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Karla and I spent some time this week in Glacier National Park in Northwestern Montana. What a beautiful place with mountains and lots of wildlife. This is a view of the mountains surrounding Swiftcurrent Lake in the Many Glacier region of the park.

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We got a beautiful campsite. Here is the view from the front of the site.

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Our site was surrounded with many kinds of wildflowers. I took a photo of one of the wild roses. The ranger said in July and August the berries are ripe and they only allow campers with hard sided trailers to camp due to the bears coming into the campground after the berries.

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We did see one bear. At first, we thought it was a grizzly but turned out to be a cinnamon black bear. Three hikers walked towards it and I told them it was not a good idea since it can run faster than a horse. Luckily, they listened to me.

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It was feeding on wild parsnips. They really like the roots.

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The first few days the wind was relentless with gusts 20 to 30 miles per hour. It sure made the lakes look blue.

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Recent fires devastated most of the trees around St Mary Lake but new growth has already started. The bear grass at the higher altitudes was very prolific in the burned area.

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Bear grass is very beautiful but the bears don’t really eat it. They use it to line their dens.

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The last day we were at Glacier, the wind went down and the lakes were like glass. Karla and I headed to Swiftcurrent Lake just after sunrise hoping that it would be calm. It was amazing. When we got there the lake hardly had a ripple. It lasted only about 30 minutes before the winds came from the mountain pass and took away the reflections. We were so fortunate to be in the right place at the right time. We just sat on the shoreline amazed at the beauty of the area. One of the staff said that this was the first day this year that the lake was that calm.

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I took this panoramic photo with my cell phone just to capture more of the lake.

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This is the start of the Swiftcurrent River as it leaves the lake in the previous photo. The glacial melt water is so clear. After taking this photo we hiked into another lake to look for moose. We saw a small bull. We met a couple along one of the trails and we talked for a while and then they headed down the trail. Within minutes they were back looking afraid. Just as they rounded the corner they encountered a grizzly. It stood on its hind legs yards in front of them. They slowly backed away and the bear fortunately didn’t follow. We were just in that area so I don’t know if we were lucky or just missed a photo opportunity.

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