Glacier Park Photo Essay: Animals

Glacier National Park “The Crown of the Continent” was established in 1910 with the help and influence of George Bird Grinnell.  Many features in the park are named after him.  Located in northwest Montana it adjoins Waterton Lakes National Park in Canada.  The eastern side of the park borders the Blackfeet Nation.  The Blackfeet named the region “Backbone of the World”.  They sold the land to the US govt. in 1896 for mining purposes but they retained the rights to gather plant foods and medicines and to fish & hunt the animals.  Fortunately, no gold or silver were found so the ecosystem remained fairly pristine over time.  It is still considered to be sacred Indian land.

Mountain Goats on Hidden Lake Trail    

Photos were taken with a Canon PowerShot S80 (point & shoot) and have been edited and Photoshopped to adjust the light, sharpness, and color quality.  Click the images for a larger version.  In the interest of preserving the large format images I didn’t optimize the file sizes.  Apologies to our dialup users for that.

This will be a two-part series. Part I is Animals.  Part II will be Water.    

I have always been a mountain girl.  Our family summer vacations were centered around Colorado and the Western states. Mom and Dad with three kids and a dog in the back of a station wagon would drive from Chicago to Boulder, CO to see the grandparents.   Then we’d spend a couple weeks camping and hiking in the great outdoors.  As a kid I didn’t really appreciate the scenery and the hiking was strenuous and dull – which made for a crabby little girl.  All I ever wanted was to stay at a motel with a pool (which never happened) and go to the Dairy Queen (the rule when we were on the road was that it had to be between 2:00 and 2:15 pm in order to stop for ice cream – a 15 minute window – not fair waaah!).  

Flash forward 30+ years… Mom & Dad have long since retired and are traveling around the country 4-5 months of the year in their camper van, a big step up from the tent. They are still avid hikers and bikers.   One of my sisters and I met up with them for a week-long camping trip at Glacier National Park just a few weeks ago.  My sister and I were in tents – Mom & Dad in the van.  These days I am much more appreciative of nature and the beauty of the mountains.  Hiking is OK with me too – but I’m not as gonzo as the rest of my family.    Glacier is the greatest National Park in the lower 48 states (of the ones I’ve seen anyway) so I jumped at the chance to go back. My last visit was in 1988.   One of the biggest surprises to me was how many animals we saw.   It was a privilege to visit and share their home with them.  

My sister drove her car up from California and met me at the Glacier Intl Airport in Kalispell, MT. We drove over the famous and spectacular Going to the Sun Road to get to Many Glaciers campground on the east side of the park.  The road crosses the Continental Divide at Logan Pass (elev. 6,646 feet).  Just before reaching the pass we came across this goat on the side of the road.  I took this picture out my window.  He (she?) is shedding his coat.  

Mountain Goat (Oreamnos americanus).  

The Mountain Goat is the park’s official symbol. Their primary range is the Rocky Mountains and Cascade Mountains of North America.  Both sexes have horns and their age can be determined by the growth rings inside the horns.   They live at high altitude out of the range of most predators.  Their main food source during the harsh winters is lichen which they scrape off the rocks with their sandpaper tongues.

At the Logan Pass visitor center we encountered Bighorn Sheep in the parking lot.  

Rocky Mountain Bighorn Sheep (Ovis canadensis canadensis).  

This subspecies of Bighorn Sheep ranges from British Columbia to Arizona.  Only the males have the curved horns, which can weigh up to 30 lbs.  Females have shorter and straighter horns. They are not quite as agile as the mountain goats but they tend to live on rocky cliffs and bluffs where they can more easily escape from predators – mountain lions, wolves and bears.  

Bighorn posing for visitors at Logan Pass

Bighorn herd at Grinnell Glacier.

Columbia Ground Squirrel (Spermophilus columbianus).  

These squirrels are native to the northern Rocky Mountains of Idaho, Montana, Washington and Oregon and Canada.   They were fairly ubiquitous around the park – chirping warnings as we came down the trail – or begging for food around the campgrounds and visitor centers.  The rangers told us that people food is very bad for their diet – they often don’t make it through their long winter hibernation (7-8 mo.) if they don’t stick to their normal forage.  

Hoary Marmot  (Marmota caligata).  

The hoary marmot gets its name from the silver-white fur on its head and half of its back.  The rump and tail are reddish-brown.  Hoary marmots live in alpine and subalpine ranges of mountains in the northwestern US and western Canada with the majority living in Alaska.  These marmots range in size from 18 to 23 inches in length and weigh 8 to 20 pounds – about the size of a house cat.  

Mule Deer (Odocoileus hemionus).  

Based on the ears I’m pretty sure this is a Mule deer.  We saw these frequently and whitetail deer as well.  I took this shot just because she was so close to us and unafraid.      

North American Moose (Alces americanus).  

Moose are the largest member of the deer family.  They are found throughout northern North America.   Moose are solitary animals living in forest areas where there are lakes, ponds or swamps.  I was really excited to see this one.  I think it was my first wild moose sighting. I must say, I’m half tempted to take a trail camera with my next time and leave it out for a short period to get some close-ups. My friend recently bought one after reading a Rainbowday Deer Camera Trail Camera Review and can’t praise it high enough, so I really think I need to try it!  

Grizzly (Brown) Bear (Ursus arctos horriblis) .

This is the animal I most wanted to see.  One of the rangers told us that 250 grizzlies and 500 black bears live in the park.   Almost everyone we met wanted to talk about bears.   When we were hiking people were always saying that we just missed a bear on the trail.  Finally, we were the lucky ones to see bears on the trail.   This is a mama grizzly.  She knows people are around and she’s looking for her cubs on the other side of the path.  One of them scampered out and climbed a tree near mama.  The other was right behind – as seen below.      It was a little scary to be so close but very cool!    

Grizzly bear and cub.

We saw another mama & cub pair but from a much further distance.  There were people with high-power scopes on the side of the road and they let us look at the bears taking a nap on the mountainside. We could view them with binoculars too.   Every so often they would raise their heads and look around.   They are so cute, just like teddy bears.

Another intense predator encounter, heard but not seen:  a mountain lion.  It was walking through the campground “meowing” loudly in the middle of the night.   I found a recording of what it sounded like:  long distance calls of a female mountain lion.  Listen to the second half of this little .wav file (Source). It’s an odd sound, not the typical ROWWR! you hear in the movies, but it sent chills up my spine. I was laying in my tent with my heart pounding.   My sister said she was pretty terrified too.  The lion was much closer to where she set up her tent than mine.  

Three more of my favorite animals:

Mom (77 yrs old).  On trail to Bullhead Lake.  Sister on other side of the bridge.  

Dad (79 yrs old). On trail to Grinnell Glacier.