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The Two Medicine area of Glacier National Park seems to be perfect habitat for these fast creatures.

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A snowshoe hare emerges to feed on berries in the fading light of a Glacier fall. Please click the image for the proper view.

Had an outstanding trip. I ended up spending some time in various Montana national forests, as well as Glacier and Yellowstone National Parks. As always, Glacier was absolutely mindblowing, and Yellowstone was outstanding for wildlife viewing and fishing for native trout. Heading back east, I spent some time in Theodore Roosevelt National Park, The Superior National Forest in Minnesota, Porcupine Mountains State Park in Michigan and a few other locales in the northwoods. I was incredibly impressed by the BWCAW. I spent some time hiking around the border lakes and was stunned at the charm of the place. It had been quite some time since I actually had time to hike around there without just passing by. Bald eagles were everywhere and the BWCAW gave off a stunning, unique ambience. Clearly, without question the BWCAW is the gem of the northwoods and is the *real deal*, even compared to the western national forests.

I did however, have trouble with the rest of the northwoods. So much has been lost. So much. While it still remains a world class area for bald eagle viewing, I was absolutely stunned at the amount of second homes and cabins. In fact, I wouldn’t be surprised if the name was changed to “The North Cabins”. Almost every lake and every square mile of forest had either high road densities or high cabin densities. Looking at maps and old haunts, development had seeped in. We basically shifted a huge chunk of our Chicago/Milwaukee/Detroit population to this weird craving for second homes on lakes and rivers which eventualy destroyed the very thing we loved about the place. In many areas, a once brilliant night sky is now blocked by light pollution (especially by Citgo stations with apparently have no regard for landscaping or scale back lighting – a big blank slab of concrete does the job).

This may be an unpopular stance, but it’s obvious that overpopulation is the single biggest cause for concern in terms of conservation/environment.

As always, places that had been designated as national forests or national parks had the LEAST development. Because these areas had been removed from corrupt local resource control, they survived largely intact.

And of course, Glacier National Park delivered as always. Fantastic wildlife viewing and unmatched landscape scenery. This was a raven in the Many Glacier area on a cold windy morning. Click the image for the proper view:

I had quite a few revelations about the things plaguing our national forests and parks, and some possible solutions. I will be going over those in the next couple of weeks. Thanks for reading.

-Mike

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This guy was waiting for me to pass so he could finish eating the smashed frog innards on the road. Ah…nature.

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