Peaks and valleys

Thursday, June 14, 2007

SHELBY, MONTANA — We’re here for our second night; I wasn’t able to post our blog last night because I couldn’t get on the Internet, and it’s not looking too hopeful for tonight either, although the signal is "excellent" according to my computer. I just can’t log on, either here in the trailer or at a picnic table right next to the router. Very frustrating.
Our host gave us a password to get on which would be valid for three hours only. Each day they give you another password. There’s also a special code you need to get in to the showers, and once inside you read "anyone caught taking paper towels or soap except for normal use will be prosecuted. STEELING IS A CRIME." I keep forgetting to bring my pen with me to correct the spelling.
We headed for the hills this morning and boy, did we get hills. Great soaring hulks of hills, clawing the sky with jagged peaks and laced on their craggy faces with streaks of snow. Our destination was Waterton-Glacier International Peace Park northwest of Shelby, but we started off by heading south to avoid some messy construction on Highway 2 which would have slowed us down and coated us with mud as well. We passed through the Blackfeet Indian Reservation, but the only black feet we saw in the vicinity were on the cattle grazing in the fields by the road.
There were two roads into the park that were recommended to us, both dead-ends. One is always like that, but the other normally goes right through the park, except that avalanches and snow washed away the road and it’s impassable. But the 12 miles in that we took were probably the prettiest anyway. We took the northerly one from Babb first, which brought us to the beautiful Many Glaciers Hotel, a Swiss-chalet style building next to a green lake and surrounded on all sides by snow-capped peaks. It was built in 1917 and looks very much like Chateau Montebello near Ottawa, with lots of dark wood and a central lobby that opens up three floors high with a huge fireplace at the centre. We ate in the palatial Ptarmigan Dining Room overlooking an unbelievable vista of lake and mountain, served by Katie, a young student from Indiana who found her summer job by looking at a website called Cool Jobs.
After a tasty meal we headed back to the park gate, down the highway a bit and in to the second road from St. Mary. The road twisted and turned, and at every turn we gasped at the magnificent views of turquoise green river, spiky dark pine trees, rising rock-strewn hills and black summits streaked with snow. Above was a blue sky with puffy white clouds, and at the roadside was a glorious array of delicate wildflowers — yellow buttercups, red Indian paintbrushes, bluebells and tiny white starflowers. It was breath-taking. We stopped several times to snap photos and gawk. At one such stop, to see the Jackson Glacier, another tourist kindly took a shot of the two of us together.
In all today we covered about 400 km (250 miles), which was a lot, but well worth it. I have enough material for about 50 watercolour paintings all in one day! While we’re talking about pictures, we have tried to post some from our digital camera on the Flickr website, but so far without success. We will work on it again when we’re sure of a strong signal, so eventually we can link you to some illustrative supplements to my verbiage. A picture, as they say, is worth a thousand words. Today I’d venture to say a million.