GNP Day 3: Clouds and Avalanches

Our third and final day in Glacier National Park. I'll keep this short - I really just want to share a few photos. After practically passing out the previous evening, getting out of bed was hard work but we actually pulled up pretty well this morning. The leg pain was only noticeable when walking downhill. A hearty hiking breakfast and we were good to go.

We drove to another part of the park known as Two Medicine, and encountered another black bear on the way. This time we had the telephoto handy, but we had to take pictures through the windscreen.

He was just hanging out by the roadside, getting his fill of huckleberries. Black bears are actually very timid and naturally afraid of humans. Nonetheless, there are strict rules about interacting with them, and hefty fines are enforced for doing the wrong thing. They become a sure danger only once they become used to humans and especially if they begin to associate hikers or campsites with food. The expression is that "a fed bear is a dead bear", and it's true - the rangers will sometimes have to kill bears that start stalking people for their food or hang around where they shouldn't.

Two Medicine was pretty, but we didn't stay for long as there was a storm rolling in.

Instead we drove back to St Mary for lunch. The food is beginning to gross us out. Particularly out in the wilds of Montana, if you're not in the middle of a city it's so hard to find anything that isn't deep fried or a burger. The serving sizes are monstrous. We need to start ordering from the children's menu.

Another drive across the Going to the Sun Road was in order, as we had to get back to Whitefish to hop back on the train the next morning. Some low cloud in the area made for some awesome views. At one point we were at an observation deck, looking at the view in the photo below. Less than four minutes later the cloud had surrounded us and visibility was only a few meters.

We finished off our time in the park with one last small hike. This one wove through forest at a much lower elevation, so it was humid enough to be unpleasant. After a couple of miles, however, we were rewarded with a view of the gorgeous Avalanche Lake. It was much more impressive than expected, which made up for the fact our shirts felt as though we'd fallen in.

GNP Day 2: Grizzlies and Glaciers

We stayed within the bounds of the park at Rising Sun Motor Inn, and it was so lovely rising at dawn as the sun began to wake the surrounding mountains. Cool, still and quiet; the only noise the crunch of our hiking boots on the road as we trudged to breakfast. 

Early Morning Photography at St Mary's Lake

Glacier National Park is home to an estimated 300 grizzly bears (ursus arctos horribilis), and I'd be lying if I said that wasn't part of the attraction. Nonetheless, I was understandably nervous about hiking in grizzy country. The risk of seeing a grizzly, let alone being harmed by one, is actually very small, particularly if you take the appropriate precautions. Hiking in a group, staying on trail and making lots of noise, especially when hiking into a headwind, near running water or rounding a blind corner, are key. As much as you might like to spot a grizzly, you certainly don't want to surprise a mama bear and her cubs. If all else fails, and you find yourself face to face with 300 kilograms of pure muscle, then you'll want to resort to bear spray.

Bear Spray

I had one of these babies holstered to my hip the whole time we were hiking. It's basically capsicum spray on steroids and has stopped a number of attacks in the past. Most of the time, an initial bear charge will be a bluff, designed to make you pee yourself. You have to stand your ground and not run away - if you do, they'll chase. Then you back away slowly.

In the case of a true charge, the bear spray has a range of 9 meters. Grizzly bears can run at over 60 kilometers per hour (Usain Bolt tops out at 43). Pop quiz: if the grizzly bear is charging you at 60km per hour, and you must discharge your spray when the bear is within 9 meters of you, how long between the bear being in range and your head being in its mouth? 0.54 seconds. Not much of a window. Scary.

We hiked the Grinnell Glacier Trail, which is just over 12 kilometers in length and gains 560 meters in elevation. There are 25 glaciers left in the park, and it is predicted that all will be gone by 2020.

Grinnell Lake

Contemplation

Grinnell Glacier

Downhill to Grinnell Lake

If you look at the photo above, we hiked to the glacier from the the middle lake. Plenty of switchbacks, lots of rocks and no grizzly bears. We did, however, see a moose!

Moose

At this point, our new telephoto lens had already paid for itself. The better part of a full day later, we made it back to the trailhead at Many Glacier Hotel exhausted and overheated. Have I mentioned how freaking hot it is over here? Northern Montana, high elevations, glaciers - we didn't expect it to be hitting 30 degrees.

We threw our packs in the boot of the car and started to drive back to our inn. Suddenly this gorgeous creature decided to pop out and say hello. The telephoto lens was, of course, in Danny's pack in the boot of the car. I jumped out, ran round and got it. Survived. Even though it's brown, this is actually a black bear - you can tell from its straight face profile, prominent ears and lack of a shoulder hump. Quite small, I suspect it was a female or a juvenile.

A Brown Black Bear

This made up for the lack of grizzly bears - am I crazy for being disappointed that we didn't see one!? I'd done a bit of bear research before leaving Australia, partly out of curiosity and partly in the interests of being informed. Among the articles I read was this one, about a grizzly attack in Glacier NP in 2005. I re-read it yesterday, and realised that it happened on the very Grinnell Glacier Trail that we had hiked.

Next time?

Glacier National Park: Day 1

Glacier National Park, the crown of the continent, introduced to us by an episode of Stephen Fry in America. Where to begin? We spent a perfect three days here, and I can't do them justice in one post.

The overnight train from Seattle dropped us in Whitefish, Montana, where we picked up our hire car (after booking an SUV we declined our allocated minivan and ended up with a rather nice Subaru Outback) and hit the road. Having bought backpacks and hiking clothes in Seattle, we simply made an obligatory visit to Walmart to stock up on all the necessary bits and pieces and just as many unnecessary ones. We decided against buying a gun, mainly due to the current ammunition shortages (it's huntin' season y'all).

Whitefish Station

Park Entry

Lake McDonald

The Going to the Sun Road is the park's premier attraction - I think I mentioned last time that Americans don't like walking if they can avoid it. It traverses the park, winding for 85 kilometers along mountainsides and over the Continental Divide. Those who don't want to drive the road themselves can catch a 1930s 'red jammer' bus.

Red Jammer on the Going to the Sun Road

The road is only open for a few months each summer. Its pinnacle is Logan Pass, located along the Continental Divide at an elevation of 2026 meters. In winter, this area is often under more than 30 meters of snow.

The views are beyond literal description. Understand that the photos below don't even come close to doing the scenery justice.

View from East of Logan Pass

Hiker Dan

Another View the Logan Pass Area

We did our first 'hike' this afternoon - from the Logan Pass Visitor Centre up to the Hidden Lake overlook. I use the word 'hike' loosely - it was only a 4.5 kilometer round trip, with an elevation gain of 160 meters.

Hidden Lake

Just Chillin' at Hidden Lake

The scenery is much more rewarding when you've had to 'hike' for it. An exhilarating introduction to this beautiful place, the likes of which make me remember why I so dislike city travel. People miss out on so much by just going to LA and NYC.

A Killer Whale of a Time

It was November last time we were in Washington, and the whale watching season had ended (at least outside of your local Walmart). This time around, we weren't going to miss the opportunity. The San Juan Islands sit within the Salish Sea, comprised of the numerous coastal waterways that lie between Washington and British Columbia. It's an area renowned for its three pods of resident orca whales, and we were determined to see them.

We began our morning with a meander through the picturesque grounds of Washington University, before catching a bus to the South Lake Union area. I never get tired of universities, so long as there's no study involved.

U Dub

Unless SeaWorld is your thing, there's always a chance you won't see orcas. With this in mind we took out an insurance policy of sorts, in the form of a seaplane. We boarded at Lake Union and flew to the San Juan Islands, landing quite literally in Friday Harbour. The idea was that a seaplane flight would lessen the disappointment if the whales didn't show.

Seattle from the Seaplane

Lake Union

The San Juan Islands from the Seaplane

Friday Harbour

I'd joked before leaving Perth that we'd be lucky to see a humpback whale, and so, of course, upon  boarding the tour naturalist announced with excitement that a humpback had been spotted on the other side of the island. No mention of orcas. Devastated. I've seen humpbacks up closer off the coast back home.

Humpback

It wasn't until later that the naturalist told us the resident orcas hadn't actually been in residence this year, and it had been one of the worst seasons ever for orca watching. The residents eat salmon, specifically chinook, and there just wasn't enough of it around. I gave up all hope at this point and tried not to be too miserable as we headed toward a minke whale.

Mr Minke

Our photographs of Mr Minke confirmed that there was also a Mrs Minke. The boring thing about watching humpback and minke whales (both baleen whales) is that they surface for twenty-odd seconds to breathe and then dive for anywhere from two to twenty minutes. By this time we'd also seen sea lions, porpoises, jumping fish and harbour seals (which are like the dogs of the ocean), and the boat had started to head back towards Friday Harbour.

NEK MINNIT...

Orca!

We had happened across a pod of transient orcas. These are your true killer whales, the ones which hunt and eat (and play with) marine mammals. They're not generally as rambunctious as the resident orcas, so they weren't breaching. In fact, they were hunting, and we think they were probably hunting Mr Minke... There were six or seven of them in total, and at least one juvenile.

Wild orcas aren't considered a danger to humans. There have been only a handful of potentially threatening incidents and none have been fatal; most can probably be attributed to the orca initially mistaking the human for prey. As for attacks on humans by captive orcas, expert opinions differ as to whether these are intentional or accidental. In any case, these are extremely intelligent, social, large and active creatures, who can swim 100 kilometres a day in the wild. Put them in a tank and their life expectancy plummets, their dorsal fins collapse, the females are forced to breed at a younger age than they would normally and the survival rate of calves is low. If the attacks are intentional, who can blame them.

The most magical part of this experience was seeing these majestic creatures in the wild, in their own habitat, just living their lives as they do. It was a privilege.

P.S. Unfortunately iPhoto has decided to disappear from my laptop, so I'm unable to process the photos. Apologies for them being a bit raw.

Retake Montlake

Perth to Melbourne. Melbourne to Los Angeles. Los Angeles to Seattle.

We've designed an itinerary to fill in some of the gaps from our last trip and minimise the number of times we cross our tracks. Seattle is the only place we're visiting for a second time, but with a very good reason. More on that in the next post (i.e. tomorrow), but rest assured that Seattle itself isn't the attraction.

Our plans were for Sunday, so we arrived on Saturday afternoon. Fortuitous, as it allowed us to catch some college football, and we'd been lamenting the fact that we won't make it to an NFL game. We didn't realise until much later that "some college football" was actually the opening of the brand new Husky Stadium, home of the University of Washington Huskies.

Husky Stadium

The $280 million rebuild began in 2011, after the original stadium, built in 1920, started to fall apart. It seats 70,138 people and is recognised as one of the loudest stadiums in the country. Some even claim that the mexican wave originated here in 1981.

The best part of the stadium is what you can't see from our cheap seats - the view. Situated on the Montlake Cut, where Lake Washington meets Puget Sound, those lucky people on the other side of the stadium can see both the Cascade and Olympic mountain ranges. I should point out that we bought our cheap tickets at an exorbitantly inflated price, such was the level of demand to see the Huskies "retake Montlake".

The obligatory marching band

Third down

The Huskies brought home a decisive win over the Boise State Broncos, with a final score of 38-6.

The real reason for this write up is to share a remarkable tale of synchronicity. During the second quarter I turned to Daniel and wondered aloud how the netball team I've been coaching did at their game, which would have finished some hours previously. The next day, courtesy of an email from the team manager, I learnt they'd also won. And the score? 38-6. Awesome.

TWO YEARS LATER

Back in 2011, our not-so-grand tour of the United States of America lasted for three months and took in more than twenty states. The blog lasted only six weeks, and my mother still reminds me how disappointed she was with my lack of staying power. I did make a half-hearted attempt to complete it upon our return to Perth, but the magic was missing. It seemed the only appropriate way to make up for my shortcomings was to return to America.

And so, less than two years later, here we are.

It's still summer in the States

When the Saints go marching in...

We got rinsed at the New Orleans train station by a taxi driver who refused to take us to our hotel for less than $20. He reasoned the traffic was too bad because of the Saints game that evening. The Superdome overlooks the station, and people were already tailgating in the car park. That said, it only took us five minutes to get to our accommodation. Always the hustle in America.

Degas House, on Esplanade Avenue in the Esplanade Ridge neighbourhood, is where French artist Edgar Degas lived and worked for the years he spent in New Orleans. Built in the 1850s, it's a picture of the affluence the city experienced in the years prior to the Civil War. It's separated from the French Quarter only by the I-10, underneath which runs the least salubrious neighbourhood you can imagine.

Degas House

Of course, we had tickets to said Saints game. The taxi back to the stadium cost us $8. It was our first and only NFL game for the trip, although we'd seen a college game a couple of weeks earlier. There's just something about the atmosphere, about being packed into a stadium with 73, 042 other people, all hooting and hollering.

The Superdome has been substantially renovated since it was used as an emergency shelter during Hurricane Katrina and the aftermath. It's huge, and the stands are so steep that if you stand up too quickly you feel as though you're about to topple downwards. We were, as always, surrounded by friendly Americans. Once they discovered we hailed from the land of Steve Irwin, they were just a little excited about explaining all the rules and commentating each and every play as it happened. Jaws still drop at our accent, which is greeted with particular wonder in the South. One sweet young thing of about sixteen responded to Daniel's half-time hot-dog order with eyes wide open and a "where ya'll from"? When we said Western Australia, she nudged one of her friends and whispered of our exotic origins. Said friend asked incredulously, "what ya'll doin' here"?

The game was a good one, I think. The Saints marched in by 14 points (WHO DAT). By the end of the evening our palms ached from high-fiving every American within a ten-yard radius of our seat.