we are blessed to have grandparents close who were willing to watch the wee ones. the kids stayed 1/2 the time with my dad and 1/2 the time with my mom. lucky are we (thanks mom and dad!!)
so todd and i have always tried to give anniversary gifts based on the traditional gifts for each year just to make it more interesting and more challenging. for the 10th anniversary the gifts were 'aluminum' or 'tin'. in a creative effort to meet this, todd booked out transportation to glacier on the train (which hopeful was made with one or both of those metals). we hopped the train at the town across the river from us in the evening, slumbered in a sleeping car, and the train delivered us to east glacier park the next morning at 9 am ... pretty awesome.
glacier national park is A-MA-ZING (an i don't use capital letters casually). for all you lovers of the wilderness out there glacier has it all. rugged mountains, glaciers, blue blue alpine lakes, beautiful wildflowers, forests, cascading waterfalls, lots of wildlife, ....it is truly a stunning park.
please join me for a visual tour of our trip.
here comes the train....
all aboard!!!.......
packs on and hitting the trail....
.....the first day took us through this tunnel in the mountain...very cool.
epic views....the effort to reward ratio was very high this entire trip....
soaking some tired feet in a cold alpine lake....
.....lakeside camping was blissful
early morning calm, what a reflection!....
lots of great waterfalls...
....happy trails....
...each camp had well established hanging poles to prevent grizzlies from getting at the food (shout out to todd's aunt nancy for making those brilliantly colored stuff sacks)
....i mean wow....
...you can't fake that color blue.
....the 4th day we enjoyed a wonderfully leisurely morning by a lake before hiking on...
....todd crossing one of several very cool bridges...
....at the end of our trip, after six days of backcountry adventures, we treated ourselves to a night at many glacier hotel built in 1914....a very very cool old lodge, and a well deserved sound sleep on a soft mattress!!
...the happy couple enjoying the sun on the deck of the lodge before getting on the train home.
such an unbelievable trip. i gotta say that after all these years there is no one else i'd rather be on a trail with, and i cannot think of a better way to celebrate 10 years of marriage than going back to our backpacking roots!!
