11 June – Agpar to Many Glaciers (East Glacier)

We packed up (still raining) and made tracks for the other side of the Glacier National Park. The Continental Divide bisects the park, and it is wet on the West side and drier on the East side. As the clouds come in from the Pacific, they go up the range, dropping the rain as they go. The change in the landscape is quite dramatic. West side – temperate rainforest, huge trees, wet and drippy. East side – rolling plains, smaller trees, much drier and warmer.

We had to detour away from the park road due to restrictions. No vehicles more than 20ft long and 8ft wide. The RV is 29ft and 9.5ft wide. We headed off over the plains to Browning and back. Browning is the town in the middle of the Blackfeet Nation. It was very depressing. Lots of tumble down trailers, rubbish everywhere. Every fence had rubbish piled up where it had blown in and never been collected. Very sad to see.

We headed back to Glacier and in to the Many Glaciers section of the park. The road in was pretty ordinary, we nearly had the old RV airborne over some of the bumps! The view made up for the bumps though – just stunning. Amazing how the mountains are just sheer straight up.

We set up camp at Many Glaciers, checked in with the ranger station about trails (at this time of year many are closed for repair, snowed in, or closed because of bear or moose activity) then went for a hike to Ptarmigan Falls. It was about 3 hours return. Not long after we headed off, we saw a moose! A big bull moose, eating the trees just off the path. He ignored us and kept munching, so we got some photos and watched him for a bit, very mindful of the warnings – weighs as much as a car and can run at 35 mph..

As we hiked on up the valley, the scenery was awesome. The mountains are massive peaks, almost vertical, snow covered and with clouds scraping the tips. We spotted big horned sheep, or mountain goats clinging onto the sheer sides above us. We weren’t close enough to tell which.

Lots of little ground squirrels scooted away as we approached. As we climbed the path, we got to snow, which was a bit of a hike as it was deep and light, so we sank in with each step. We saw bear scat – seemed fairly fresh, but no bear. We decided we were happy to leave the grizzly bears to themselves. No need for a sighting.

Finally to Ptarmigan Falls. Pretty spot to sit and have some water and trail mix. Heading back down we saw a grouse (funny little chicken like bird that walked straight at us with his tail fanned out, then darted across the track and ran for it) mule deer and our friend the moose, grazing in the meadow far below us. We got a bit of a spit of rain, but it soon passed.

Back at camp, a fire, a nice red and feet up! A deer walked through the campsite, completely ignoring us.