OVER THE HUMP

On the “Big Day”, July 12, Logan Pass finally opened. We drove past tall walls of snow that had been pushed aside to let us through.

Due to global warming,

it was the latest opening of the 8,000- foot pass on record.

In a few month it’ll begin snowing again

and the mountain pass will close once more.

For the same reason the world is quickly losing its glaciers.

Glacier National Park still had 50 of them in 1980. They’re down to 25 now and at this rate, will not have any by 2040.

Obviously we all need to do what we can to global warming. That’s one of the reasons Francesca and I are practicing

"hyper-millage” (gas saving driving techniques) on this trip.

At the Logan Pass Visitor Center we encountered a big horn ram strutting though the visitor center parking lot.

He’d not seen hoards of people for eight months but he was seeing them today. He seemed angry, that his territory had been invaded. This ranger yelled and threw her hat at him to shoe him away. He trotted off to join his friends on a nearby “horn”.

Francesca and I added to the graffiti

everyone was carving

in the snow. We knew the sun would soon take it

away.

The two-hour ride across Glacier Park reminded me of a high road I’d taken long ago through Austria. Snow was enjoyed by hundreds of us. Some kids took to it with snowboards and skis.

Its melting creating some incredible sculptures including this one I call, “Woman of the Valley”.

We descended 4000 feet, left the park, and entered another tourist zone, "Huckleberry Land". All the businesses were hot on huckleberries and you could buy a dozen different things made from them as well as the tiny berries themselves.

We settled on the delicious ice cream.

Huckleberry bush growing out of a tree stump

We then resumed our drive west through endless fields of golden Montana wheat.