Before the Smoke, Part 2

More Northwest Montana pictures from July (UPDATE: Edited to add several more pictures; Part 1 is here.)

I came, I saw, I conquered—with hiking sticks. This is the same mountain I said had concave and rocky spots on the trail and mountain goats at the top. (Definitely not like the trail with the dog pillar at the end! That one was more like an evening stroll.) I'm a bit concerned with how much raw, harsh sunlight I was exposed to that day.

A walk in our local park offers stone balconies with summer views of our town.

A backdrop of mountains in Glacier National Park. (I think this is Glacier. My sister took the picture.) One evening, we picnicked and went wading on our side of the park, and followed up with ice cream. I think it was that same trip that we went for a short part of a hike, but shadows were lengthening, and it was getting a little quiet and spooky. It feels like this is what you see from an overlook around that section of the park.

This is on the Highline Trail up at the pass off Going-to-the-Sun Road at Glacier National Park. My sister took a picture of my brother, who is photographing mountain goats who refused to stop blocking the trail. Finally, my sister started clapping and yelling at the most stubborn one. It would climb the bank a little ways, give us about ten seconds, and then come back down. The baby, not appreciating the clapping, bleated at it after a while. Park rangers probably would not have appreciated it either. But we didn't see any other way to get around them.

Here's my what my brother's camera saw.

These are bighorn sheep off the Highline Trail. To me, mountain goats are prettier (when they're not shedding). Plus, bighorn sheep have warning signs about not going near them. I guess they're more aggressive.

The beginning of the Highline Trail is interesting. You traverse a narrow, rocky ledge with a sheer cliff wall on one side and a drop to the road below on the other. You've been thoughtfully provided with a rubber hose to hold onto along the wall—nothing to stop you from tumbling over the edge, though. One older lady sadly did tumble, at the beginning of the season. My brother says about this picture: "If you zoom into this one, you can see the goats off in the background before we knew what impending doom we were about to face."

My brother's picture of the overlook back on the easy trail.

Typical tourists, always wanting their picture taken at the Continental Divide to send to Mom in California.