Summertime

Alright, it officially feels like summer now. The Going-to-the-Sun road is finally open, there are a ton of people around Headquarters, I usually stay up late doing this or that with friends (even on week nights), and the snow has completely melted off the peak across the river. Just this past week we stayed up until 12:30am on a Wednesday playing Spades with a Ranger from Denver, my neighbors, and our friend Kim. Oh, those summer nights! 

Poor Mela, poor deer. 

Now, to catch everyone up with all that has happened in the past three weeks. One, I hit a deer on my way back from Libby Logger Days. If you don’t like blood, don’t look but I wanted to share why my car has been in the sop for two weeks. It was a big deer.

But Libby Logger Days was so worth it. The competition was slow but luckily I had Cameron, my high school friend, who knew some of the people and plays on his college team. He explained things and what the point of the event was.  I hope I got the names of the activities right. So many. The history of the sport comes from importance of logging in the Montana community. It's everywhere. The Logger Days competitions took most of the major tasks and hard cuts when logging and turned them into individual or group events. Take a look at these bad ass people cutting wood:

Spring Board Chop!

Horizontal Chop!

Badass ladies!

Axe Throwing!

PeeVee Roll!

Vertical Chop!

Jack and Jill

Ma and Pa Relay!

Cookie Stacking!

Get it Girl! Stack those cookies!

Birling!

Falling.

Man Down.

My Cookie! And Button!

WOW!

I learned that this sport doesn’t make you much money, but the support group is amazing. Everyone is so supportive of one another and just wants you to do your best. How could you not love it? Also, the smell of freshly cut wood is pretty great. We ended the night with my favorite and the most anticipated activity, birling, log rolling on water. At the same time, for the guys, they had hot saws which is basically a chain saw that has been revamped with a snowmobile engine and so it cuts super fast and super loud. So you got the fast, loud machine ending and the strategic, buoyant, roll-off ending.

After the competition, we went to have dinner with the team/group Cameron knew and basically all the competitors were there too. What a nice group of people, what a classically Montana sport. 

Mela full of boxes!

At work that week I was able to sit in on a brown bag lunch seminar that the Research and Learning department puts on. This week’s topic was on a gentleman’s book of five years of research following glacial scientists around the world and documenting their efforts and the receding of glaciers. Mr. White spent most of his time here at Glacier National Park and was greatly involved in documenting our glaciers. He was a neat guy, little dry when speaking, but when reading from his book, he seemed to be a good writer. If you’re interested, check out his book “The Melting World.” At work I also made a huge accomplishment by moving the 'A' files to the main archives building. This was the Friday before Mela got hurt. Here she's still intact. I was able to fit 24 archival boxes in her each trip. That was a nice pay-off to see my work DONE! Here she is full of boxes:

Calgary Stampede Parade!

The week of the fourth was nice. First, it was a short week and my two neighbors were very nice in letting me ride along with them in their rented car for groceries and laundry. I had been getting a little annoyed with my new record group at work and needed a break from it. The long weekend was greatly needed. 

I had originally planned to visit my family in Spokane, Washington. It’s only about a 5 hour drive to the West. But, Aubrey, my neighbor, had planned a trip to Calgary and Banff National Park and waned me to join. Since I didn’t have wheels and I wanted to visit Calgary, I jumped at the offer. We rented a yellow convertible Camaro and drove up the East side of Glacier and through Blackfeet country to get to Calgary. We drove up Thursday evening and got to Calgary around 8:30pm. The drive was mostly plains and flat farmland all the way up until we got to rolling hills around Calgary. The Calgary Stampede, much like the Western Stock Show in Denver, was happening. The town was swarming with cowboy hats, people riding horses in the downtown streets, country music blasting from pubs, and a great parade Saturday morning. We took advantage of the city and went to eat at one of the many great restaurants. We ordered an elk burger and poutine. YUM. 

Elk Burger with Poutine. Nom nom nom.

Optimus Prime, Aubrey, and Castle Mountain!

Friday, the 4th, we headed to Banff. Luckily the bell hop at the hotel we stayed at told us to park in a complex a street over because the whole town was down watching the parade. Wow, we could have been stuck in Calgary until 2pm. After figuring out how to get out of town without listening to the GPS lady, who wanted us to go right through the parade, we headed West towards the mountains. Now, Banff is amazing! These Rockies are filled with glacial lakes and beautiful vistas.  Glacier National Park in America is amazing, but it’s a little harder to access. There is only one road through and some of the glaciers you have to hike to. Banff was more of an easier reward Park and more accessible to the average person. Even while driving on one of the main roads, you look off to the lake next to you and bam, epic glacier. Aubrey and I were staying at a hostel and so of course met people. We met a girl from Switzerland and an older woman from Australia on holiday. Both were quite nice and we took advice from the Aussie to do this amazing valley hike on Saturday. The Swiss girl joined us for the day and we learned she had been hitch hiking across Canada and was having her own great adventure. Here are some of my favorite photos of Banff. It was hard to choose because I took so many, but I did at least one of each place we went to. 

Lake Minnewanka! 

Banff. aka BAMF!

Johnston Canyon Walk!

WATERFALL!!

Lake Moraine. My fave.

Banff Buddies!

Hiking in Larch Valley. Lake Moranie below. 

Alpine Anemones.

Made it to the Valley! View towards the road.

valley view to the pass. You could keep going, but there was a lot of snow.

Our Swiss friend Seraina!

Lake Louise and Glacier!

Sunday we traveled up to Icefields National Park and took in this amazing view as well as one of those easily accessible glaciers:

Bow Summit

Bow Summit looking towards the Glacier. Check that water out.

Amazing!

Glacier right on the side of the road. Bam!

Natural Bridge. Yoho National Park. 

Then, we drove home on the British Columbia side and got home around 8pm. What a trip!

This week was much quieter. I was keeping an eye on the progress of my car. It should be done by this coming Monday, the 14th. But I did get to experience the North American Indian Days in Browning on Thursday. It was a huge Pow Wow with tribes from both America and Canada. I went with Rishi and my friend Kim. We ate Indian Tacos and wandered the crafts tents and then set up watch in the main arena area to see the introduction of the royalty, tribal leaders, and flags. So awesome! Then they danced for about an hour. We left just as the sun was setting behind the mountains and I got this great shot:

Opening Ceremonies for Indian Days.

Tipi Sunset. 

In archiving, I have been working on the 'N' record group which is Natural Resources and includes research, studies, inquiries, and management plans on plants, animals, geological features, and weather. Just Friday I got to the geological file unit and was working on Glaciers. Working on these files made me feel like extra pumped. It may sound silly, but working on glacial files in Glacier, is great! I kept thinking 'heck yeah!' I was very into it and back to feeling good about working in the documents. 

This weekend, my boss was kind enough to let me borrow one of her cars. I’m doing errands and then possibly going hiking with Aubrey and her best friend who is in town from LA on Sunday. Phew, I think that’s the last three weeks! Boy, does time fly.