This is
the second example of a photograph that sucks. but as you can
see, the goats are tame enough to allow their kids to walk near the
tourists.
Then you
smell a change in the air and finally the hills, and shadows, and
clouds that you’ve been thinking might be the Rockies, are solid.
The mountains of Glacier National Park are bare exposed ridges of
granite, and they are impressive.
We came into the park at Saint Mary entrance on the Going-to-the-Sun
Road. What a name. It’s the only road that goes through the park,
and we went straight to the visitors center at Hanging Gardens.
After more than 35 hours in the truck, we put our boots on for the
first time and took off on the trail to Hidden Lake.
In the middle of July, we crossed snow pack, and saw funny looking
animals with weird shaped heads and big long goatees that weren’t
sitting in the passenger seat. The mountain goats were as close to
the trail as the hikers were. Don’t worry, I learned from an
incident in Yellowstone as a kid that wild animals should be treated
like a gun, always assume they are loaded. That incident was not my
fault. My Mom tried to kill me with a moose. Years before she had
tried to murder my Dad with a bison.
We were a little over prepared. We had our camera equipment, walking
sticks, snacks and water bottles, and were hiking only a couple of
miles. But what a couple of miles.
There were a few stunted, struggling trees, but for the most part we
were above the tree line. The views were incredible. Huge open
vistas of lush valleys and bare rock ridges than ran to the summits.
The water of hidden lake was such a deep, rich blue that it seemed
to be painted. Only in the high country does a lake take on this
color. The fresh evidence of rock slides gave a crayola effect to
the landscape. The verdant green of the fresh grass giving way to a
dark tan of old debris to a dark burgundy of freshly fallen rocks to
the charcoal gray of the cliff face, all interspersed with the pure
white snow that hadn’t melted yet in the middle of July. The
mountain goats were as white as the snow, with the older adults just
losing their winter coats and the baby goats looking like cotton
balls with legs and a face. That crisp clean air that in Indiana
only seems to happen in February after a big snow was everywhere. It
was intoxicating.
We moved quickly from one vista to the next, but lingered when we
stopped. Taking the time to set up the shot we wanted, we got (as we
would the entire trip) strange looks as we would lay down on the
ground or hang over a cliff to frame the picture just right. We were
there in the early afternoon, not the best light for pictures, but
just what we needed after the arduous drive. One of the two best
pictures of my life came from that trip up Logan Pass.
