Happy trails...this morning I got up and went horseback riding through the Cracker Flats. Tiff opted to sleep in. She wasn't up for sitting in the saddle. It was enjoyable two hour ride. It was a small group. The only other guests were an an older couple from Oklahoma. My horse, Stardust, and I brought up the rear and did our own sight-seeing. I loved riding along the trail. We even saw a grizzly sow with her cub (from a distance of course).
Back at the lodge I met up with Tiffany for lunch. We saw a few bears on the side of the hill. It's interesting how everyone stops along the side of the road and stares up at the hill.
After lunch at Swiftcurrent Motor Lodge, we headed back to Going to the Sun Road and Logan Pass. On our way we saw a small black bear real close to the road. It was the best and safest view from our car. We held up traffic a bit as Tiffany took several great pictures. It was the first of our many encounters with wildlife today.
We drove up to Logan Pass visitor center where we began our hike to the Hidden Lake overlook. It was 1.25 m one-way that crossed the continental divide a few times. Most of the trail is boardwalk, climbing hundreds of feet at a steady pace. I must admit that I was huffing and puffing at times.
The view from the top was well worth it! I am just amazed at the beauty of the mountains high above and the blue glacial water below. While we were looking out up walks a mountain goat along with her kid. She ran all of the people off of the lookout to lick the salt off of the rail. We were greatly surprised! Although these animals aren't known to be aggressive, they still have horns.
And for our third encounter with Montana wildlife, we were hiking back down the trail when all of a sudden out of the brush came a huge bighorn sheep. It stood about 25 ft in front of us and we had no idea what to do. It must have been rather funny to watch us scurry. Tiffany was trying to get behind me while I was trying to get behind her. The sheep didn't seem to bothered with us and just walked on. We laughed about that for some time down the trail.
Finally on our way home we stopped in St. Mary's to shop and eat. When we were ready to go I discovered that I didn't have the keys to the car. It was an adventure retracing our steps and thinking of places I could have left them. To make a the story short, I had simply laid them down while looking in the gift shop! It added to the excitement of our day.
-Sarah
- I had to add that we sat by the fire in the Many Glacier Lodge at night. It is a huge copper fireplace flume that hangs suspended from the tall ceiling. We spoke with some other visitors and just hung out. We had our last encounters with animals during this time. We saw a field mouse scurry back and forth between the feet of people in the lobby and we also had a swooping bat. I opened the lobby door to free the bat but I did not have the courage to trace down the mouse.
- Tiff