Image of Bearhat Mountain, near Logan Pass in Glacier National Park, courtesy of Leland Howard.
Along Montana & Idaho's Continental Divide Trail
Sample Chapter
Glacier National Park: We began our Continental Divide trek at the western border of Yellowstone National Park, and ended up, more than 800 miles later, at the southeastern border of Glacier National Park. We hiked through sagebrush, open juniper and cedar forests, grasslands, aspen groves, vertical jail cells of lodgepole pines, park-like ponderosa pine forests, white pine, Douglas-fir, krummholz clinging to survival like twisted dwarves, avalanche chutes, alpine tundra, and more. We hiked below cliff faces one thousand feet high and forded rivers in shadowed canyons. So what could Glacier National Park offer that we hadn't already seen?
(copyright is by Westcliffe Publishers, do not copy or distribute without permission)
Two Medicine Lake in Glacier National Park, on the Continental Divide Trail
Photo courtesy of Robert Howard.
The Continental Divide Trail in Glacier National Park is like the rest of the trail -- but on steroids. No hyperbole is too pumped up. The Park's scenery will sink you to your knees or roll you over like a log going downriver.
Give up, give in, prepare to be changed.
Excerpt from trail notebook:
All is not lost, though it seems we conspire against ourselves to lose everything.
Still, glaciers pause before us with their blue hearts exposed in fissures.
Mama grizzlies roll like furred locomotives across the alpine tundra,
trailing fat cubs like a caboose.
The pepper spray, ludicrous weapon, shrinks in my hand
until it is almost too small to hold.
With aristocratic disdain, burly mountain goats look down at us from green
ledges hung on gray walls sliced by ancient glacial knives.
There are places where the goats walk behind falling water,
white ghosts tightrope-walking in a mist of wind and water.
This is the land of water. Water flows from hanging cirques,
over walls a thousand feet high. Water feathers in the wind
and drops in secret places, in known places that have a tourist name,
in corners of the Park where no one ever goes.
Feather Plume, Dawn Mist, Hidden, Garden, Veil, Red Eagle, Swiftcurrent.
No names are adequate to the task. The waterfalls come roaring down ten to a valley,
twelve to an arête, until the falls are the voice of the Park.
-- copyright, Lynna Howard, September in Glacier National Park
So, now do you have yourself psyched up? You're ready to go? Put on the brakes. Glacier comes with a price. This is the only place along the Idaho/Montana route for which backcountry travelers will have to make reservations. This is the place where we had our most dangerous encounters with bears. This is the place where we had our most irritating confrontations with humankind. For an extended trek through Glacier National Park you have prepare.
Glacier now requires advance reservations for backcountry camping. Call them at 406-888-7800 and they'll send you a raft of paperwork to fill out and rules to decipher. They begin accepting reservations on May 1st for each summer/fall season. Get yours in as early as possible.
....... for the rest, you'll have to buy the book. To order, visit www.westcliffepublishers.com or phone 800.523.3692
Leland Howard, my brother and official photographer for the Idaho/Montana portion of the Continental Divide Trail. Here, he's hard at work on the Autumn Creek Trail in Glacier National Park.
Photo courtesy of Robert Howard.
For more information on the series of guide books and picture books for the New Mexico, Colorado, Wyoming, and Idaho/Montana portions of the Continental Divide Trail, contact WESTCLIFFE PUBLISHERS at 2650 S. Zuni Street, Englewood, CO, 80110, phone 303-935-0900, or visit their website at www.westcliffepublishers.com. The books for the Colorado portion of the trail were published in 1997, the remaining books were published early in the years 2000 and 2001. My brother, Leland, and I completed the guide book for the Montana/Idaho portion of the CDNST, and also a large-format picture book "Along Montana & Idaho's Continental Divide Trail" which is a memoir, with a plethora of beautiful images. To order, visit Published Books, Westcliffe Publishers, or amazon.com. We have also completed a guide to the designated and proposed wilderness areas of Utah. Our current project is "Backcountry Roads, Idaho" scheduled for publication late in 2007.
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Legalese: Unless otherwise noted, the text and images that appear on this web site are copyrighted material. Please do not copy or redistribute these materials in any way without prior permission. Thank you, Lynna Howard
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