Sunrise, hummingbirds and a ‘Little Piece of Heaven’

Each of the three mornings we were at Glacier National Park, I got up early to watch the sun rise over the Glacier mountains. In the early dawn, I placed a chair facing the majestic mountain peaks, shrouded in different degrees of smoke from the Oregon wildfires. But the smoke did not detract from me being buzzed by numerous hummingbirds or the gobbling of hidden wild turkeys or an appearance of a doe and her fawn coming to a salt lick.

As the sun would start its accent over the peaks, a slight breeze would begin the rustling of the quaking aspens, my mind would recall a biblical reminder of who is in charge.

“Take heed, as unto a light that shineth in a dark place, until the day dawn, and the day star arise in your hearts.”

The small cabin we had booked was on a ridge just outside the park and was one of five buildings named “A Little Piece of Heaven.” When we pulled into the compound, we were greeted by the owner, Gary Scull, with a rake in his hand which he had been using to level the ground. He approached our car and apologized for the condition of the grounds.

He explained that last December after they had closed up and left the area, heavy rain saturated the soil followed by 70 mph winds. With no frost in the ground to anchor shallow rooted Lodgepole pines, over 5,000 trees fell, damaging three of the cabins and closing all of the roads in the area.

“It has been a real mess trying to clean up the ground and filling in all the holes,” Gary told me.

Each day we came back to the cabin, rake marks in the dirt indicated Gary had been busy cleaning up what he could.

After dinner on Tuesday evening, we took a drive to the Polebridge area of the park leading to the Big Prairie. Traffic was almost non-existent as we saw white-tailed deer, sandhill cranes and the beautiful mountains in the distance. In a marshy area, we saw a male ruffed grouse slip off the road into the tall vegetation. I jumped out of the car and tried to get some pictures of it when its mate with seven small chicks headed for the deep woods. I got a couple of pictures of him before I realized that I was being attacked by hordes of mosquitoes — HUGE mosquitoes!

The big day of the trip was Wednesday. It began with a half hour, squirrel dodging drive to the trailhead to Avalanche Lake. The 5.5-mile hike began in a grove of Red Mountain cedar trees, many of them sporting beryl growths on their 3- to 5-foot trunks. As I looked at those cedars, I wished that I could somehow get one to make a table top with one of the beryl as the center.

The hike took us through the old growth forest, surrounded by the back-face of Cannon Mountain rising 1,000 feet above the trail on one side and Mount Brown on the other.

When we got to Avalanche Lake, four waterfalls were feeding the lake from snowfields high on the ridges. The lake’s cold water was being enjoyed by hikers cooling their sore feet from the hike as both Steller’s jays and Clark’s nutcrackers were begging food from the visitors.

As I was taking pictures of the birds, a boy about 10 years old approached me and asked me about the birds. As we visited, he told me that his mother had brought him and his sister for a visit to Glacier. His love for birds was not accepted by his dad because it “was a waste of time to study them.” We had a great visit as we watched the birds and discussed the cedar trees that he also found fascinating.

After the hike back to the trailhead, we had lunch at Eddy’s Café before we went on a boat ride around McDonald’s Lake. The ride was a Father’s Day gift from my daughters, and it was extremely enjoyable. The leader, storyteller, and entertainer was Ethan Kennedy, from Northern Michigan, who made the boat ride not long enough. We learned about the different major fires, settled areas, introduction and loss of the Kokanee on the lake and the hundreds of bald eagles that used to come to the lake. We learned that the lake was created by a glacier that dug the depth to 460 feet deep.

The last day of our stay — which you read about last week — was spent swimming and cliff diving at the Red Rock swimming pool and the Dancing Cascades. Signs along the shore of the McDonald’s Lake and the McDonald’s River constantly reminded everyone that drowning is the leading cause of death in the park.

I would love to go back sometime when the skies are clear of smoke and drive the “Road to the Sun.” The fields of Fireweed were awesome, and I would love to see and visit with Dave at his “A Little Piece of Heaven.” The sight of the sun coming over the mountains reminds me of a statement by John Muir, “You are not in the mountains. The mountains are in you.” Just one of my bucket list items.