GOING GLACIAL

As we were preparing to leave our Missouri River campsite, an antelope stopped by. Pi’s barking scared her so bad she tore up a hill.

We left the river and the hills surrounding it for the western Montana prairie. Fields of wheat and the bright yellow flowers of mustard were surrounding us when we came upon the historical marker. It told us that The Lewis and Clark folks had had no problems with the Native Americans until they camped here. They accused the locals of trying to steal from them. The resulting fight resulted in two indians dead and a hasty retreat by the explorers.

A mile north we saw an amazing sculpture, two indians on horses, in the heart of the Blackfeet Reservation.

The descriptive sign was gone. We assume it was dedicated to the two who had died. There are two sides to every story.

Fifteen minutes later we were in Conrad, a beautiful indian town. Almost everyone on the streets seemed to be Native American.

In a food market were given advice on approaching the huge mountains just to the west, Glacier National Park. An older, long-haired man told us, “The only way to drive through the the park, Going-To-The-Sun Road, may still be snowed in. A month ago the snow was still thirty feet deep in the highest part, Logan Pass”. Glacier was our northern goal, we drove on anyway.

An hour later we were setting up camp

just inside the park boundaries. We learned that

main road was closed but that they were hoping to have the snow cleared in two days.

We spent those days marveling at the huge, steep mountains around us. Thick glaciers had sculpted them into “horns"

as in Switzerland’s “Matterhorn”. Again, we were warned of bears but never saw any.

On the second day there, a ranger stopped by

our campsite to say hello. We asked him if he’d ever seen a bear in the campground. “I see them every day, he responded, “As I was just walking up to your site a sow and her cub were walking fifty feet behind you”.