The Crown of the Continent

A little trip out to the Crown of the Continent will probably end up being the crown of my summer.  It was my first time there in two years, and it was my first time ever spending time in the back country there.  It was only a four day vacation, but it felt like it gave me a two-week break because it was so action packed.  Even the drive to and from was incredible and gave me breathtaking views of an amazing part of the our country.

This one, just like most of the recent posts will be mostly pictures, although I may share an anecdote or two at the end to elaborate on some of the pictures, or to discuss moments that weren't captured on camera.  Also, I may have to put an updated post about this trip once I get pictures from Mike and Caroline, since they have some really cool ones that I don't, including a picture of the three of us with a Mountie!

This was my favorite vista of the entire trip.  The fence is for the horses that live at the Ranger Station. 

And we're off!

The first part of the trail had a lot of meadows with wildflowers popping everywhere.

Mike and Caroline before we took a quick break at the fence.

Chief Mountain

I've always wanted to go over a suspension foot bridge.  Now I have! (Picture is of Mike)

It is actually someone's job to live here and ride horses and do work in the woods.

This is one of the loudest and coolest waterfalls I have ever seen.  It is hard to tell because my camera isn't very good, but the pool is so incredibly blue, it looks straight out of the Caribbean.

This is a view from out beach front property for our campsite the first night!

Another beach front property shot.

Here is where the food prep area was.  Check out below for a great story about the other guys in this picture.

We woke up to a really cool inversion over the mountains.

This muley didn't seem very scared of us.

He was just hungry for some breakfast, so he ate with us.

Appropriately named Pyramid Peak.

Cool butterfly with false eyes.

Another cool waterfall.

Caroline headed back over the bridge.

A nice close-up of the wildflowers in the horse field.

Another great shot of the horse field!

We took a little jaunt up to Canada to check out Waterton Lake.  This is what we got to see.

I'm standing weird only because the wind would have pushed me over otherwise.

Our last day, we took a little hike to see a bunch of waterfalls near St. Mary Lake.

A very secluded dock on Lake St. Mary.

This was part of Virginia Falls.

St. Mary's falls.

The story about the other people in the picture above is actually pretty hilarious and was one of the many running jokes we had along the weekend.  It was a research group from Indiana State University.  When we first saw them getting ready at the trailhead, one of the guys needed the help of four others to get his pack on.  As it turns out, he was carrying an inflatable boat they could use to go out into the middle of the lakes that we were camping near to collect cores of the sediment.  They also had to carry all of the equipment related to the corer (not to mention sediment cores on the way back out).  So, needless to say, we kind of felt sorry for them.  Until we got more details about their trip itinerary and general backcountry packing skills.  First of all, they were only staying out for three days!  They carried all this equipment out 12 miles just to stay for 2 nights.  Then, when we were all eating dinner together the first night, one of the guys pulled out a full jar of peanut butter (large size)! Another pulled out a jar of jelly.  The only sensible one in the group was the girl that brought a jar of Goober- at least she had the sense to combine the PB and J.  Another guy had a 6-pack of 20 ounce Mountain Dews with him.  So we made fun of them for the whole next day about that.  Until the next day when we had dinner with them again.  This time, they pulled out whole cans of Chef Boyardee.  And whole grocery bags of dried fruit.  And whole freezer bags of cookies.  To top it all off, they had also packed freeze-dried backcountry meals, but had no way to cook them because nobody in their group brought a backcountry stove (maybe it was too heavy).  So, we let them use our stove in exchange for some snacks, which was great, because Mike had been obsessing about having a dessert and rationing our three Pop-Tarts just wasn't cutting it.  Anyway, I hope they learned a couple lessons about packing for a three day trip and will maybe be a little more weight efficient next time.  Of course, we don't actually know if the whole group made it out ok.  As far as we know, the Professor made it out, but he was hurting really bad, and the one strong guy in the group had gone back to try to help the others with their loads.

Overall, it was an incredible weekend full of hiking, good food, singing bear songs, skipping down trails, and friends.  The last night, Mike and I also got to see a little Northern lights show and I got to see about 15 shooting stars before going to sleep.  Probably the only downsides to the weekend was that I wasn't able to fully show off my newly acquired and much practiced bear bag hanging skills, and that we didn't get to see any bears, though we did get to hear a couple fighting on the second night in the distance.

I can't wait to go back (and/or explore other awesome areas).