Made the final push from Chester to Saint Mary’s this morning.
- Sunrise Chester, Montana
Had a dramatic sunrise over the little town of Chester where I had a great night’s rest at their “city park”.
More pleasant rolling fields and expanses of wide open spaces along Route 2 between Chester and Glacier National Park.
In spots the view seems to go on forever. Forgive the quality of most of these shots, they are taken through the window of the motorhome as I zip along the highway, very hard to find a place to pull off when I see something interesting!
A fairly large wind farm appears on the south side of the highway after Cut Bank, I should imagine that it is quite productive.
There is pretty steady stream of railroad traffic on the tracks that parallel Route 2 through Montana. This one is most likely heading east to the Bakken to pick up oil.
The weather continues to be in and out, a little sun, a little rain, but tending more to the latter than the former. Stopped in Cut Bank at an Albertsons to stock up on groceries for my stay in Glacier national Park. Took Route 464 north out of Browning ( a depressing looking town where I had a VERY scary experience one night several years ago with some young methed out natives at a gas station on the edge of town) to 89 south down to the Johnsons of St. Mary Campground, where I have stayed before.
Too expensive for my budget, around $40/night, but the people are nice and the view from your campsite is hard to beat, and it is all but impossible to get a site inside the park. Unfortunately today the view consists of only clouds, fog, and mist, can’t even see the mountains across the valley.
Got set up and headed up to Many Glacier around 4 Pm to look for bears.
Didn’t take long to encounter the first bearjam, watching a small blonde grizzly and and single dark cub in a field above the road.
Only a hundred yards up the road, another blonde, almost white small griz munching through the shrubbery, not 100 feet from the road. After joining the crowd and attempting some not so great shots here, the grass and shrubs were a little too high to get any good unobstructed shots here, I headed up the road to a point just past the intersection to the Lodge where an even bigger bearjam had the road blocked.
Here the people were watching a very large grizzly graze his way up the mountainside. He was a long way from the road, but he was BIG, a nice looking brute. Sure would make me hesitate to want to hike in the area.
It was starting to get dark to be able to shoot, so I turned around and headed back home through two more bear jams on my way out of the park. A much more successful little venture into the park than I had anticipated, can’t wait til tomorrow, only wish the weather would improve.
