by Jon Heaton
Sept. 7, 1963
2nd grade
Mrs. Horsefeathers
For our big trip this summer my family and I went to Glacier National Park in Montana and we also went to Waterton National Park in Canada that is connected to it. I have always wanted to visit this national park and have never been, so I was excited to finally go there and hoped that the fishing was as good as it was in Yellowstone when we went there a couple of years ago. It took two days to get there and from our home it was 1,290 miles and took two days to drive – about 18 hours. Altogether we drove 3,230 miles on this trip! I wanted to get out of the car and eat more, but my papa said no way was he going to eat in a place that advertised grub.
He was kind of grumpy anyway ever since we went through a road repair area in Utah and got five rock chips in the windshield.
The very first day, after dinner, I went down to the river near our campground called the McDonald and fished for a couple of hours but I got skunked and the mosquitoes chased me away as it started getting dark. I found out later that there aren’t many fish in this river just like there aren’t a lot of fish in most of the rivers and lakes in the park. The water is too sterile to support a lot of insect activity they say. Boy, I wish I knew this before we left – I should have done my homework!
Oh well, it was still a lot of fun driving over the Going to the Sun road through the park which is a road I have always heard about and always wanted to see. We saw lots of mountains and waterfalls and also wildlife like black bears and mountain goats. We also saw a couple of glaciers even though these are melting away. We drove all the way over to an old hotel called the Many Glaciers hotel that is on a big lake. I had a local root beer and my dad tried the famous Huckleberry Daiquiri whatever that is.
There were three spots on the road where there were delays because of construction which was kind of annoying, but it was really neat to see how they construct the roads and the stone barrier/guardrail along the edges of the steep cliffs. I always wondered what they did to keep those big stones from falling off the edge. It looks like they dig a big trench, then sink steel girders into the earth, probably buried in cement. Then they have all of these masons working on building the stone part of the wall with huge blocks of rock. Here are some pictures I took because I thought it was really cool.
When we got back to the campground that night my dad tried a new beer he found from a local brewery called “Pig’s butt Porter.” He said it would be alright to write that word in this report since it is the name of a beer, but he told me that after he had ‘sampled” several of these beers, so I hope it’s ok. He really liked this beer and ended up buying lots of it, but I don’t think there’s much left.
Finally the next day it was time for some more fishing! My dad was reading a guidebook for fishing in Glacier and he said that if he had a nickel for every time the author either said a lake or stream was barren or had ‘poor’ or ‘fair’ fishing for ‘small cutthroat’ he would be a rich man, but I don’t get it. That would be a lot of lakes and streams, wouldn’t it? Anyway, he found a couple of nice hikes for that day, with one of them ending at a big lake that was supposed to hold bigger fish. First we took a nature trail on a boardwalk that went by a steep gorge that was at least a hundred yards long and had water roaring down it. My dad said this was important because it kept other non-native fish from swimming up to the lake which meant that in the lake, called Avalanche Lake, you could find the only pure strain remaining in the park of the Westslope Cutthroat Trout. In fact, biologists are using the fish from this lake to re-populate other areas. Here is a picture of part of the gorge.
The hike up to the lake is only a few miles round trip, so a lot of people were on the trail at first. However, since it’s mostly uphill we saw more and more red-faced, sweaty people sitting on rocks on the side of the trail and fewer and fewer actually hiking as we got higher. This was a good thing. It’s too bad they didn’t make it though, because this was one of the most beautiful lakes I have ever seen. There were at least 6 different waterfalls and cascades coming down into the lake from the snowfields high above.
I fished by the outlet stream that led to the gorge far below and caught a whole bunch of beautiful fish all on dry flies.
Boy oh boy was that a fun place to visit, Mrs. Horsefeathers! I caught lots of fish and we had a big lunch and took lots of pictures while we hiked partway around the lake. I’d like to go back there someday and spend the night so I can look for the bigger fish cruising around at dawn and dusk.
The next day we went rafting and one of my teenaged brothers went into an inflatable kayak with my dad. My dad asked the rafting people if it was a good idea to take an inflatable kayak through a class III rapid called “Bonecrusher” with my brother, but from the look on his face in these pictures, I think he was worried about himself too!
Don’t worry, Mrs. Horsefeathers, even though it looks like my dad fell out of the kayak he didn’t - he just got buried by a mountain of cold, glacial snowmelt before popping through the other side of the big wave.
Our next plan was a backpacking trip to one of the other lakes in the park that reportedly had good populations of larger fish. This lake is called Gunsight Lake and it was a beautiful hike that was just over 6 miles long one way. The only problem was that it rained off and on all day as we hiked upwards to the lake. The trail is very brushy and sometimes you can even see it because the plants hang over it, which meant that our pants and boots got wet as the rain fell off of the plants and onto us. The cool part was when we found wild huckleberries and could stop for a while and eat them as we looked all around to make sure no grizzlies were also eating them. For a while it follows the St. Mary’s River before heading uphill. But it was sure worth it when we got a view of the lake because it was even more beautiful than Avalanche Lake if that is possible. It is nestled in a big basin right at the foot of the continental divide and it also had a bunch of waterfalls and cascades coming down the hillsides all around.
The problem with fishing this lake according to the guidebook was that it is extremely brushy and hard to access (an understatement) and very windy most of the time (also an understatement as the wind was absolutely howling and kicking up whitecaps when we arrived). Even though it had been raining off and on all day, the weather cleared as we set up camp and had an early dinner. The wind was just too strong on the lake because I would be casting directly into it and it just threw the line from my 3wt. back at me. So, I went down to the outlet stream and caught several small cutthroats. I didn’t take any pictures of these because they were only about the same size as small goldens and I had dreams of the bigger fish in the lake.
I worked my way across the stream and up the far shore of the lake by wading along the shore of the lake since there was no way through the brush. Even though the sun was starting to go down behind the mountains, and my sandaled feet were freezing in the cold water, my dreams of bigger fish pushed me on. So, I guess it was inevitable that I would slip on a rock and fall completely into the lake. The rest of my family thought this was funny, but I didn’t – especially when the sun chose that very moment to go behind the ridgeline. The temperature seemed to drop 30 degrees instantly. I think I’ll have to do a science project on that phenomenon someday. It’s a good thing I had warm clothes in my pack and I hurried back to change and that was it for fishing for that day.
The next day I woke up early and ran down to the lake hoping that the wind was calm, and it was! The lake was almost like glass and there were a few fish rising, though kind of far out. I was wearing shorts and sandals and even though it was chilly in the morning, and the water was freezing, I wanted a big fish! So, I waded out knee deep and started casting.
I really don’t like lake fishing that much, especially when the fish seem to be rising about 10-20 feet beyond the furthest you can cast. However, the bigger problem was that dark cloud you can see hovering over the continental divide was getting bigger and darker every second that I looked at it. So, after less than half an hour of fishing, and watching that cloud grow, I finally decided to go wake everyone up because cooking and packing in the rain kind of stinks.
Because of grizzlies, in Glacier they group the backcountry sites together around a communal cooking area. There were several people down there finishing up breakfast and packing as we were eating our oatmeal. All of a sudden there was a huge, bright flash of lightening down on the lake which was quite close and an instantaneous crash of thunder that was amplified by the bowl and was just about the loudest thunder I have ever heard. One of the girls that was standing there hit the deck like a soldier in a mortar attack and everybody else started shoving gear into packs as fast as they could. Unfortunately, the rain started at just about the same time and we had to make a run for it to the tent.
Four person tents designed for backpacking are already pretty tight, but trying to pack four backpacks inside of one in a downpour is not a lot of fun. Breaking down a wet tent in the rain isn’t a big blast either. So, it is a bit annoying when the rain decides to relent for a while juuuuuusssstttt when you finish getting everything packed. Even though it rained off and on as we hiked out, it was still a nice hike because it was easier and there was more time to enjoy all the flowers and the views.
I thought it was nice taking a lunch break by that little waterfall, but for some reason my dad liked the end of the hike more. He said he was forced to drink those beers and take that picture because it was a tradition of his, but I don’t get the attraction.
It sure was nice that night to find a room at that big old park hotel, the Many Glaciers. We had a nice dinner in the dining room (after showering) and watched the cool clouds that night and the next day.
We went up to Canada to visit the Waterton National Park part after this, but what I remember the most about this is all of the bears we saw – grizzlies by the roadside and black bears in the campground. In the first picture you can see the mama bear in the foreground and one of her two cubs in the tree. They were right in front of the visitor center as if it had been planned and a couple of rangers were out in the street just keeping the cars moving.
All in all, it was a pretty cool vacation even though I didn’t get to do near the fishing that I wanted to do. I’ve always wanted to visit this park and finally got to cross it off of my list. It was one of the most beautiful places I have ever seen and I would recommend everyone to try and get there sometime. However, if you are an avid fisherman like I am, I would suggest adding it on to a visit to Yellowstone which has a lot more and a lot bigger fish!
I hope you enjoyed my report, Mrs. Horsefeathers. By the way, I’ve been meaning to ask you if you would wear that semi-transparent white blouse with the black lacy bra to class again. It made me feel kind of funny and tingly, but in a good way. Your favorite student, Jon
