Emilie went volunteer in a farm. I was in Glacier with Viorel, a friend from university who lives in Chicago, check the previous posts.

After the stories from Yellowstone with booking the trail, I was pretty pessimist, especially that a big fire started a week before, and some roads were blocked. There are 4 entries in the park, from each direction. Even if it was not in our area of interest, we headed to the closest entry, to book the route. In the end, it proved to be a very inspired movement, because we could book the trail we wanted. There is even a lottery to book the trail, so we win at it, without participating.

The first night we got by car to the camping. It was full, we could take only the last and probably the worse spot. As we were heading to the lake for a swim, the neighbor heard us speaking in Romanian, so there we are, in the middle of remote mountains, 4 Romanians speaking about the games of childhood, about the Communist era with some nostalgia. Adi and Nico are living in New York, and they are working in the medical system. So I got another feedback on the American system.

We met a lot of people, but being up into the mountains, the exchanges were very good. In Glacier there is a common spot for cooking, so everyone spends the end of the day there, socializing. There were very funny stories of these young people, going for the first time in the mountains.

Viorel in a Kantian posture, der Mann vor der Natur.

I know Viorel for … 17 years. During these 6 days in the mountains, we spoke a lot.  He is the opposite of me: he runs a business for 15 years, workaholic, diligent, very practical. You know me, all the time I have a new idea for a project. I found out that if in order to run my business, I have to do it in his style, I prefer to be a postman. I mean in, check the post in Vancouver.

I am not sure that you could see in the previous photo the mirror of the water.

This day we climbed 1200 meters. A dying glacier witnessed my effort.

They estimate that by 2030 there will be no glacier, from the more than 250 that there were one century ago. Maybe Donald Trump will install some ice machines.

It was pretty rough, but so beautiful. This is the amazing thing in the mountains, you lose so much energy while walking, but when you look up, the batteries are recharging.

 

We camped at the bottom of this rock, which is like in a western movie.

We met our neighbors from the previous day. The young man is student at film university in Montana. He says that during winter, sometimes there is a post-it at the entrance of the class, that right after they go for skying. He went several times in the Glacier, and this time he took his parents. His father runs a business in high quality printing. This photo is taken in the cooking place. You can see the background. The one for the tents is similar, with a view to the big rock. But the view from the toilet:

What an irony to give the most incredible view only to one person at the time, and for a limited period. But well, I was probably at the most incredible toilet in the world.

If in Yellowstone I had the pleasure to cross many wide rivers, here each small river had a bridge. I think it is a little bit too much.

This is the only encounter with a wild animal. I don’t count the ones who come at the camping sites down of the mountain.

This is the only lake we didn’t swim in.

The water comes directly from a glacier or snow. It was really freezing.

On the way back, you can see down there the lake where it was our camping.

You can see where we come from. What a joy to take a bath after a day of trekking ! The water was so good here, I spent more than half an hour.

Hey, that’s my T-shirt ! Give it back !

It is a serial T-Shirt killer. It took the 50$ one of a camp neighbor, and 2 custom officers said it did it many times. Glacier is on the border with Canada. So in the last camping in the mountains, during the summer there are custom officers. They don’t ask for the papers, but during the conversation at the cooking place, all the time they were asking crossing questions, like: where you come from, and after one hour, they ask Viorel where I come from. Someone could not find a bag with food. I was lying on the sand, watching the mountain, and one of these officers comes and asks me to have a look in my backpack, ‘maybe you took it by mistake’. Normally I would have said just ‘NO’, and that was it. But I felt like he observes my reaction in checking in public my backpack, so even it was hanged, I went to check. Of course, the package was found while I was raising again the backpack on the pole for bears. I prefer the Communist way of asking directly the papers, than this polite, but mistrustful way of communicating. But I mock them a little. I told them that I am an engineer, and it’s so easy to send these days a drone with drugs against the border. Viorel told me later the look I received from them. I told them that the first time, I had some difficulties crossing the border in US, but more I come to the west, easier it is. So I expect near Vancouver to sit with the border officer like now, and to roll a joint. One of them laughed !

What a trip ! Last day it rain heavily, and up in the mountains there was snow. So we were really lucky, to end it. Later I saw the movie ‘Blood diamonds’. People pay so much on these small pieces of glass, and don’t appreciate the big and really beautiful ones. What a luck ! Can you imagine the price to climb in a mountain, if 500 millions would bid to go in a trail in one of the 100 mountains in the world ?