Glacier National Park- animals

To most people traveling in and through our National Parks, scenery is the entire purpose. I am a bit different. When I go to a new area, I want to know about the bird life and the general state of wildlife. I was very interested in seeing more of Idaho and especially seeing Montana. I of course have only seen a small slice of both states, but what I have seen is to me quite eye opening. The thing that I noticed the most was the scarcity of Raptors. Perhaps I am just spoiled coming from a state with large populations of Hawks. I think I only saw 3 Ferruginous Rough Legs, One Golden and one Bald Eagle. I also heard a Osprey at one of the Mountain lakes.

I managed to see all my target species of wildlife with the exception of Elk. I could have done that if not for an over achieving Ranger that would not allow me to pull to the side of the road. It was on a straight stretch, unfortunately the only traffic was a Ranger, but rules are rules after all. I was quite pleased with what I was able to see, and I managed pictures of most of them. I did see a Gray Fox, but he was in afterburner and gone in a flash.

The Hoary Marmot was well represented.

 This one was licking the ground and he couldn't be bothered by my presence.

 These two were licking the pavement, I think from spilled drinks.

 These guys were behind a fence on the way to Browning.

 These Goats were at Logan Pass and again licking the road. Perhaps the remains of road salt?

 A little cutie!

 This one was lying on a slab of rock panting from the heat.

Notice the Bot Larva on her jaw.

 These were playing hide and seek in the scrub trees at the top of the pass.

 This Big Horn was ducking tourist along the path to Hidden Lake.

These Guy's were licking the road just down from the top and I kinda pushed them out of the way so I could get by.

This is a Columbia Ground Squirrel dining on weeds in the flower bed.

They look like the Beldings that infest this area, but their squeaks are different.

This little guy is one of three Weasels that hunt the Squirrels at the visitors center. They are afraid of no one and are likely to use your shirt for a shortcut if necessary.

This little Pine Squirrel was on the Sun Point trail. Totally unafraid.

The Deer are Columbia Whitetail as near as I can figure. The ones I saw in Central Idaho are about   German Shepard size.

 I saw five Bears total. Three of the Four Black Bears were the Cinnamon phase. This one was hunting Squirrels on one of the open patches, but a heck of a long way off.

This is the only Black phase one that I saw, and it was at Avalanche Lake. 

This Cinnamon one caught me without my camera, and the only thing I had to record it was a hand held video camera that is impossible to hold steady. Its a bit blurry, but notice the field of flowers that it is foraging in.

 This is one of the two Moose that I saw, and it is a hell of a long way off. It was a Bull however and the antlers are still in Velvet. They were feeding off the bottom of the lake.

 I actually saw little bird life, at least that registered with my consciousness. This Stellers BlueJay surprised me.

On our way to Avalanche Lake Connie noticed a Water Ouzel working the riffles. I took about 15 shots trying to get one that would be worth putting in this, and I am still not happy about them. I also was not able to find this critter to check for spelling in any of my bird books. I had to resort to my phone to get the correct spelling. :-/

We did see a Grizzly, but he was a couple of thousand yards off at the time. Had we been a bit earlier on the trail to Hidden Lake we might have seen him try to run down one of the little Goat Kids. Apparently he had been successful a bit earlier in the season, but the one that he chased this time was able to out run him. I talked to a hiker that told me that he was walking up the trail and the Bear smelled the Goats and ran within 20 yards of him trying to catch one of them. Lucky for him it was Goats it was after, and that he did not smell like a Goat..

Glacier National Park

I decided that I would go visit Connie at Glacier Park this last week. I had promised to try and Sharon next door agreed to keep the Dogs for me, to make the trip possible. Dogs are not recommended in the park, or permitted on most of the hikes, since wildlife can either be vulnerable or dangerous, depending on the species. Besides I wanted to be able to concentrate on the park. Tiger rebelled at staying with Sharon, so I brought him along.

He is actually a good traveler and surprisingly, to me anyway, quite dependable. Its a bit funny to me, but as a kid I always did every thing I could to keep away from Cats.Now this one follows me around, and cuddles with me when I sleep. I am not all that sure that I appreciate that however.

I started on the morning of the 26th about 7 AM and we drove straight through arriving at Connie's work place at 9:30 PM. and Tiger never ate, crapped or drank water the entire 15 hours that he was in the car. Pretty impressive!

Connie has a long hair version of Tiger Stripped Cat, and they get along very well, both go out and "do their thing" and come back on their own to the sound of a clicker. I was quite pleased that they really required no extra care or caused any bother the whole trip.

Connie still had two days to work so that gave me the freedom to explore the St Mary side of the Park at my leisure. I made at least three trips up to Logan Pass and two trips to the town of  Browning, and various other side trips to check out the country and local wildlife. I was quite surprised to note that the Raptor population is almost nonexistent both in the park and at least out to Browning. I only saw One Golden, one Bald Eagle, three Ferruginous Rough Legs in all the travel that I put in all that part of Montana.

In total I took over 400 pictures of the park. As you can imagine it is going to take a while to get it all straightened out and of course some of them are destined for the garbage can. This today just covers the road from St Mary's to Logan Pass on the "Going to the Sun road".

These 8 pictures are taken from the "camp Ground" at Johnston's from the spot of Connie's "Toy Hauler". The area on the other side of the lake is Blackfeet reservation land.

The Mountains in the back are in the "Raising Sun" portion of the park and the road goes up to Logan Pass.

 This little peak is right across from Connie's camp spot.

This one shows the fire that they had a couple of years ago. 

The right side of the lake burned then.

 The white stalks are Bear Grass which was just blooming at the higher altitudes.

This is the tunnel on the East Side of the pass

I did not do any videos of the "Going to the Sun Road", but it is pretty intimidating if you don't know where your tires actually contact the road. My first trip up the mountain I followed a bus and he took his share of the road. I followed close behind and took advantage of the berth he made. After the first trip up, it was a bit like the back roads of WVa without the 1000 foot drop off. There were some rocks that jutted out in the road a bit and some of them were wearing a bit of polish on them.

New Kolb Pilot, Mike Armstrong.

I  noticed on the Kolb list a new guy to the list asked for some assistance in getting current with a new to him Mark III. It is a two place big brother to my plane. He lived in Oregon, but was currently in New Mexico, so I invited him to stop by and I would take him to some of the large Playa lake beds where there was nothing to get in the way, and help him familiarize himself to the plane. He accepted and arrived the 16th of July.

We spent the rest of the day Tuesday putting the plane together and getting ready to fly. Wed. morning we spent getting the propeller adjusted to the altitude , and fine tuning the plane. We took off and landed several times to check our work. After we were satisfied with the prop, we went to Coyote Lake. After landing, Mike made his first take off and a couple of landings with me as co pilot. Mike has flown other types of UL planes and merely needed a little assistance with the "tail dragger" aspect of the plane. I got out and Mike did his first solo take offs and landings. On our return I again landed on my runway.

Thursday we flew to Rome Station to get some fuel, intending to go to Coyote Lake and do some touch and goes. The engine only requires 87 octane, so we put about 7 gallons of ethanol gasoline in the tank, took off heading towards Coyote Lake. The plane had a "flo Scan" installed, and by the time we got even with Burns Jct we were showing a "restricted " flow to the fuel. We got right over the hwy and limped back to the house to see what was the problem. Apparently the alcohol in the gas      ( what a wonderful idea) broke something loose in the tanks or lines and was blocking the filters. We spent the rest of the day changing out the flow scan and filters.

Friday was blustery and not fit weather to have any fun in the air, so we did stuff around the house. This morning the front had blown off East to bother someone else, so we got set to go to Rome State, then back to the home runway. I taxied out to take off, when my Air speed indicator fell out of the dash onto my foot, so back to the hangar for a fix.

When the repairs were completed I again taxied up the hill to take off. Mike soon followed and we went to Rome State where Mike put in about 10 or more take off's and landings. I left after his second landing and came on home. Mike called me on the radio that he was coming home so I took a video camera to the wind sock to record his first landing on my runway. He of course had no problem and put in another three or four landings. He of course is exhausted with all the adrenaline that has been flowing through his system, but quite happy to be a member of the Kolb brotherhood, or is that Personhood???????????????
https://vimeo.com/349243399   password    owyheeflyer