Well hi! What a delight to visit Glacier National Park again. Let’s take a two-waterfall hike to Saint Mary Falls then Virginia Falls on the east side of the park. This is the first time for me and maybe you too, so grab your gear and let’s go. It will be 3.6 miles round trip with lots of wide switchbacks taking us first down about 260 feet then up about 280 feet–then doing it in reverse. Let’s take our time and enjoy the ramble because we’ll no doubt be huffing and puffing as we go!
Hello everyone! It has been a hectic four plus months and I’ve missed you! Yes, I’m still alive, still taking pictures, and still heading into the wilderness. The biggest change is I’ve gone back to school working toward a second Master’s degree. OK, this is a lot of work, and since I’m retired I sometimes ask: WHY? Well, because I’m a life-long learner and can’t help myself.
So in my crazy, busy, demanding new school life, I “escaped” one morning to visit a place I love close by. We have walked here before, Missouri River Headwaters State Park. This day I arrived before sunrise to soak in the pre-dawn beauty, the glorious sun coming over the mountains, and the autumn landscape.
What a great idea. We have the maps and a free day, so leaving at 5am we journey three hours east to the unique Pryor Mountains. They are very different from what we expect in Montana that boasts of the Rocky Mountains in the west and the Great Plains in the east. Rather than the glacier-carved granite of the Rockies, such as the Beartooth range only 40 miles west, here we have an island of sandstone and shale mountains reaching up from the prairie high enough to including spectacular limestone canyons. The Pryors are not only geologically unique, but culturally, ecologically, and meteorologically as well. What an unexpected and beautiful landscape!
Continue driving with us . . .
What to do? Because of the wildfires in Washington, Oregon, and northwest Montana, the smoke hangs in the air like a hazy veil with air quality warnings made visible by fine ash wafting across the landscape. It is 42° with a slight breeze, conditions that make the air quality a bit better first thing in the morning. So grab your jacket and let’s head out the front door for a walk to 12-acre Cattail Lake to see the wilds of Bozeman at sunrise.
