Listen Intently

Made it back home.  Due to flooding issues in Iowa and Wisconsin, Amtrak’s Empire Builder has been bustituting, detouring, and getting there some other way for a while.  And a car problem caused even further delays on my train back to Chicago.  It left Portland five hours late, so my 10 AM departure from Glacier Park turned into a 3 PM departure.  It was a rainy morning, but I sat in an Internet cafe for an hour or so and then relaxed in the Glacier Park Lodge lobby for the rest of the morning.

The Canadian Pacific railroad line the Builder uses through Wisconsin opened the day before we arrived, so were the first or second eastbound Builder that traversed the normal line through to Chicago.  Long story short, we arrived into Chicago at 9:55 PM.  My train to Toledo left at 7:00 PM, so I (and several other passengers) made a mad dash for the Lake Shore Limited, which left at 10:00 PM.  The great crew on the LSL found me a sleeper cabin on the train and I settled in for the quick journey to Toledo.

Yeah, right. Storms through the area caused a “flash flood warning” and a speed restriction on the line.  Turns out, the Capitol Limited (the train I was supposed to be on) was held up for quite some time.  We nearly caught up to it and both trains came into Toledo near 4:00 AM.  I’ve since found out that a large fire near Elyria (Cleveland) has caused further significant delays to the eastbound and westbound LSLs and Capitols.  Glad I’m not on those!  Once home, I promptly fell asleep and am now trying to get back into the right time zone and sleep schedule.

I will get the rest of the photos and some other items during the weekend.  Thanks to all for following along and your comments!  I had an incredibly awesome trip, and while I was really ready to get home, now that I am here I am ready to go out on the rails again.

As a civilian Army engineer, my dad used to work on the Army’s Grizzly project.  But that’s another story.  This Grizzly is big and furry, and, so they say, mean.  A sign with this text is posted at all of the trailheads in Glacier National Park.  A Ranger commented, “we were a little afraid that people would take these signs as souvenirs – don’t do that, okay?  It’s for everyone’s safety.”  Glacier National Park is home to several hundred Grizzly Bears and many more Black Bears.  I can verify, I saw a mom black bear and two cubs while driving to Waterton Park just across the border in Alberta.  People around here don’t go hiking without “bear spray” (pepper spray), and they encourage you to “hike loudly.”  You don’t want to surprise a bear.  ‘Cause this is not Yogi we’re surprising.

This has been a fun few days, exploring Glacier National Park.  The park has wonderful programming available, free, for anyone interested.  Every night, at our campground, there is a “campfire” presentation (there is no campfire, unfortunately) on a different topic.  This is repeated at most campgrounds and hotels inside the park.  They have minivans parked in campground lots with scopes and binoculars, “Wildlife Watching.”  You can step on up and peak through the telescopes.

And then, much to my delight, I discovered the Ranger-led day hikes.  Hiking alone is discouraged (remember, this is Grizzly country).  Right from my campground is a daily hike to Iceberg Lake.  So I joined in, hiking up the path with a Wisconsin Badger (I’ll forgive her) Park Ranger called Monica and a group containing myself, another Ohioan, and a family from Jackson, Michigan.  Long way to go to hike with your neighbors.  We stopped a few times along the way to learn about the geology or the biology or some other ‘ology.  Iceberg Lake, right now, is frozen solid and the last 3/4 mile was over snowpack.  It’s interesting walking atop four feet or more of snow.   In late June.  Nearly July.

On Sunday morning I ventured down to the Two Medicine Lake for a ranger-led hike to No Name Lake.  Alas, I was the only hiker to show up, so I got a “private” ranger hike.  “My” ranger, Leisel, and I had a wonderful time riding the boat across the lake, then hiking up about 850 feet (over two miles) to No Name Lake, and then detouring by Twin Falls on the way back down.  We talked more geology and biology, identified calling birds, and found alternate creek crossings as all of the creeks and rivers around here are really flowing.  It’s late for the spring flowers, but since the snow stuck around for so long, they were in full bloom along the trail.  It is truly impossible to put it all into words; you really need to come out here to see it for yourself.

It really snowed this spring out here in Glacier.  During the first week in June, they received three new feet of snow up top at Logan Pass.  Normally, by now, the famous Going To The Sun Road is open and you could drive across the continental divide separating East and West Glacier.  But not this year.  It has snowed so much and for so long that the road is still not open.  The rivers are high and the high country is still very unaccessible.  On the plus side, all of the waterfalls are just roaring.  It’s a sight to behold.

This is a fascinating park – different in many ways from the mountain park that I am most familiar, Rocky Mountain National Park.  The Great Northern Railroad helped set up the park, and much of what they did can still be seen today.  Before roads, the Great Northern was bringing people to Glacier, where they would typically spend a month or more.  Dropped off at the railroad depots in East or West Glacier, visitors could stay in lodges near the stations.  Then they would take day-long rides to the next chalet, going as deep into the park as they wanted.  But all of the buildings were, and still are, about one day’s ride from the next.  Some items have been modernized, others are just they were.  Roads added, “motor inns” built, but the heart of the lodges and the chalets remain.

While it is all certainly very commercial, these days, it’s not anywhere as commercial as I expected.  I guess that I am used to having Estes Park, the entrance to Rocky Mountain National Park.  A tourist mecca, with all of the tourist shops.  Not here.  The entrance areas have one or two stores (grocery, gifts and more), a few hotels, and that’s it.  Not a single fast food restaurant.  Not a Starbucks.  None.  Zip.  And once I figured that out, I love it.  Just watch out for the cattle on the road.

And now, it’s back onto the Empire Builder for the ride home.  All Aboard!

Here’s the Murphy’s Law of traveling Amtrak.  Whenever some of the best scenery goes by, you will be in the dining car.  Which, I guess isn’t really all that surprising because it seems like you’re in the dining car most of the trip.  Train travel, especially with sleeper reservations (and the included meals) doesn’t mix well with the lose-weight-now diet.  Lots of food, lots of sitting around.

I’ve been trying to figure out how to describe the trip up the northern Cascades out of Seattle.  I still can’t.  It compares with the trip into the Rockies out of Denver as the most scenic and inspiring experiences of my Amtrak travels.  And I, as you can guess from the above paragraph, saw it all from the Dining Car.  So, no pictures.  Not that the pictures would do it any justice.

I used to say “one” in the next sentence; here’s the updated version:  If you don’t do any other train travel in your lifetime, you should (must?) do at least one of these two:  1) the westbound California Zephyr out of Denver through to Sacramento (the Rockies and Sierra Nevadas); or 2) the eastbound Empire Builder from Seattle to East Glacier Park.  On the Builder, be sure to be viewing the north side of the train from Whitefish to Essex, and the south side from Essex to East Glacier Park.

Did you know it was a small world?  I’ve hiked and dined and talked with multiple people throughout this trip, and somewhere along the way there always seems to be an uncanny connection.  On the Builder, I ate breakfast with a couple from St. Paul, Indiana.  St. Paul, Indiana, is a town of less than 500 southeast of Indianapolis.  It is also the home of the Flat Rock YMCA Camp, which, for a while, my friend Arthur directed, and I spent much time at when I worked for the Indy YMCA.  They were absolutely flabbergasted to have met someone on the train, in the middle of Idaho, with a connection to St. Paul, Indiana.  Then, while hiking trails in Glacier Park, I got advice from one group of experienced park visitors, finding out during the conversation that one grew up in Toledo, OH.  She recognized my Maumee Valley t-shirt.  The park offers guided group hikes.  I joined in one the other day and hiked to Iceberg Lake with a fellow Ohioan and a family from Jackson, Michigan.  It’s a small world, after all.  It’s a small, small world (got that song stuck in your head, yet?).

As Glacier National Park is my “destination”, if I had any, on this trip, I was eager to get to the park.  After all, the glaciers are melting.  Many years ago, there were hundreds of glaciers in GNP.  The last time a study was done with a count, there were 25.  Now, they suspect that when they count this year there will be many less.  Climate change.  No matter what the cause, it is happening.  And Glacier National Park will likely soon be a park with an inappropriate name.

Now, let’s take a moment to discuss driving in Montana.  On curvy, two-lane mountain roads.  Where the speed limit is 70 MPH.  Oh yeah, at night it’s only 65.  And don’t veer right, that’s a sheer cliff over there, buddy.  It’s scary enough doing it by yourself, but then add other cars and motorcycles coming at you and from behind going multiple MPH faster that you.  It’s dangerous at times-just two days ago two motorcyclists instantly killed themselves (in two different accidents, within 15 miles and 4 hours of each other) by crossing the double yellow line and ramming into a car going the other way.

Did I mention the obstacles?  There are those, too.  I had to use the sudden breaking maneuver to dodge a herd of cattle and, then, around the next bend, a herd of horses, who had decided to use the road for passage and grazing that morning.  Yes, horses.  While driving into the park the other night, the obstacle-of-the-day was big horn sheep.  You see, they (apparently) don’t use fences here in Montana.

I’m trying to catch up with some writing and posting here.  Next time, some tales of exploring Glacier National Park.  I’m getting a few pictures posted while I am waiting on Amtrak.  There will likely be more uploaded after I am home.