Glacier Park Chat
Flash forward to the summer of 2016. Braeden turned 18 this summer and is off to Montana State University. This grandma is going through withdrawals and missing her hiking, camping, bear watching buddy big time. Due to Braeden needing to work as much as possible to save money for his very expensive first year of college, our annual Glacier hiking trip was cancelled. We were both heartbroken, but this summer was also one of new beginnings. I got to introduce two new "littles" to the wonders of Yellowstone and Glacier Parks.
In June, circumstances came up with the opportunity for my daughter, son-in-law, grandson Brogan (6 yrs old) and granddaughter Brinnin (4 years old) to use my cabin reservation at Roosevelt Lodge in Yellowstone Park (Braeden and I stayed with a friend in his cabin). It was the first ever trip to Yellowstone for my son-in-law and the two littles. I was nervous because the littles are not always the easiest to travel with but they had a blast. They had been hearing stories of Braeden's trips to the park over the years and I bought a couple of children's books on Yellowstone Park for them to read before the trip. I also highly recommended the Junior Ranger Program to give them a purpose when they were driving around from sight to sight. The program was a huge hit and I definitely believe it kept them engaged in nature as they didn't use their tablets until night when they were at the cabin.
I have two new wildlife watchers! Both littles were able to quickly find the osprey in the scopes and are now hooked.
The littles have never been much for walks but we challenged them to hike to Lost Creek Falls. At the trailhead Brogan read the Bear Aware sign. This was his conversation:
1. "Hike in Groups" Check......"yup, we got 6 people".
2. "Be Alert" "Hey, everyone LOOK around!"
3. "Carry Bear Spray" " Yup, grandma has bear spray- she walks in front"
4. "Do Not Run" "Everyone stay together!"
5. ""Make Noise" ......I started laughing and said, "Seriously, I think we've got that easily covered without even trying." LOL
Lots of fun memories were made in the short 4 days they were able to be in the park and they were talking about going back next year even before they left. Even the son-in-law fell in love with the park.
Flash forward to August and our annual week long trip to a cabin we rent on Flathead Lake. I absolutely love Flathead Lake. Every morning I wake up early to see the sun rise over the Mission Mountains. It is views like this that make it coming back to the same place each summer worth it.
Six year old Brogan took to kayaking like he had been doing it for years. He is also a very good fly fisherman and even ties his own flies. He wants to teach me how to fly fish so I think some new memories will be made in the coming years.
A colleague of my son-in-law has a small cherry orchard and lets us pick as many cherries as we want for free as the main picking season is over when we're there. This year we filled a 170 quart cooler.
Brinnen swore that she was only picking cherries.
We were celebrating Braeden's 18th birthday when Brogan said, "There is a bat on the cabin!" We looked and sure enough there was. Braeden took this short video of a very scared bat.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pn3atrf ... e=youtu.be
We had decided ahead of time to take a day trip to Glacier so the littles could be introduced to the park. The one day that fit into our schedule was the only day it rained. The majority of the Going to the Sun Road was socked in with low-lying clouds and fog along with intermittent rain throughout the day.
The parking lot at Logan was full but even if there was a spot open we wouldn't have seen anything due to the low cloud bank. We did get to hike down to Baring Falls. Brogan declared that it was the best hike that he had ever taken. When I asked if it was even better than the hike he took in Yellowstone Park, he said it was.
flowersIf you have made it this far in my "Not your typical Glacier trip report" I applaud you.
In closing, I don't know if Braeden and I will have the opportunity to make it to Glacier Park very much as he is pursuing his architecture master's degree (5 1/2 year program!) but hopefully one or both of these wild kiddos will be hiking with me in Glacier Park in 7-10 years. 
Deb
