Part 3: The final part of the trip

After spending a lovely evening at the home of our friends Tess and Adam, 

we drove to Montana. Destination: Glacier National Park. 

Avery had a total melt down in the car and we ended up camping in Hot Spring, MT about an hour and a half outside of the park. The town was hosting an annual herb festival and hippies from far and wide had gathered. Chris was in heaven mingling with his "kin". 

Avery really enjoyed splashing around in the hot springs. 

We arrived early the next morning. Glacier National Park is AMAZING! I kept wandering around the park saying to myself, "How have I never been here before?"

 

The first thing on the agenda was to track down an old friend of mine who spends her summers as a park ranger in Glacier. Teagan and I lived in the same neighborhood at BYU and after she graduated she left for Calgary Canada to pursue a PhD in climate change. She is currently working on her dissertation which focuses on effective methods of teaching climate change to park patrons, especially to those who don't believe in it. Isn't she amazing? I was only sad that it was her day off because I was really looking forward to her nature program. 

Avery is NOT excited to be a junior park ranger

Our first day we took a short 2.5 mile hike to Avalanche Lake, which was so beautiful. The hike was fairly easy and the view at the lake was incredible. Avery also had fun playing in the mud.

We then set up camp at Fish Lake. We spent the next morning reading and playing along the rocky beach. It was just so beautiful.

Our second day there we took two short hikes. The first one was along the Shoreline trial which is about a 20 mile hike but we only did a couple miles in and then out. 

We still caught some amazing views, 

and shared the trial with a family of mountain goats. 

Our second hike was to the Hidden Lake View Point which is a very steep hike along some glaciers. 

 

 The entire park was so beautiful but also made me very sad. Due to increasing global temperatures Glacier National Park is projected to be glacier free by 2020.

We spent the last part of the trip at our friends Andy and Marie who live in Great Falls. Andy and Chris were band together a few years ago. We had fun relaxing on their farm. 

Andy also took us to the Louis and Clark Museum which was really cool. 

Coincidentally, I had just finished a book about the periodic table of chemistry and learned a very interesting antidote about the Louis and Clark team. Apparently they all suffered from constipation (related to a diet consisting mainly of dried meat) and took a very popular remedy for that time, which was a pill of 60% mercury. Mercury, a natural laxative, goes right through a person and doesn't degrade. Therefore, modern scientists have been able to identify the trail of Louis and Clark by taking soil samples and identifying where they pooped.

We loved our trip!!!