June 19 Hiking in the Rain/ Blackfoot Dinner

 Tuesday, June 19

Up early and the rain continues.  We have coffee and breakfast and meet at the tent for the 8:30 hike.  There are 11 of us going and the leaders, Yan and Kiki, go over gear,  sealing any foodstuffs in bags, water and of course bear spray.  Bears have an incredible sense of smell (their sensors are like a sheet of 8x11 paper compared to our postage-stamp size ones).   We are told that if you cooked bacon for breakfast you need to change clothes, or consider yourself a walking snack.

 They go over some trail etiquette, like those going uphill have the right of way,  and toileting in the wild (we have a group shovel to bury any of that and baggies to seal toilet paper in to carry out.) Finally, about 9:00 we hit the road in two vehicles for the drive to Many Glacier and Red Rock Falls Trail.

Most of the folks have proper boots and raingear, so we set off with Yan in front and Kiki bringing up the rear.  Both are experienced and have interesting tales. Yan, a tall guy, sets a quick pace, but others don’t, so we just re-group now and then.  Beautiful scenery and lively chatter with frequent pauses for photo ops despite the light rain.

Plenty of water in the streams and falls.

 Two of the men are semi-professional photographers and have tripods and some amazing lenses.

Here is a glimpse of the mountaintop across the way at one point.

Closer by, there are nice flowers here and there.

 We've been seeing lots of wild strawberry plants in many areas, here and in Canada.  Some are blooming already.  I used to love to eat them when I was a kid back in Pennsylvania - tiny but sweet.

 The rain continues, intermittent and light.

We spot some mountain goats high up on a rocky mountain (see small white dots), and a few ground squirrels, but nothing else this rainy morning.

Two miles out, we come to the falls.  Beautiful from above,

and from below.  Love the rushing, gushing sound of the water.

 Some people snack a bit and rest before we head back the way we came.  The trail is busier now that the rain has stopped.  Tomorrow we will talk with folks who did this hike in the afternoon and saw several bears.

We practice "leave no trace" but do leave a few footprints...at least for a little while.

Back at the campsite, we drape the wet stuff where we can.  The rain has stopped, so Greg works at gathering firewood and getting a campfire set up.  Beth takes the computer up to the office and works with photos from the last few days. Their wi-fi will get you email, but isn’t very strong for anything else.

We find out that Chewing Blackbones is the name of a Blackfoot Chief who, when a toddler, was somehow lost  and survived by chewing on the bones found by campfires.

Tonight we are having a traditional Blackfoot dinner in a nearby picnic area and thankfully the rain holds off.  The menu includes bison, squash, sweet potatoes, greens, frybread, and a dessert made from serviceberries with a bit of oatmeal-type crumble.   

After dinner,  we are entertained by Jack Gladstone, storyteller/poet/singer. 

 His father is Blackfoot who quite possibly fired the last shots of WWII as a navy gunner taking down a kamikaze plane (after announcement of cessation of hostilities).  His mother is a German who his father met in Seattle after the war.   Jack is a mountain of a man and won 2 Rosebowl rings playing football before coming back to his roots.   Very engaging.  His songs are his own and obviously from the heart.  They deal with this area and his heritage with titles like “Legends of Glacier” and “Circle of Life. ”  Like several of the Blackfoot people we have met, he is educated and has traveled a good bit, and then returned to this area.  Several have mentioned visiting Texas or Houston when they learn where we're from.

The weather is looking better and we're hopeful for tomorrow. This is the lake this evening from our campsite.

Greg pretty much crashes after dinner – long day and hard work chopping and splitting wood.  Beth reads a bit of her book Almost Anywhere: Road Trip Ruminations on Love, Nature, National Parks, and Nonsense by Krista Schlyer.   A perfect fit for this time and place. 

 Perhaps I should write a similar book called  Always Somewhere – as I find that each location is somewhere special to someone and has it’s own sense of place.