My Blue Heaven

Glacier National Park, part of Glacier-Waterton International Peace Park, has always been one of my very favorite places to go.  The year after J and I were married, we spent our first vacation here.  When my daughters were older and about to leave the nest, we spent part of our last vacation here.  

The park experienced a record year this year - a record year for visitors and tourism, and a record year for catastrophic forest fires.  

This is Lake MacDonald looking towards Stanton Mountain and Mt. Brown, with Heaven's Peak in the far distance.  The Little Matternhorn is on the right.  But even after rain and some snow, the fires are still not out.  If you can zoom in right in the center, you will notice smoke.  While the area hasn't had any flare ups recently, it is still going.  And you will notice all up the side of the mountain the brown and black from the burned trees.  Glacier lost a historic building, the Sperry Chalet, to the fires this month.  

What is very sad is that on the Canadian side, at Waterton National Park, the fires were catastrophic!  Over 70% of the park burned, and is still burning now.  The fire fighters were able to save the historic Prince of Wales Lodge, but other buildings on the outskirts of Waterton were lost.  

I have been up in the area doing work for one of my clients, and took some time to take a few photos.  And I could not come all this way without going to up to Glacier National Park.  I could not go any further.  The famous "Going to the Sun" Road is closed now.  They closed it early this year because of the need to use if for fire suppression, but also they plan to repave the road before next season.  

Tomorrow, I leave the area and will start heading west for a job in Northern Washington.  The work has been keeping me very busy and haven't had much time to take photos or respond to comments.