August 16, 2007

August 16, 2007

In the morning we drive around the southern border of Glacier National Park over Marias Pass to the East entrance. Along the way we run into thick forest fire smoke again. We pass a staging camp for the firefighters. It is tent city. I guess when you fight fires you have to go where the job is and there aren’t usually a lot of hotels nearby.

As we approach the east side the terrain suddenly turns into dry flat grassland. The mountains on this side rise up like a high barrier wall next to the plains. The approach from this direction is much more dramatic. We stop at the visitor center at the east entrance. It is not huge but much better than the west side.

We have to make some tough choices today. Because we have to be back in Seattle in seven days we are not going to be able to see everything on my list. So we leave Glacier and drive up Chief Mountain Hwy to its international sister Waterton Lakes NP of Canada. We spend the afternoon exploring this smaller park seeing lots of deer and bighorn sheep along its Red Rock Canyon and Cameron Lake scenic drives. Waterton’s centerpiece is its pretty namesake lake that runs down the center. We spend the night at a hole-in-the-wall RV campground just outside the entrance. For some reason there are tiny gnats everywhere and we spend the rest of the evening swatting them.