Last 2 days at Glacier

On Monday we took a boat ride on St. Mary Lake.

It was nice to see the mountains from the lake level.  Also, you can really appreciate the color of the water.  Turns out that glacier lakes appear light turquoise blue.  As the glaciers grind rock down the mountains, the debris becomes a fine powder, called Glacier Flour.  The debris is suspended in the lake and the light reflecting from the Glacier Flour appears a unique turquoise blue.

Beautiful, huh?

Here is one of those few remaining glaciers feeding the blue lake.  We heard today that the updated forecast for the demise of the glaciers in the park is now 2020, not 2030.  Only 7 years!
Also, I learned the definition of a glacier - it must meet 3 criteria - 1) the ice must be moving 2) the ice must be at least 100 feet thick 3) the glacier area must be at least 25 acres in size.

We have a new appreciation for the Going to the Sun Road after seeing it from the water.  It was built in 1923 -- look at the rocks that were used to shore up the side of the mountain for the road.

I opted out of a hike in the afternoon.  Luke walked the trail to Virginia Falls.  I missed a beauty!

 

Today we drove to the southeastern entrance to the park, Two Medicine.  Again, a boat ride, this time on the smaller Two Medicine Lake.  See how green the water appears?  There are no glaciers feeding this lake.

 

 

We got off of the boat for an hour for a hike -a beautiful walk.

After our return from the boat ride, we took another short hike to see Running Eagle falls.  These are wonderful - actually one waterfall tumbles from above while a second one roars out of a channel about half way down the first.

The afternoon was spent largely going back into Browing (where our windshield had been repaired - about 12 miles from Two Medicine) for groceries.  Nothing here at St. Mary!  The only "grocery store" here is an over sized convenience mart that stocks alcohol and chips.  So, we stocked up in Browning, Luke got a couple of things from a hardware store, and we are back at the RV.  Our schedule is to drive the whopping 47 miles tomorrow from here into Canada's portion of Glacier NP, called Waterton.  Same park, different country, different name.  We are meeting boating friends Conny and Alvin there tomorrow - yea!!