Mountain goats, bighorn sheep, and no bears

Bighorn sheep
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After a breakfast of berry scones and great coffee, we got our rental car and set out to see the park. We started at a place called Goat Lick, which is supposed to be one of the premier places to see the mountain goats here, which are large and have long white hair. We didn’t see any here though, except for one very far away and barely visible even with binoculars. So we headed for the main part of the park.

The park has a free shuttle that goes the length of the park along the scenic Going-to-the-Sun road. We decided to park the car and take the shuttle, getting off at a few of the many stops it makes along the way.

Karen at the Continental Divide
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The highlight of the day was a hike at Logan Pass, which is on the Continental Divide. There is a visitor center there and a trail that climbs up the hillside behind it. The scenery was breathtaking. Everywhere in the park, there are huge stony mountains that rival any that we’ve seen in Yosemite and elsewhere. At the bottoms of these, still below the tree line, are meadows filled with every imaginable wildflower. I’ve never seen so many different flowers in bloom in one place with so many colors. There are also lakes, streams, and waterfalls spread throughout the park, as well as glaciers and snow at the higher elevations (including where we hiked).

Momma and baby mountain goat
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The best part of today was the wildlife. We saw many mountain goats and bighorn sheep quite close up. They are amazing animals. I have never seen goats like this, and we saw several babies. The older ones still seem to be shedding their winter coats; some have half-coats of much thicker shaggy long hair that is still coming out to show their short whiter coats beneath. The bighorns are also incredible. We’d seen them before but never this many or so close up. We also saw deer, marmots, squirrels, and chipmunks. Fortunately, as of yet, we’ve seen no bears and hope to keep it that way.

A mountain goat on the trail
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After a long hike, we took the shuttle to the other end of the park and planned a longer hike to take tomorrow. A ranger recommended it and said it has great views of the glaciers.

We then took the shuttle back to where we started. Surprisingly, by that time it was after 8pm. The day flew by so fast. We could easily spend a week here and not see and do everything we’d like to. (We’ve already revised our plan to go river rafting, since we want to do more hiking and see other parts of the park.)

We've never seen so many beautiful wildflowers.
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We drove to town to find somewhere with cell coverage (with is extremely sporadic here) and check in on work stuff. Afterward, we found someplace to eat and decided to order pizza to take back to the room. We also stopped by a grocery to get food for our long hike the next day. Pizza and beer were the perfect end to the perfect day.