Back in 'Murica

Here is Scott and I getting ready for my departure from his house. :'(

It was a little sad, but I was glad to come back to america, especially with this as my welcoming view.

Along the way to my destination for that day I saw lots of free range cattle on the side of the road (And sometimes on the road)  and also some wild mustangs.

On my 2nd day back I went hiking up this little creek on the edge of glacier national park.

After my hike I checked out glacier park lodge (which is where I'm at currently while typing this post).

After checking out the lodge I decided to hike the Continental Divide trail in the heart of Grizzly Bear Country.

Some of the many berries I found (and Gorged on).  These were wild strawberries.

At the border of Glacier National Park on the trail.

I was higher up than that snow on the other side of the valley.  It was July 31st.

In this picture if you look in the very top right corner you can see tiny white roofs.  That's the town of East Glacier, where I started my hike.

Well that's what I've been up to the past couple days.  Unfortunately I didn't get to see any Bears or Sasquatches, but it was still a very fulfilling hike. :)

Hiking Heart Mountain

Last weekend JAR, Zenic and I all went hiking on heart mountain.  Unfortunately Zenic was becoming ill so for most of the hike it was just me and JAR.  This was the first challenging mountain hike I have ever been on and it was a blast.  And after only a short hike over a creek bed (filled with flood damage) we made it to the Heart Mountain trail head.

The whole way up the mountain was varying degrees of uphill hiking.  It started off as a gradual incline and then at about 1/4 of the way up it started getting pretty steep, but not to the point where I had to use my hands.  A little past halfway up it got even steeper and we needed to use our hands not so much to hold our weight, but to just steady our bodies so we wouldn't slide.  I believe this is referred to as scrambling. There were a few spots where I was actually rock climbing (I used my arms to hold my body weight), but the vast majority of it was just easy scrambling. This lasted pretty much all the way to the top.

After reaching the top we walked on the ridge for awhile, which was much easier due to it's general flatness.  We then found a spot to have lunch and made our way back down because we knew Zenic was waiting for us in the car.  Going downhill was harder on the joints, but wasn't nearly as tiring as going uphill, since we were not going against gravity.

Even though it was exhausting and I was sore for 2 days afterwards, I can't wait to climb some more mountains.  It's such great exercise.  And if I become really good at climbing mountains then I'll be one step closer to becoming a true mountain man. hehe.

Hunting the Wild Strawberry