Driving to Glacier National Park, too Much Smoke!

 

The day had finally arrived! We were heading to Glacier National Park where we would meet Jen, Eric, and her their friends. Jen and Eric had rented a VRBO house above Flathead Lake and the places was so large that we all could social distance from one another.

The trip started out in a spectacular fashion as we were rewarded with a beautiful display of fall colors. The maples had turned red, some a very bright red, and added to the yellows and greens the blend was as good as it gets out here, (the aspens had not yet turned and so we are still waiting for their bright yellow swaths.

One we got out of the canyon we crossed the Yellowstone plain. Here the land is extremely flat as its the floor of the old Yellowstone caldera and with the smoke blocking any view of the mountains all we saw was just brown dried grassland. A signed warned us to be on the look out for game crossing and sure enough we saw a dead elk cow that had been hit by a truck vehicle?

The smoke so blanked the area that when we arrived at Flathead Lake, we could not see all the way across. The reddish sunset still reflected in the nearby lakeshore. Eric told us that there was fresh bear scat in the backyard, but the bear only passed through the yard at night and we never saw it.

However, we did see Jen, Eric, and their friends, waiting for us on the large deck, (we did social distance). All of them were planning on taking a hike along the Highline Trail. It is a fourteen-mile trail that Renita and I had decided to pass on, because we would still be on it.

Instead our hope was to take the short two-mile hike to the overlook above Hidden Lake. After unpacking and getting our gear ready for the next day we made it an early night. We were exhausted from the long drive and we quickly fell asleep.  Clear skies