Julian is visiting, and he wanted to do a bunch of “Montana stuff”. Sadly, there’s smoke drifting from the western wildfires, and everything’s been hazy for a few days now. We can’t even see Flathead Lake from our window!
But, he’s only here for a few days, so we decided to go out anyway. We headed up to Glacier. The day was amazingly calm, which made Lake McDonald as smooth as glass. Combined with the smoky haze, it made for a cool photo:
That one is facing south; here’s the view to the north:
Wow, the water was so clear! You can see the rocks right through it. I took a picture of them and adjusted the color a bit (for artistic effect), but you can’t even tell these are underwater:
Someone tested their cairn skills.
Because the water was so incredibly still, we couldn’t resist skipping some stones.
We continued onward, hiking up to Avalanche Lake. Here’s part of Avalanche Creek, which has some terribly cool carved red rocks:
A little further along the trail, I took a few more photos of the creek.
The view at the lake was a little disappointing with all the haze. The sheer mountainside in the distance just looked faded.
Julian enjoyed climbing around on rocks to get some good photos:
Here’s my amazing wife:
After hiking for a while, we made a few more stops along the river, and decided to finish with our traditional stop near the southern end of Lake McDonald. By now the sun was lower in the sky, and the smoke made for some incredible views over the glass-still lake.
A few ducks decided to cross the lake.
And of course we had to skip some more stones.
It was a great day to visit Glacier– I continue to be amazed at how different the park is each time we go!