Lots of critters

The waters from the ice and snow of Speery Glacier fill Avalanche lake.  It's cold!

I failed to mention that on Monday we saw a black bear and a grizzly.  The black bear was closer to the west area of the park in the middle of the road.  A picture through the windshield showed nothing.🙃  The grizzly bear was near the east entrance.  No picture there either!  He was in the woods so we just saw patches of brown.

On Tues.  we headed to the popular Avalanche Trail, one of the most popular trails in the park.  On Monday it was packed when we went by.  We were out the door by 7:15 and we got the last parking spot in the main lot.  When we went to back out, someone directed us so they could have our spot.

There were actually 2 trails.  We started out on the shorter Trail of the Cedars (loop of .9 miles), of which half was boardwalk.  Branching off of that was the Avalanche Trail (4.5 miles round trip, with a gain of 730') following Avalanche Creek.  Another .7 miles takes you to the end of Avalanche lake, but we stopped when we reached the lake. 

Trail of the Cedars

Several artistic signs along the Trail

At the half-way point of The Trail of the Cedars we came to Avalanche Trail.

Lots of downed trees from a 2010 avalanche.

Leaving the creek behind we entered a forest with old growth trees. Notice the big rocks also from the avalanche.

Avalanche Lake

Not a very good picture, but the Woodpecker was not cooperative.

Back to the last half of the Trail of the Trees

The past two days were great for us for wildlife.  Any time there's cars parked on both shoulders, and sometimes even in the middle of the road, and people have their cameras and binoculars in hand, you can be pretty certain there's wildlife around.  In this case a moose.

Where are the Piepers now?  Columbia Falls, MT