Hells Canyon & Glacier National Park Trip - Part 4 (The Long Road Home)

The walk back down to the Logan Pass Visitor Centre gave a whole different perspective on the high Alpine Meadow area, as the sun had now risen high enough into the sky to let me capture some shots of the other mountains which surround this area of the park.  First off lets look to the South.

And then to the North there is the huge cliff face which has probably the most fitting name it could ever have - The Garden Wall, and what a garden it is too! 

The Alpine Meadow was also home to a massive number of flowers, which must have a tough life trying to bloom in such an area of the world.

It's when you find yourself standing in the area of Logan Pass that you get a true sense of just how much of this landscape has been created by the movements of the tectonic plates far beneath your feet.

Glacier National Park is only a small section of the the massive range of mountains which run from the North of Canada all the way down through Mexico, where two continents come together, otherwise known as the Continental Divide.

The drive back down the mountain pass road offers some amazing views of the valley which lies before it, as well as the likes of Mount Oberlin which has probably the best view in the park.

Once again, the drive in daylight gave more of an insight into the road I drove in complete darkness around 9 hours previously.

 As well as the amazing views of the mountains of the park, McDonald Creek is also on show from Packers Roost as you begin your decent from Logan Pass towards Crystal Point.

The sheer devastation that's caused by fires in the national parks is all too visible to see, some are caused by nature, i.e. lightning etc, but unfortunately there's still way too many fires started accidentally by people visiting the park...

Heaven's Peak stands proudly on the far side of the decimated valley before it. 

As you continue winding your way back down towards the valley floor,  the likes of Heaven's Peak, Stanton Mountain and Mount Vaught get close enough for you to make out all the lines and erosion which make up their faces and peaks.

And my final shot from the West side of the park was to try and capture the glacier colours in the water of Lake McDonald, which I probably hit at the completely wrong time of day, as the colours which normally light up the lake were only on show in the shallow water near the lakes shore.

It was now time to leave Glacier National Park behind and begin the final stage of my journey, a 640 mile drive back through Montana, Idaho, Washington and Oregon.

Estimated mileage at this stage - 1060 miles

Actual mileage at this stage - 1210 miles

As I approached Portland along the banks of the Columbia River Gorge, the same area which had shown me colour in it's sunrise the morning before put on one hell of a sunset show.

This photo opportunity came as a bit of a surprise for me and about 100 or so other carloads of passengers who did their best to bring the slow lane of I-84 to a complete halt (thankfully there was enough space for me to squeeze into one of the last available spots at the viewpoint off of the main interstate).

The sunset looking West over the Columbia River was jaw-droppingly stunning, and even though cars were pulling to a halt all over the interstate to soak it in fully, I never heard a single horn get honked in frustration, one of those "special" moments...

Around 2 hours later I was back at my hotel, weary, tired and ready for bed after covering a grand total of 1850 miles in around 42 hours.

Estimated mileage at this stage - 1700 miles
Actual mileage at this stage - 1850 miles

One hell of a trip, and I think I'll stick to my single day, 600 mile stints for the coming weeks...

Hells Canyon & Glacier National Park Trip - Part 3 (Glacier National Park)

After sleeping (if you can call a game of doze off/wake up in 10min cycles) for around 2 hours it was time to get the car started and make my way through Glacier National Park from the West entrance, all the way through the "Road To The Sun Highway" to a few miles shy of the East entrance where I planned to capture the sunrise over Saint Mary Lake.

As the local time approached 4am, I was already sat in prime position alongside the lake which was so amazingly still compared to almost EVERY single image I had found on the internet prior to the trip.  It was still completely dark at this stage, and with sunrise due to arrive around 4.45am I thought about grabbing another quick 15min snooze when it suddenly dawned (no pun intended) on me that I was miles and miles from any civilisation and was thousands of feet up in the air.

Why didn't I look up before now, argh, sometimes I really, really, really could kick myself, HARD!

It wasn't until now that I realised what I had squandered in during the few hours of sleep I had in the car.

STARS!!!!

And lots of them, I was parked around 40 miles outside the West entrance to Glacier from around midnight to 3am, and the skies were clear all night.  I blame the heated seats in the hirecar for my lack of awesome star and milkyway pictures that COULD have been captured had I not fallen asleep so easily...

...so here is one of the small number of star shots I took while capturing the sunrise at Saint Mary Lake.

It was only now that I was beginning to wonder if I would have any others planning to enjoy the sunrise too, human perhaps, or even the large 4-legged variety, as lets face it - there's over 3000 bears in the park, a mixture of Black and Grizzly varieties, and I'm not a fan of fighting with either!

Just before 4.30am the sky was beginning to light up with colour as the sun put on it's daily show. 

 I'll be honest, after shooting a sequence of images at this stage of the sunrise, the main event itself just seemed "flat" in comparison, so I packed up the kit and drove a few miles back West to where I could shoot back into the mountains of the park, with Saint Mary Lake still in the foreground, and using Wild Goose Island to break up the surface of the lake.  

 

You can see the sunlight is just starting to spill onto the tops of the mountains which guard the waters of the lake below it, at this stage is was around 5.45am.

This location was probably the place that I was most jumpy, as I was the only person standing in this area, down in the woods, with nothing but trees, bushes, and lots of nice hiding places for those bears...This location was probably the place that I was most jumpy, as I was the only person standing in this area, down in the woods, with nothing but trees, bushes, and lots of nice hiding places for those bears...I reckon every time I hit the shutter button standing there I did a complete 360 degree scan of my surrounding area incase I needed to make an emergency sprint back up to the car, thankfully nothing appeared and I spent the next hour there capturing the changing light over the lake and mountains.

Almost as quickly as the colours over the lake became pinkish, they began to transition to a more reddiish-orange glow, as the sun began to spread it's light on the hills which surround the lake.

It's at this point in time where the light is changing pretty much second by second that it gets tougher and tougher to keep everything exposed just enough to prevent blowing out the highlights or the shadows looking like they are still in the dead of night.

I have seveal custom functions set up on my 60D, which this photo is shot on instead of my normal Sony R1 that takes care of the normal landscape shots.  Using the 60D also let me through the scene into wide angle mode as I had brought along my 10-20mm lens among others.

The light begins to spread onto the hillside, bringing colour to all that was shadow.

In this one you'll see that the water looks pretty plain now, with some reflection showing but quite bland.

Now, only a matter of minutes later the light has filled the bank of the lake with colour, and the water which looked quite bland only a few minutes earlier now displays a colourful reflection of the bank.

The next hour or so I slowly made my way from Rising Sun on the banks of Saint Mary Lake, West along the Road To The Sun Highway - this time in daylight, which allowed great views of some of the mountains which make up the National Park.

As I drew close to the Visitor Centre high up in the mountains at Logan Pass I could get an idea of what lay off to the sides of the road that I had driven along in the dark of night - huge drops off the side of the cliff!

 

The carpark at Logan Pass normally begins filling up quickly from around 9am, which for most people is the timeframe that they intend to reach it - for me that "normal time of day" was still a good 90mins away when I parked up the car and after picking up the gear, made my way up past the Visitor Centre towards Clements Mountain.

You can already see the start of the path which leads you up towards Clements Mountain, before swinging over it's left flank en route to Hidden Lake which lies a few miles away.  After around a few hundred feet the stone path turns into a raised wooden walkway which winds it's way over the Alpine meadow.  The Apline meadow is home to hundreds of Marmots, which is a cousin of the squirrel - but is MUCH larger than it...

As you approach the base of Clements Mountain there are large areas littered with loose rocks that have broken away from it's parent mountain.

The colours which show up in the stone slurries are down to the large variety of minerals which are abundant in the mountains of Glacier National Park.

On the plateau which lies to the South of Clements Mountain the pathway winds itself through another section which has has a large rockfall and a small lake which has come into being due to all of the snow which has melted recently.

There's still plenty of snow around the park, albeit patchy now that it's September.  It won't be long until the snow begins to fall and makes this area impossible to reach easily for the best part of another year.

As you get closer to the cliff faces of Clements Mountain there's a much better view of the changing colours which make up the mountain.

 

Another half mile or so hike finally brings the scenery which holds Hidden Lake in it's arms into view with Mount Brown towering behind it. 

Again, hiking through areas of the vast winderness has you a little on edge as far as keeping your eyes peeled for the local wildlife, thankfully the only animals other than the Marmots that I came across were a few goats who only seemed a little miffed at me wandering across "their" turf!

Hells Canyon & Glacier National Park Trip - Part 2 (The Road To Glacier)

Now it was time for the daunting part of the trip - a 450 mile drive from Hells Canyon to the West entrance of Glacier National Park in Montana.  My plan was to park up around 40 miles away from the park entrance and catch 2-3 hours of sleep in the car before sunrise.  Having already covered 531 miles this meant having to cover just shy of 1000 miles, no mean feat along with all the stops and short walks/hikes I had done around Brownlee Dam and Hells Canyon.

 

The first 2 hours of this drive were probably the easiest, as I found myself having to wind my way through the valley floors and along the mountain passes which linked North East Oregon with South East Washington.

Here's a sample of just one of the views that I had from the top of one mountain, looking along the canyon.

And yup, that is the exact sort of road off to the right of the image that I mentioned above.  The area here was called Paradise, personally I think they need to add the word "Driver" to the front of that - it certainly is!

 It may have been great fun to drive, but unfortunately it was also bad for draining the energy which I still had in reserve, but somehow the lure of Glacier kept me pushing North through Washington, then East into Idaho (with the area which I was travelling through looking so flat in comparison to the landscape which I had left behind in Oregon and Washington)

As the cars clock, which was still one timezone behind after crossing from Pacific Savngs Time (PST) into Mountain Savings Time (MST), struck 11pm (midnight in local time) I was around 80 miles away from the entrance to Glacier and pushed on through the tiredness for another 40 miles to my planned "kip-stop" near the town of Somers which lay on the shores of Flathead Lake to the South West of Glacier National Park.

Finally it was time for a few hours shuteye, albeit in the not-so-comfy seat of my hirecar.

Estimated mileage at this stage - 915 miles
Actual mileage at this stage - 984 miles

Hells Canyon & Glacier National Park Trip - Part 1 (Brownlee Dam & Hells Canyon)

I was up, showered and out the door of my hotel around 25 miles West of Portland for 4am and just as the sun was beginning to breach the horizon at 6.32am I was about to say my farewell to the Columbia River which was just about to wind it's way Northwards, whereas I would continue due East.  The sunrise at the East end of the Columbia Gorge got my spirits up and boosted my hopes that this was going to turn out to be one hell of a weekend.

After what seemed like forever it was time to finally stop driving due East and swing South towards Baker City, which lies in front of the Blue Mountains, which as like many things in America have been named based on how they looked to the casual observers who made their way across America in years gone past.

After passing Baker City it was time to once again head East, in the direction of the tiny villages of Pine and Halfway which lie just on the West side of the Hells Canyon National Recreation area.  As I approached the village of Pine, the green fields began to die away except for one single, solitary, lonely tree which looked completely out of place, and in the distance the huge cliffs of Hells Canyon began to dominate the skyline.

A little further along the road, it was time for a double take as I passed a roadsign, took a second or so to think if it said what I thought it did and then reverse back up the road to find out.  After around four and a half hours of driving it was funny to have the "this is Sparta!" line running through my head.

As I continued getting closer and closer to Hells Canyon the surrounding area turned more and more desert-like.

With so much desert-like area around, there was one farm which stuck out like a sore thumb due to how green its fields were, I wouldn't want to know how much money they have to spend on water to keep the place running, compared with how much easier it would be to do so 50 miles West of here.

When you find yourself driving through mile upon mile of desert, the slighest blot of colour on the landscape grabs your attention, in this case a patch of sunflowers which lined the road.  Sun, in this area comes in abundance, water is a whole different story, so as you can imagine the sunflowers no doubt were battling one another for the small amount of water on offer in the ground they sat on.

Just outside of Pine was a little information area, which for all intents and purposes was a flat section of land with a loop to drive in and out of, it did however have a few cool features worthy of a photo.

 

First off the old grain tower which is looking pretty weather beaten now.

And then the signpost, which appeared to show directions to almost every and any location within a hundred miles of it!

I brushed along the South periphery of Hells Canyon, which offered a small glimpse of what was to come later in the day and met up with Snake River which winds it's way along the canyon floor to the North after it had swung from the East where the border with Idaho lay.  The border of Oregon and Idaho is where Brownlee Dam is located, my first main stop of the day.

Here's a view of the dam from the reservoir that lies above the valley floor.

And then one of the valley floor which lies below.

 

After leaving Brownlee Dam it was time to follow the South bank of Snake River.

Then it was time to head on North through the Hells Canyon National Recreation Area itself.

The main overlook of Hells Canyon was what I can only describe as the same sort of view anyone who has visited the likes of the Grand Canyon would know - it's simply so massive that any attempt to take photographs of it seem to make it look small to the viewer.  This exact reasoning applies to the panorama below of the canyon.

To put this into perspective - to drive from where I was standing to the peaks on the far side, my navigation system estimated just shy of 8 hours of driving, yup, I don't care what you say - that means it's BIG!

As I left the Hells Canyon area from it's North end it was time to take a note of my mileage to compare it with what I had estimated previously.

Estimated mileage at this stage - 465 miles
Actual mileage at this stage - 531 miles