tour

Red Bus Tour through Glacier

~ randyaa ~ Leave a comment

Since we were only in the park for a few days, we wanted to see and learn as much as possible.   What better way than a guided tour through the entire park on one of the old Red Buses?

st-mary-lakeWe struck out at 8:30 on the Crown of the Continent Tour with our guide Matt.  Matt was a nice guy who introduced himself as someone who’d grown up his whole life wishing he had a place in the backwoods where he couldn’t be bothered.  He told us that once he saved enough money that’s exactly what he did.  His place is 8 miles from the nearest telephone, 4 miles from the nearest neighbor in the winter and 1 mile in the summer.  He parks his truck and ski’s 2 miles into his house in the winter time because that’s as far as it’s plowed.  He has a generator for power but no TV, no internet and no phone.  I’m sure I could live that way if I had to, but I’m not sure I’d want to.  Still, it has a certain appeal.  I could probably write a whole post just on Matt so we’ll stop there.  There is an funny story involving Laura Bush though so maybe I’ll write that up some day.

The tour took us over the going to the sun road and back into Many Glacier Hotel for lunch.  It was amazing, and informative and the going to the sun road takes you through some of the most breathtaking scenery I’ve ever seen.  We saw 9 of the park’s 27 Glaciers from the bus and countless Perennial Snow Fields.  Matt informed us that a glacier has 3 requirements.

  1. It must have a surface area greater than 25 acres
  2. It must be greater than 100ft thick
  3. It must be moving

If a chunk of ice meats some but not all of these requirements it’s considered a perennial snow field.  Yes, perennial because it comes back (or remains) every year just like your flowers.  Speaking of flowers, we got a glimpse of some of the alpine wildflowers while stopped at Logan’s Pass and they’re amazing!

goatsOn our way back through we stopped at a little parking lot just past Logan’s pass where the Mountain Goats hang out.  They were everywhere.  In the parking lot, on the walkways, on the rocks nearby, in the trees nearby, hanging out on the man made walls… literally everywhere.

The downside to making land like this accessible to the masses is you begin to affect the wildlife.  The goats are no exception.  Anti-Freeze is now a delicacy in their diet.  Don’t worry though, they can’t ingest enough of it to hurt them, remember… they’re hard core.   They live above 7,000ft 365 days a year, avalanche’s and all.

After the tour we cooked some hot dogs and pasta to end the night on a good note (full) and drifted off to sleep.

Mount Rainier and Seattle Harbor

~ randyaa ~ Leave a comment

Mount RainierFriday we headed out for Mount Rainier.  After seeing the mountain hovering over the city last night at sunset we just had to.  It took longer to drive there than we expected, a little over 2 hrs to Paradise but it was well worth it.  The scenery and the view of the mountain were fantastic.

We would have gone for a good little hike but Rachel wore sandals on this of all days…  So we settled for a short trek out to Nisqually Vista, an overlook of the largest glacier on Mount Rainier.  However; while walking along we crossed several snow fields and talked to a few people that were coming back.  Apparently the trail was covered with even more snow ahead, and since we weren’t prepared for trail hiking we headed back.  The views were did have, through the alpine flower fields was still gorgeous.

Seattle Skyline

After getting back to Seattle we headed over to the shoreline to take the Harbor tour that came with the City Pass.  It was very interesting!  The most interesting thing we learned was how Seattle got it’s name and how it first started.  As it turns out, Seattle was first settled on a peninsula on the other side of the bay.  When settled (in the middle of the summer) it was very pleasant, but when the winter came it was anything but.  After suffering for a period of time the native Chief Sealth and his people came to the aide of the settlers and helped them move across the bay where the weather was a bit subdued.  They wanted to honor him by naming the city Sealth but in their culture their name cannot be spoken after they are past and having a city named after him would not allow this.  To compromise they named the city Seattle, essentially an Americanized version of the chief’s name.

After the tour we were a bit tired so we headed back to the hotel and enjoyed a nice relaxing evening.  We watched Saving Private Ryan and said goodnight.