THE "LEANING TOWER OF SNOWMAN" - Snowshoeing in Glacier

I had a FABULOUS day on Monday snowshoeing in Glacier National Park. We had over a foot of snow on Saturday night (and by "we", I mean Glacier and my house -- Kalispell and surrounding towns had almost nothing), and this meant fresh powder for snowshoeing (the skiers were thrilled as well).

Monday was bright, sunny, and just plain beautiful. So Monday afternoon I was off to Glacier with my new snowshoes and a walk down the "Going to the Sun Road" from Lake McDonald Lodge. On the walk, I ran across this snowman, who looked like he wanted to take a little nap in the snow. How cute....little pine cones for buttons, a stick for his mouth, and he even had a little evergreen stuck in his head. I was amazed that with all the sun on Monday that he had not finally succumbed totally to gravity and fallen over.

On my little adventure, I met several other hikers and skiers. One man was right out of "Jeremiah Johnson" (not Robert Redford, but that long haired, long bearded guy who taught Jeremiah the ropes). He told me he had been to McDonald Falls and seen several Harlequin Ducks. The Harlequin is a sea duck and normally winter near the rocky coastlines of the Atlantic and Pacific oceans. The ducks are short distant migrants, and their breeding habitat is cold, fast-moving streams (they won't breed in still water), which abound in Glacier. Normally the Harlequin shows up in Glacier in May and is gone before the end of June. This gentleman told me that since it had been a milder winter and Glacier's rivers (and the lakes) had not frozen over, it made sense that the Harlequin's were hear feeding and breeding.

(Picture of male Harlequin from the Internet)

I truly wish my ankle would allow me to hike longer distances, as I would have LOVED to snowshoe to the falls and the ducks. It is my objective this year to take my own photo's of the Harlequins.

On my way out of the park at about 4PM, the sun had melted some of the snow on the trees, and there where big drops of water hanging off the branches. The sun was in my face, and shining through the trees. It looked like all the trees were coated with crystals -- absolutely beautiful. The perfect end to a wonderful day.

While I didn't have my "good" Nikon camera with me, I did bring my point and shoot Canon. And it has a video capability, so I shot just a little film showing the beautiful surroundings -- enjoy.