UPDATE: 15 October 2003
Glacier National Park
Glacier National Park is
located in northern Montana where it crosses
the border into Waterton Lakes National Park in Alberta, Canada. The two
parks were joined in 1932 by the US and Canadian governments to form the
Glacier-Waterton
International Peace Park,
serving as a symbol of the friendship between the two countries. The
Glacier-Waterton International Peace Park is
the first international park in the world.
We
visited Glacier National Park - the American part of the peace park - in
June 2001. Glacier covers 1500 square miles of ice-carved terrain that
was etched out over 10,000 years ago - thus the name Glacier National
Park. It has about 50 glaciers and 200 lakes and a bunch of old Alpine
chalets built by the Great
Northern Railroad
around 1914 to encourage tourism. The park has over 750 miles of hiking
trails and more than a thousand species of plants. (It's very green!)
The continental
divide runs
through the park from Canada down towards Yellowstone. East of there are the great
plains, home to the many tribes of plains Indians. The eastern border of
the park is a reservation of the Blackfeet
Indians who
consider the land to be sacred.
We spent several days in Glacier in early June 2001. Although around 2 million tourists come to Glacier each year - there seemed to be no one there when we were there. (Nice!)
We had driven across the entire state of Montana with typical June weather - sunny and cool - but it began to snow as soon as we hit the edge of the park. |
This is what I think of when I reflect back on our trip to Glacier - trees, mountainsides, waterfalls, and low-hanging snow-filled clouds. It was beautiful. |
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Mom and Dad taking a cruise on Lake McDonald - one of the largest of the park's 200 lakes. |
Lake McDonald is surrounded by mountains on all sides. They were hidden the day we were there by all the snow clouds - but it was still beautiful. |
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This is a picture of me next to a waterfall while on a hike through the densest and wettest forest I have ever seen. |
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