{"id":2980,"date":"2014-07-14T22:20:40","date_gmt":"2014-07-15T03:20:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/zurekbrau.com\/blogs\/richsblog\/?p=2980"},"modified":"2014-07-14T22:20:40","modified_gmt":"2014-07-15T03:20:40","slug":"big-sky-vacation-day-11-yodeling-for-bears","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/zurekbrau.com\/blogs\/richsblog\/?p=2980","title":{"rendered":"Big Sky Vacation Day 11: Yodeling for bears"},"content":{"rendered":"

Today is our last day in Glacier.\u00a0 We decided to do one last hike out at Many Glacier area.\u00a0 Since it is just Rich and I, we decided to take it easy.\u00a0 I didn\u2019t sleep well last night, so unfortunately Rich was up earlier than he would have liked.\u00a0 We were lying in bed comparing train sounds.\u00a0 Exciting, right?\u00a0 Rich says that the sound that comes from far away and builds must be a turbine engines.\u00a0 There is a whistling sound and then what sounds like a tornado coming in.\u00a0 I heard a couple of old style trains with the normal rumble last night.\u00a0 Rich is probably right about those different engines.<\/p>\n

We got our stuff together and headed out to breakfast.\u00a0 Luna\u2019s did a fine job yesterday, so we decided to do a repeat.\u00a0 Rich went for the Denver omelet and I got just standard bacon and eggs.\u00a0 The coffee was good and the waiter was talkative.\u00a0 We enjoyed our start to the day and then headed out on my favorite road.<\/p>\n

On the way out, Rich was still deciding where to go.\u00a0 We talked about a couple of different trails. \u00a0One of these was to the Swiftcurrent Fire Tower.\u00a0 After hearing the mileage, I explained he would have to get Alex or Zerah to do that with him.\u00a0 My Dad was famous for his pronunciation of certain words.\u00a0 Fire tower is one of these.\u00a0 It actually came out more like \u201cfaar taar\u201d.\u00a0 We come up with reasons to say fire tower just to pronounce it that way.<\/p>\n

We can tell the newcomers to the road now.\u00a0 They drive it slow and unsure.\u00a0 I know every bump, dip, and turn now.\u00a0 The one rule the newcomers don\u2019t know how to handle is the turnout.\u00a0 If you are going slowly and there is traffic behind you, you are expected to take the turnout and let everyone by.\u00a0 Most of the visitors on the road don\u2019t use this.\u00a0 Then they wonder why everyone passes them in a hurry.\u00a0 Big thanks to those people who do use it!\u00a0 We love you!<\/p>\n

We had to cruise at 30 miles at an hour forever on the main road to St. Mary\u2019s.\u00a0 I was finally able to get around the guy at the head of the pack and get up to speed once we were out of town.\u00a0 I really like going 70 mph and not the enforced 30 of the temporary visitors.<\/p>\n

We took the turnoff to Many Glacier and caught up with another slow car.\u00a0 The line to enter the gate here was pretty long.\u00a0 Luckily, most of them had passes and could just spend a couple of minutes.\u00a0 There was a caravan of 5 cars that each had to pay and talk to the ranger.\u00a0 Too bad the rangers don\u2019t have time to teach each visitor the proper park etiquette.<\/p>\n

I overheard someone at Logan\u2019s Pass complaining how some people treat the park.\u00a0 I saw a lot of that today.\u00a0 Let\u2019s start with the man and woman picking wildflowers at will!\u00a0 Come one, this isn\u2019t your backyard.\u00a0 Kids are allowed to run wild and rampage over the sensitive areas of the park.\u00a0 Not to mention putting themselves into dangerous situations.\u00a0 The use of turnouts could be part of the instruction as well.<\/p>\n

Oh well, back to today\u2019s blog.\u00a0 We ended up following a large van creeping very slowly through the park.\u00a0 I overheard them at the gate saying it was their first visit.\u00a0 That figures.\u00a0 We could almost to the Many Glacier Hotel when a juvenile grizzly bear appeared on the far left side of the road.\u00a0 This was my very first grizzly!\u00a0 The bear calmly sauntered in front of the van to the other side of the road.\u00a0 The van stopped and wouldn\u2019t continue forward.\u00a0 This is what\u2019s known as a bear jam.\u00a0 I waved and waved at the guy to keep moving.\u00a0 He finally pulled up where we could see the bear, but any good photographs weren\u2019t possible at that point.\u00a0 Darn van!<\/p>\n

I managed to pass the van and head down to the Swiftcurrent Pass trail just on the other side of the Swiftcurrent Motor Inn.\u00a0 Amazingly, I got a parking spot right at the trailhead.\u00a0 We suited up and hit the trail.\u00a0 Rich had decided to go back to Redrock Falls, which was 1.8 miles back.\u00a0 We had done this hike back in 2003 with Rick.\u00a0 He was Andy at that time.\u00a0 The trail was fairly level with some high ridges.\u00a0 The climbs were terrible, but did hurt the calves a bit.<\/p>\n

We passed an older lady with a cane who was making her way up the trail.\u00a0 I figured it was going to take her a little bit.\u00a0 Most of the other traffic consisted of younger family and one group of college age or a little older.\u00a0 They were moving a lot faster than we were.\u00a0 We met one guy who told us he had seen a bull moose up the trail.\u00a0 Turns out, this was a whole lot further than we had planned to go.<\/p>\n

We reached Redrock Lake and could see the falls at the other end.\u00a0 At least we knew where we were headed this time.\u00a0 We walked the steep hills down to the falls.\u00a0 This is a multi-layered attraction that came spilling down over dark red rocks.\u00a0 They were almost blackish red.\u00a0 This all really stood out with the environment around them.\u00a0 We walked around and around taking pictures from different angles.\u00a0 There were just so many ways to see this set of running streams.<\/p>\n

We rested a while enjoying the view before it was time to head back. On the way, Rich was doing his best John Lee Hooker yodel.\u00a0 It sounds more like a serious of grunts than yodeling.\u00a0 I have to take Rich\u2019s word on this.\u00a0 He was doing this to make sure the bears knew he was there.\u00a0 From the grunting, I seriously thought this would attract more bears than drive them away.<\/p>\n

We made it back to the trailhead in good time.\u00a0 We didn\u2019t let a little 250 foot gain hold us back.\u00a0 We walked up to the motor inn and sat on the front porch for a while.\u00a0 Rich had gotten coffee and we just kicked back.\u00a0 There was a guy talking to his wife in what sounded like German.\u00a0 He was rattling off all kinds of things and she just nodded.\u00a0 There tend to be a lot of foreign tourists in the park.\u00a0 I\u2019ve heard French, Japanese, German, and a couple of languages I was sure about.\u00a0 Then there are kids from other countries who come to work in the park to be in the U.S.\u00a0 I don\u2019t think they get to see too much.<\/p>\n

After taking a breather and pretending we belong at the inn, we headed back to \u201cthe crib\u201d as Rich calls it.\u00a0 I needed to pick up and clean up from the Zurek clan.\u00a0 We started to pack our things and get ready to move tomorrow.<\/p>\n

Then we both started hearing the dinner bell ring.\u00a0 Not literally though.\u00a0 Rich made an executive decision to return to the Whistlestop Restaurant for BBQ.\u00a0 The food was really good and we could get beer again.\u00a0 We got seated and ended up with the same waitress we had the other day.\u00a0 I got a BBQ pork sandwich with homemade potato chips.\u00a0 It was really good.\u00a0 Rich went for the Buffalo burger.\u00a0 His beer of choice was the Dancing Trout.\u00a0 At one point, the waitress stopped to tell Rich that this was formerly known as Trout Slayer.\u00a0 But because they sponsored trout habitats in Montana, they had to change their name and logo.\u00a0 That explains the cheap Trout Slayer shirt I bought a couple of days ago.\u00a0 The t-shirt is already vintage!\u00a0 Oh yeah, we stayed for pie.\u00a0 I got huckleberry again while Rich got lemon meringue.<\/p>\n

Back at \u201cthe crib,\u201d we got all of stuff together.\u00a0 But the rain finally arrived after threatening to descend on us all afternoon.\u00a0 Packing the car can wait until tomorrow.<\/p>\n

So tomorrow, we leave the U.S. and enter the Canadian side of the International Peace Park.\u00a0 Our destination is Watertown Lakes.\u00a0 I can\u2019t wait to see it and hike a bit.<\/p>\n

\"Gate<\/a>
Gate for Many Glacier area.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Backside<\/a>
Backside of a young grizzly bear<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Trying<\/a>
Trying to get a good shot of this young grizzly bear.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Map<\/a>
Map of the Swiftcurrent Pass Trail system.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"We<\/a>
We are here and we want to go there.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Swiftcurrent<\/a>
Swiftcurrent Lookout is where Rich really wanted to go.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Trail<\/a>
Trail Sherpa ready for action<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Beautiful<\/a>
Beautiful green rocks all shattered from pressure.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Rich<\/a>
Rich getting the shot and being the shot.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Joy<\/a>
Joy holding up the world.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Reflection<\/a>
Reflection of the mountains in Redrock Lake.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Valley<\/a>
Valley around Redrock Falls<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

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\"Swiftcurrent<\/a>
Swiftcurrent Valley<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Lots<\/a>
Lots of red rock around the falls<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Cascading<\/a>
Cascading waters from Redrock Falls<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"My<\/a>
My view of Redrock Falls<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Another<\/a>
Another shot of Redrock Falls<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Rich<\/a>
Rich got this from an outcrop looking up at Redrock Falls<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Another<\/a>
Another shot of Redrock Falls<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Sunset<\/a>
Sunset over Dancing Lady Mountain last night.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"One<\/a>
One last shot of the sunset.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

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Today is our last day in Glacier.\u00a0 We decided to do one last hike out at Many Glacier area.\u00a0 Since it is just Rich and I, we decided to take it easy.\u00a0 I didn\u2019t sleep well last night, so unfortunately Rich was up earlier than he would have liked.\u00a0 We were lying in bed comparing […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/zurekbrau.com\/blogs\/richsblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2980"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/zurekbrau.com\/blogs\/richsblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/zurekbrau.com\/blogs\/richsblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zurekbrau.com\/blogs\/richsblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zurekbrau.com\/blogs\/richsblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2980"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/zurekbrau.com\/blogs\/richsblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2980\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3009,"href":"https:\/\/zurekbrau.com\/blogs\/richsblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2980\/revisions\/3009"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/zurekbrau.com\/blogs\/richsblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2980"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zurekbrau.com\/blogs\/richsblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2980"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zurekbrau.com\/blogs\/richsblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2980"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}