will start searching the avalanche slopes for the carcasses of goats and sheep that didn’t fare too well–and campgrounds in the park will open.
Perhaps we’ll see you at one of them. And if you do go, we believe you’ll find one of our books (see below) on the park to be helpful.
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THIS TIME THREE YEARS AGO:
*Training People to Watch Bears
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