I lived worked and especially played in the flathead Valley for 16 years first as a plumber then as an educator. In all that time I took advantage of my proximity to Glacier National Park spending weeks and days hiking on the amazing trail system and kayaking and canoeing on its many lakes. Here are some images from my five day trip there October of 25.
This shot I call "mt Oberlin presiding". This was one of those occasions where i made myself get up from a cozy afternoon nap in the sun and get on the road before it got dark at the top of gttsr . I stopped at the "weeping wall" overlook to get a few pic's of mount Oberlin on the way up and it was one of those times every glass junkie lives for...
This is the eighth and final edit of this shot and is as close to as shot as i could get and still mask out the wildfire smoke. I hope this couple have a wonderful life together and who knows maybe this shot will find it's way to them some day.
Chief Mountain is sacred to the Blackfeet Indians and although the mountain is in Glacier Park the access to the mountain is heavily restricted and controlled by the tribe, as it should be. Most visitors do not see this aspect of the park and thus are not able to view this phenomena of geologic morphology. The top layer of Chief Mountain is actually millions of years older than the rock below it. This top was part of a 50 mile wide splinter of sedimentary bedrock driven up and over the existing slab by the forces of continental collision and not plate tectonics. A couple hundred million years ago the island continent of Japan crashed into North America somewhere around the Seattle area and shoved a huge chunk of land mass east all the way to this point. the face you see of the mountain is the leading edge of that slab. Canada is only a few miles north of Chief mountain and this is about as isolated as you get and still have paved roads.
This side of Glacier is almost spooky in the fall after labor day. While on this road, once I got north of Babb I saw only a few cars and once went almost an hour with hearing another vehicle. I felt something I always feel when confronted with something in nature so huge and significant...the combined feelings of joy, fear, love and respect. I remember an almost undeniable desire to supplicate myself in front of something so grand.
Logan Pass at the apex of the Going to the sun highway was always a waypoint for me, I rarely endured the parking competition and usually continued down the mountain to Kalispell.
My first job after returning to Bozeman from five years in the navy was as a draftsman for an engineering firm in Bozeman. we had two main jobs that year, the main one that took up most of our time was reclamation work on the south fork of the Toutle river in the wake of the mount saint Helens eruption and the other was the sewage treatment plant at Saint Mary's in glacier. One of my duties for Mountain Engineering -besides creating single line piping diagrams of the systems in the plant- was to drive over the gttsr several times a week to pick up fright, parts and other supplies and to meet with vendors and sub contractors. I never stopped and just spent time looking from all of the vantage points at the visitor center. This October I went up one morning early and two nights at sunset. It was amazing weather the whole week there but the wildfire smoke from Canada obscured every vista. Some of the smoke I was able to use, some I edited out as much as I could. This evening there were less than a hundred people watching the sunset from the parking lot and a few ragged and tired hikers changing socks and swigging beer after hours on the trail. I had some great conversations with fellow photographers and a few hikers and tourists.
I do not have the vocabulary nor a good enough command of the English language to describe the grandeur of Glacier in the fall.
