This is Heidi...Signing out for the season

Alright, we've finally reached the end! Jeff will be leaving Many Glacier in just a couple of days, and will have a couple of days to get adjusted to the real world before he heads to the big cities of San Fransisco and Chicago. I believe that he is in for quite the culture shock. As you all know, I decided to spend half of the winter in Whitefish, MT this year, so I am well adjusted to civilization. I was able to get in a couple of great pre-season hikes which made me more than happy. My latest excursion was to the Mount Brown Lookout. I was feeling the the pressure to get up there before I headed back home to Pennsylvania, and last Monday was the perfect opportunity. There wasn't a cloud in the sky when I finally turned on the Going-to-the-Sun Road. I stopped down at Lake McDonald to photograph the perfect mountain reflections in the glassy water before heading to the trail head. I hit the trail by 8 am, determined to use my snowshoes as little as possible. I passed one gentleman on the Sperry trail, but otherwise, I was alone. It felt like home being back in the woods, my feet pounding the trail and the smell of moist dirt in the air. I hit very little snow and ice on the Sperry trail, so I made good time approaching the Mt. Brown junction. It wasn't long on the Brown trail (three and a half long switchbacks) before I hit snow. Luckily, the early start and the brisk morning allowed me to hike several more switchbacks before I reluctantly strapped on my snowshoes. The woods around me were very quiet making the sloshing of my snowshoes sound magnified. I took my time climbing the trail, stopping to take lots of pictures along the way. By the time the trees had thinned out, I had given up on the trail and just headed straight up. It was easier than walking sideways on the steep slope anyway. Finally, the lookout was in sight, and I had a final burst of energy to make it the last little bit. The sun was nice and warm up there, and there was a refreshing breeze. I climbed up the snowy stairs to the lookout and baked in the sun for the next hour. I gorged myself, took photos, and lusted after the brew I neglected to bring. I could have sat up there all day, but the snow was getting softer every minute. So, I packed my things, signed the register, and headed back down the mountain. The trip down was a pain in the rear with the mushy snow but went by quickly nonetheless. I loaded myself into my car, drove until I found a deserted beach spot, then pulled off for a little rest and relaxation. I dug a homebrew from the back of my car, used a cast iron skillet to pry off the top, then headed to the beach. I basked in the sun for a full hour before I gave in to my hunger and headed home.

The next day, I heaved my bruised and sore body into my car and set off for the mid-west. I spent a night in a state park near Bismark, ND before heading to Minneapolis to meet my big sis for a Twins game. Go figure that they actually lost to Cleavland (yep, that's right) 8-1. Nonetheless, we had a great time, though that's inevitable when good friends and smuggled in whiskey comes into play. Luckily, we weren't watching the Pirates lose 20 to zip that day! Now, I'm back home in Pennsylvania visiting my family for a few more days before I head back to the Big Sky state. I will be back at Lake McDonald living the good life in mid-May.

I hope everyone enjoyed the winter blog. I'm sure Jeff and I will leave this blog up for a while, but this will be my last entry. Jeff will be posting at least one more, so stay tuned.

Here's to the many adventures that life brings!

The Park Is Alive!!

Vic and Allie came out to stay a couple of nights before the road opened out here. We did quite a bit of exploring and saw an awful lot of wildlife. Six moose in all including a cow with two calves. The weather has been amazing and it feels so nice to get some sun on my face. My boss Troy came out to work and stay this week and we have been setting up the lodge for water. The wildlife that has been around includes bears, beavers, moose(lots), sheep, goats, groudsquirrels chipmunks and coyotes. It is exhilarating to see the animals being so active. Wednesday evening I made dinner for Troy, his wife Geri Lee, Sumio, Kumi and myself. Earl hung out for a couple of beers as well. We had a great time visiting and Troy gave us all fly fishing lessons. Kumi grabbed her spinning reel and quickly caught a beautiful brook trout. The tracks in the pictures are of moose and mountain lion, notice how the lion steps directly in it's own track. The lake is 3/4 of the way thawed and the snow is disappearing at a rapid pace. The maintenance crew arrives on Monday and I will leave next Friday for the West side. I will write one more blog once I get to Whitefish.Ta-Ta!

Goat research ain't so easy!!

This last week has been very eventful so I will try to keep this entry short. As I left off last time Eric had left and a goat research team had made their way in to stay at the ranger cabin. The group was Stefon, Nick, Weez, Deborah, Kelly, Renee and Lishu. The weather has been pretty crappy for the last month so they were definitely in for a tough go of things. They were out here to ground dart a female goat and this terrain in not the friendliest for ground darting a goat. As they explored the area they were not to optimistic about their chances of getting a goat in a safe area for the animal and the crew. I went on a couple of their scouting hikes but then had to go back to work. The third night they were here they had me over for dinner and I brought some boxed wine(that's all I had to offer). A couple of days later I had all of them over for dinner and we had a blast, all of us boys were the boozing night owls and the girls hit the hay early. After two more days the guys came by again and we had some drinks and told stories, come to find out that Nick and I were at Coast Guard bootcamp together and knew a lot of the same people. The guys left the next morning and on the way out they found A huge Moose antler shed, both sides which is rare. They let me know that it was up by the entrance station and very close to the road. The plows had been in and I figured that more and more people would be biking the road so I told the rangers that I would go get the rack and put it at the entrance station house so they could have it for park use and that way no one could get in trouble for trying to take it out of the park. I couldn't resist taking a couple of pictures of myself with the rack and I have to say that those things are heavy! On my way back to the cabin there was a mama and baby moose by the road so I was able to get some great pictures of them as well. The next two nights the ladies came over and cooked dinner for me and we watched movies, Lord of the Rings was the unanimous choice. I had to go get my mail so I gave them a ride to their cars the next day and they took me to lunch at Duck Lake Lodge, they were all so nice and I really appreciate all of their company and generosity. It is just me out here again and the storms have really been beating on the newly plowed roads, right when I am expecting a big package in the mail. I have made many claims that spring is here but mother nature is just shoving that right in my face. All of March and so far April have been the worst months of the winter. I feel kind of bad for the plow guys because they have to get the parking lots and access roads cleared but if they have to keep clearing the main road it will never happen. Vic and Allie are heading this way for the weekend and I am very much looking forward to their visit. They will be hiking out and I hope that the weather will cooperate with their stay. I am happy that the moose are back but I am still eager to see some bears. Til next time!

If you want to complain about something my e-mail is jeffe1975@yahoo.com

I forgot to rotate Steph's sliding picture. First things first! Someone who checks out this blog issued a complaint to one of the big bosses of the park about one of my pictures on the blog. I used this title because I assume that whomever made the complaint just looked at the pictures and didn't bother to read the explanation which was in the text. I hope this person will at least read the title so I can hopefully explain things to him/her before a flurry of phone calls and accusations start flying between the public, park and my bosses. In the next blog there will be some cool pictures but if you just view the images and neglect to read there will be questions and I hope I will be contacted first. It has been extremely busy out here and seems as though it will be mellowing out a bit. As Heidi covered in the last entry we had a wonderful time hitting the top of Altyn while they were here. Steph really showed Jimbo who has the "stones" when it comes to getting up these majestic peaks. You kick ass Steph, Jimbo you are a Sally!! After they had taken off I had a couple of days on my own to work and scout around. I saw some golden eagles cruising the cliff edges with some ravens in tow and I figured there might be something going on so I hoofed it up the road for a better look. I got a little bored with the birds after about 10 minutes so I decided to follow some Linx tracks that I saw near the road. Now, I had followed grizzly tracks a month earlier and that was easy, but this cat has a little more controlled chaos going on when it is cruising. This frickin thing went through a creek, up the base cliffs of Grinnell, wedged its way between dense forest and then hit the trail. One thing that I did notice was that it always seemed to come back to a set of coyote tracks that went around the lakes. I decided to follow the dogs and sure enough the linx and coyotes always seemed to have the same route. after a complete trip around Swiftcurrent lake and half of Josephine I was worn out and the cat had officially won, props to you linxy! Eric rolled in a few days later and he was out to take the wolverine posts down. We had 5 in all to take down and I was determined to knock them out as quickly as possible so we could play then I could get some work done. The goat researchers (I will cover all that on the next blog) were out so we met up with them out at Red Rock Falls and hung out to ogle the goats. On the way back we grabbed the Fisher Cap Lake post - 1 down. We were up early the next day and set out for Josephine and grabbed both of those posts, while we were out there we saw about 30 goats all over the cliffs, man their crazy. While we were on Lake Josephine a big storm rolled in, the temperature dropped and the snow was dumping. We were chillin(literally) on a bench at the foot of the lake and Eric was to gung-ho on going out to Cracker Flats to grab the 5th post but I was able convince him that if we did so he would be very happy about it the next morning. We left Josephine and headed for Swiftcurrent-3 down. That one was easy, off gto Cracker Flats-4 down. The ski to the flats was rather difficult terrain but we made it and decided to take the edge of the flats back and climb the side of the waterfall back up to the cabin,AWESOME!!! It was such a beautiful way to go and I can't believe I hadn't thought of it before.All in all it ended up being about 18 miles and 1 really wet boot that post holed through a snow bridge. Now that all the posts were down we invited all the goat researchers over for dinner that evening. 9 people at once in this cabin! We had a blast and everyone got to know each other over chicken parm and spirits, fun. The weather has been absolutely erratic and I think March was the worst weather since December. I have been able to get quite a lot of work done in between all the visitors and I am just doing clean up now and it is nice to be able to cruise around rocking the headphones. The lakes have all been breaking up here and there, some more than others, especially Sherburne. The road has been plowed and I am now able to drive out to grab my mail. I will cover more of all this stuff in the next blog in a couple of days(moose are back! pics). Take care all and I will post again very soon. I almost forgot to mention, the collar on the sheep is what the researchers use to keep track of them. I thought you all might like to see what they actually look like and no it is not the kind that shocks them if they bark ; ). I also put a picture up of my new washing machine since I have had the plumbing problems. I never realized how easy we have it these days until I had to hand was 2 loads of laundry and 2 sets of bedding. What a forearm workout!

Grand, Magnificent, Sublime, Angelic, Stunning

Wow, what an incredible couple of days out in the Many Glacier Valley. It has been long overdue, but I finally made it back to the east side of the park. This time I recruited Stephanie and Jimbo for the adventure (not that it took much persuading). I borrowed a couple of bikes from our good friend Ed on Monday to make the trip in much easier. Tuesday, we loaded up Elvis with three bikes, three packs, snowshoes, and three eager seasonal workers, and headed for windy highway 2 towards the east side of Glacier Park. It was a beautiful day and a pleasant two and a half hour drive. Stephanie spent the trip doing crafts in the back seat while Jimbo and I B.S.'ed to pass the time. We made it to the gate by early afternoon, assembled the bikes, and sped off towards the cabin. It was a nice ride in though the wind was brutal. It made even the flat sections feel like we were going uphill. But, nevertheless we pedalled on thinking only of the home brews that awaited us upon arrival. Everything was going well until about mile four. Somehow my front tire found the one dagger-sharp stone on the road causing my tire to go completely flat. Fortunately, Ed is prepared for such emergencies and had a air pump attached to the bike. The unfortunate part is that the hole was far to big for any temporary repairs, leaving me to walk my bike the remaining three miles while Steph and Jimbo rode off merrily towards the finish line. I can see the humor in it now, but if I would have written this blog immediately upon arriving at the cabin, there would have been words not suited for children inserted into this story. Eventually, I made it to the cabin, cracked open the home brew, and all was well again. To summarize the evening at the cabin, we enjoyed some delicious steaks, had a few cocktails, played some Guesstures and DDR, then reluctantly called it a night.

Wednesday, I awoke to bright blue skies and was eager to start the day. My co-pilots needed a little more persuasion. Well, Jimbo did anyway. I attempted my first wake-up call at 10 am. When this didn't work, I went back, coffee in hand. Still, I was unsuccessful, so I set the clock ahead two hours. This did the trick. Jimbo rallied and finally got out of bed (though he wasn't too happy to find out about the clock trick). Our goal for the day was to climb 7,947 ft Mt. Altyn. We biked towards Swiftcurrent then ditched the bikes when we hit too much snow and headed on foot towards the base of the mountain. Some of us (Stephanie, Jeff, and myself) were more motivated to complete the climb than others (Jimbo). Jimbo sat down not far along the trip and refused to budge, so the rest of us pressed on without him sure he would be sorry when he saw our photos. The hike up the mountain took a bit longer than expected though we were not in any hurry. We successfully spooked about fifty bighorn sheep who took off running upon being invaded by the creatures who walk on two legs. We passed through many patches of snow though we never needed the snowshoes we lugged all the way to the summit. Between the snow and scree fields, we were all a little worn out by the time we reached the saddle. Luckily from the saddle it was an easy walk up to the summit. There was a beautiful mountain goat waiting for us on the summit of the mountain, but he too was spooked before we got to him. Finally on the summit, we were able to relax and take in the view in its entirety. Words can not express the beauty of the landscape. There were snow covered peaks all around us and frozen lakes in the valleys. From the summit we could see Duck Lake, Lake Sherburn, Swiftcurrent Lake, Lake Josephine, Fishercap Lake, Redrock Lake, and Bullhead Lake. I could have sat up there until the sun went down. It was unbelievable. I can say with confidence that it was the most beautiful view I have ever seen in Glacier Park. This was definitely in part because of all of the snow. There is nothing more beautiful than a sea of perfect, snow covered peaks. Eventually, reality kicked in, and we realized that we must head back down. It was already 4 pm. The way down proved to be much easier than we thought. Going back down is almost always much worse than the trip up, at least for those of us whose knees have already gone to hell. Well anyway, the scree was nice and soft and perfect for a fast run down the side of the mountain. We also realized that the snow patches were a quick route down as well. Now, I would not normally recommend sliding down steep patches of snow of the side of the mountain, but we were not near any cliffs and the snow was soft enough to put a foot out and be able to stop. Sliding down on our bums was so much fun and so fast! Well, it was fun the first few times, then my rear was so cold and wet that I couldn't do it anymore. What took most of the afternoon to climb only took an hour and a half to get down. We made it back to the cabin with a couple of hours of daylight to spare. Jimbo made us some queso which we all pigged out on, and we lounged around the rest of the night in food comas.

Thursday morning, I took a walk up above the hotel to check out the dwindling snow drifts. There is a picture in the lodge that was taken in March a couple of years ago. The snow drifts were above the second floor of the hotel and completely covered the breezeway to the annex. This year the snow drift doesn't even come close to covering the first floor. It's crazy. This has been such an interesting winter. I hope it doesn't mean it will be a hot summer! Back at the cabin, Stephanie, Jimbo, and I packed up our belongings and prepared for the trip out. Luckily, Jeff was able to repair my tire, so I was able to bike out with the others. The trip out was awesome. There was no wind and the sun was shining, beautiful and warm. We made it back to my car in forty minutes, loaded the bikes, and headed back to the west side of the park. We couldn't resist a stop at the Glacier Grill for delicious Cold Smoke and calzones...always a great way to cap off a trip!

Gotta get out of the house!

Happy St. Patty's Day!!! Skiing, baking, painting, hiking and fishing. That sums up the week of a lot of fun with new friends, and a little work as well. Last Wednesday Sumio and his wife Kumi came in for two nights and we had a great time, it was nice to finally meet Kumi. During the day while I worked they went out skiing and enjoying the windy, snowy weather. In the evenings we played Shanghai Rummy, Farkle and Pass The Pigs, all these games were new to them but they seemed to enjoy themselves and wrote down the rules to Shanghai before they left. Kumi brought some homemade raisin bread with her that was excellent, thank you Kumi. With the warm weather the road has been great for biking and Friday morning Sumio and Kumi hopped on their bikes and headed out. As they rode out they passed Megan and Dave who were headed in to stay one night. The wind was really whipping so Sumio and Kumi loved it while Megan and Dave were taking a beating. I came home from work to meet them at the cabin and we had some grub and relaxed a little while (not known to Megan) I waited for Ken to show up and surprise her. While we were waiting for Ken a couple of other groups came in on bikes to check out the area. When Ken arrived Megan happy to see him and so were Dave and I.WE all cruised out on Swiftcurrent Lake to get some ice fishing tips from Dave and he hauled in the first catches I have seen all winter, they were huge as the picture shows. :) We cooked some salmon that Dave had brought out and played cards while we made plans to ski to Cracker Lake the next day. We were up and out by 9am and we had fare weather so the day was looking good. The trail out to Cracker is just a little over 6 miles and we were hoping that we would have decent snow to ski on but the snow that we did have was hard and icy. We had plenty of laughs watching each other struggle over difficult terrain sliding and falling quite often. I am pretty sure that I have never fallen that many times doing anything else in my life, not even surfing. I now have multiple scrapes, bumps and bruises to show for 12 mile round trip journey. Along the way we saw many lion tracks on the first part of the trail and once we reached higher ground we saw an amazing amount of moose tracks and scat(poo). Once we reached the lake we tooled around on it a bit and headed back, but instead of taking the trail we decided to take the snowed over creek bed. We started out having so much fun because the terrain was similar to a massive half pipe and we were cruising. After a little while however we were dodging open water and bush whacking on skis which I do not recommend. WE got back to the cabin had some soup and much to their disappointment they had to ride 7 miles back out to the car. We did all agree that the trip was worth every second and I was very happy to finally see Mt Siyeh(10,014ft) from the bottom of the shear cliff face instead of the summit(I've climbed it twice). The plumbing was a challenge for all my guests but overall I feel that they really enjoyed themselves. The only thing that was a bummer was that we haven't seen any new bear tracks. Now that I am alone again I have FINISHED THE PAINTING!!!!!!!!! What a huge relief, now I can get on to some less monotonous work. I cruised out to get my mail yesterday and for the first time put some headphones on and just enjoyed the walk and scenery. I picked up a bicycle at Earl's house after I got to Babb and cruised to the Post Office. It was a bummer not to have any mail but it was nice to get out of the valley and stop at the Firehorse Cafe for a bite. I had a good meal but did not realize that they stopped taking credit 2 weeks prior so I officially have an IOU out there until I can get to an ATM. The ride in was a little windy but very enjoyable. Now I am just baking some goods and hoping to get away on an overnighter to Poia Lake this weekend.

Hiking Season Has Finally Begun...Or Has It?

Well, as it turns out, unemployment is not so bad after all. Sure, it can get boring at times (I'm still looking for that hobby), but unemployment sure has its perks too. Here's a brief description of a day in the life of Heidi the Magnificent. The sun is finally able to rouse me around 8 am (there is no need for alarm clocks in unemployed life). I drink some coffee, eat breakfast, and read the news until about 9:30 or so. Then, I'm off for a short, four mile run (Maybe I'd run farther if I wasn't sucking in gas fumes from all of those gas-guzzling Montana trucks...maybe). The next part varies a bit. I come home, read some more news, search for employment, and/or read some Harry Potter. Later in the day, I typically walk the bike path out to Whitefish Lake, hang out for a while, then head back to sit by the river and watch the ducks for an hour or two. Eventually I head home where I veg out watching Dexter (good information in case I ever decide to become a serial killer) or find something slightly less productive to do. On the bright side, some days are a bit more interesting than others.

Sunday, I headed out with Dan to hike up to Scalplock lookout. I had hiked up there once this past summer with Shayla and Maggie much to the dislike of the disgruntled lookout guy. To his defense, he warmed up to us once he had a few sips of his morning coffee. I'm not sure I'd like a bunch of people showing up at my mountain top home before I had my wake up call, that's for sure! Anyway, we got on the trail early in the afternoon with the beautiful, warm sun shining in our faces. The first part of the trail was treacherous ice, a common theme across the park this winter. Dan was taking it cautiously up the switchbacks, so I decided to be a tough guy and pass by him. This was a bad decision. I had made it only a few steps past him when I slipped and flew chin first into the ice. I then tried to stop myself from sliding down the hill by dragging my bare arms across the sharp ice. Yep, I'm an idiot. I eventually picked myself up (though my dignity is still somewhere on that switchback), wiped the mud off of my face and arms, and started hiking again, though at a much slower, cautious pace. We made it up to the top of the ridge without any further ice issues, thankfully. Once up on top of the mountain, the snow was soft from baking in the sun all afternoon. We post-holed it pretty much the rest of the way along the ridge and up to the lookout. The scrapes on my chin and arms were well worth the view. It was beautiful and there wasn't a soul around. We hung out for an hour, snacking and taking in the view, before we reluctantly started down the mountain. We ran of daylight just in time for the icy section of the trail. YAY! Luckily, I managed to stay on my two feet this time and we both made it to the car in one piece. The stars were absolutely incredible! We stopped for a beer at the Izaak Walton Inn, then I spent the whole ride home with my face pressed against the car window gazing at the stars.

Today, I was still amped up from the awesome hike up Scalplock that I decided to try my luck for lookouts again. I headed out to Apgar Lookout this morning. It was not as nice of a day as Sunday, but there were promising patches of blue in the sky. The road to the trailhead is closed, so hikers have to walk from the stables. No biggie! There was an inch or two of fresh snow on the road, but I thought nothing of it. After all, we didn't need snowshoes on Scalplock until the last little bit of the trail. Well, by the time I reached the trailhead to the lookout, there was about four inches of fresh snow on the ground. I'm no quitter (mostly because I made a deal with myself: no lookout, no Glacier Grill), so I kept on plugging. The first mile and a half of the trail was fine, though as more time passed, the mountain top was getting more and more socked in with clouds. The last part of the trail down right sucked...excuse my language. There was a nice solid layer snow under the fresh snow that kept me from sinking too far, but there were many places where people had post-holed before. The new snow covered up these holes and of course my feet kept finding their way into the holes, scraping my shins and jarring my knees. I won't lie to you. There were a few four letter words that escaped my lips (and a few multi-word combos as well). But, as I said before, I couldn't stop at the Grill for my traditional calzone and glass of Coldsmoke without an appearance at the lookout. So, with renewed motivation, I pushed the rest of the way up to the lookout. (This is probably a good time to note that this isn't a difficult hike. I was being a baby because of the snow that I failed to realize would be there.) I got to the lookout after doing a lot of post-holing of my own, ate some cheese and crackers and chocolate, and stood in front of the webcam to wave at my dad. Then, I got the hell out of dodge. I was ready for that beer! And, in case you're wondering, Glacier Grill didn't disappoint. They never do.

P.S. The Iditarod is in full force. Check it out! http://www.iditarod.com/