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| Two Medicine Lake, Mountains, Snow, Clouds - Glacier National Park 2024 |
Nice pull out spot! I'm pretty sure that, actually, that's "Lower" Two Medicine Lake. Also, I think that the mountain on the right is "Rising Wolf Mountain." Maybe.
Photo taken with a Nikon Z7II / 24-200mm zoom lens, then converted to black and white in Photoshop. Click to enlarge!
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| Road, Aspens - Montana 2024 |
It was threatening to rain, but it didn't . . . just a few large drops now and then.
I figured it was about time for lunch. Cheese, crackers, and, of course, Fritos and beer! (Korean beer from H-Mart.)
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| Fritos and Beer - Montana 2024 |
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| Aspens - Montana 2024 |
My normal go-to camera for scenic shots was a Nikon Z7II. Sometimes I'd also take an iPhone photo of the same scene. Needless to say, sometimes the iPhone photo looked better, usually due to the composition. Above photo taken with an iPhone 12 Max.
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| Flathead River, Aspens, Hill, Clouds - Montana 2024 |
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| Aspens - Montana 2024 |
The day turned out to be heavily aspen-centric. Some bare, some starting to leaf out.
No, not as spectacular as autumn aspens, but still quite nice.
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| Flathead River, Trees, Clouds - Montana 2024 |
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| Meadow, Aspens, Mountains, Snow - Montana 2024 |
So, the second day exploring the Glacier National Park area. This time I was driving east, away from yesterday's main entrance visit, on Highway 2, paralleling a fork of the Flathead River.
Right away my route was way more scenic. Yay!
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| Mountain, Snow, McDonald Creek - Glacier National Park 2024 |
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| Lake McDonald - Glacier National Park 2024 |
A nice view upstream towards this unknown mountain (unknown to me, anyways).
Lake McDonald is pretty large, so it's puzzling why I had trouble finding it. I finally had to ask a traffic control person, who directed me down a paved road where the lake was visible through the trees. After a short walk I scrambled down an embankment to take this photo. A little hazy that day, but luckily Photoshop has a Haze Filter.
As I was leaving the Lake McDonald area I was able, once again, to run into a substantial traffic delay.
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| Aspens - Glacier National Park 2024 |
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| Pine Branches, McDonald Creek - Glacier National Park 2024 |
Once I left the popular trailhead area I drove back down losing both elevation and the crowds. There were pull outs were one could enjoy the river on one side and aspens on the other.
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| Lane Striping - Montana 2024 |
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| Parking Lot, Visitor Center - Glacier National Park 2024 |
My first visit to Glacier National Park featured lots of traffic delays. At the beginning, there was a backup due to lane striping taking place. Went on for quite some time.
Then, inside the park: road construction featuring multiple one-lane closures. Not fun.
The visitor center itself was nicely uncrowded, though. I talked with a ranger about solo hiking in the park (had read that solo hiking wasn't advisable due to bears). She said that if one was normally comfortable with solo hiking that it shouldn't be a problem. Her experience with bear spray: she had it out of its holster once - but hadn't had to use it. By the way - bear spray is expensive, around $50 per canister. In the end I didn't do any hiking in the park.
The Going-To-The-Sun road hadn't been cleared yet, which I expected. But you could drive up to where it was closed, which I did. Alas, it was a mob scene up there. It seemed that, although the park was relatively uncrowded in May, a lot of the visitors that were there were trying to park somewhere, anywhere at the end of the road. So I turned around and escaped downwards.
