August 19, Many Glacier

We started the morning off by stopping at the Marias Pass. The pass traverses the continental divide between the Lewis and Clark National Forest and the Flathead National Forest. The pass was charted by John Frank Stevens, principal engineer of the Great Northern Railway, in December 1889. The location of the pass had been rumored for several years beforehand, but it took Stevens and a Blackfoot Indian guide named Coonsah to discover it. A statue of John Frank Stevens stands at the summit of Marias Pass.

We then headed towards Browning, Mt. We decided to visit the Museum of the Plains Indians. This museum dealt with the arts and crafts of the Blackfoot natives. There were numerous displays of all the outfits that were made, hunting artifacts, weapons, baskets and toys. Len and I had to split up to do the tour as there was no place to leave Lindy, so as Len toured the museum, I sat out in the sun in my lawn chain and read my book. After he was done, we switched places. We weren’t allowed to take any pictures inside the museum but we did get some pictures of a metal display of animals outside the museum. We did find that browning did seem a little run down, there did not seem to be much happening in the town, there was a casino in town, where we went to change some American money into smaller bills.

We then headed toward Many Glacier. This was another part of the park that I don’t think many people go to. It seems that everyone heads to the Road to the Sun and don’t really go here, but the views are spectacular. The view as soon as you enter the area is breath taking. We stopped and walked along the lake shore picking up some more rocks to add to our collection. This area is often compared to Switzerland and the Swiss Alps. In fact this is how they first started marketing the area to get people to come here, it was cheaper than taking a trip to Europe.

The Many Glacier Hotel is designed to look like a Swiss-chalet. The Many Glacier Hotel sits on the edge of Swift Current Lake, dwarfed by the spectacular mountain scenery, complete with the many glaciers.

We saw another bunch of mountain goats; in fact they passed so close to Lindy and I that I couldn’t get my camera out fast enough to get an up close picture but we got one of them running away.

We then stopped to take some pictures of waterfall by the hotel. Lindy and I explored the hillside and almost got blown off.

Then as we were headed out of the park Len decided to take some pictures of the river between the two lakes, there were more waterfalls along the river and it was flowing very fast. He walked down to the river’s edge, but I couldn’t watch, the wind was blowing and I had visions of his hat being blown off and as he reached to catch it, him falling into the deep ravine below. However it didn’t happen and he made it safely back up to the top.