DSCN7320

OK–this isn’t Waterton Lakes National Park, it’s Yellowstone–at the Roosevelt Arch in Gardiner, site of the upcoming NPS Centennial celebrations on August 25th.  A town of about 1000 will host another 6000 to hear all our leaders expound upon America’s Best Idea.  Ranger Doug has it on good rumor, that POTUS will be there so Ranger Doug will too!  I’ve tickets (thank you NPF!) and am still looking for a place for my trailer…..

DSCN7366

This is Chief Mountain on the BC side of the border.  Brian, my computer guru and artist extraordinaire, found a half finished version of this view in the LOC archives…..

see-america-montana

Our finished version can be seen here.

DSCN7371

This has to be one of the best campsites on my now 11 month trip.  Right on Upper Waterton Lake.

DSCN7376

I met with the Waterton Lakes Rangers (almost as good as the Jenny Lake Rangers) and there was no parallel project in Canada for WPA posters.  I donated a few Glacier prints to them and the Chief Historian recommended this boat trip up the lake back into Montana.  I made friends with the captain and rode side-saddle just outside the pilothouse window–he was from Alaska.

DSCN7389

The trip up the Lake is beautiful.  For some reason, in times of austerity, the US sees fit to mark our border at great expense for the entire length between British Columbia and New Brunswick/Maine (see previous post).  If you look closely, you can see Canadians sneaking across to steal our jobs….

DSCN7391

Montana again…..

DSCN7406

Leaving Waterton Lakes takes one past many fields of this crop??  I’m told it’s some sort of Chinese herb?  Who knows what this is?

DSCN7408

Ultimately my travels take me back across the Cascades and I pause here, in armchair and binoculars for a full hour, to study this group of spires–which I climbed with Fred Beckey back in the ’60s.  Before this road was pushed through, Fred deduced that these spectacular routes would succumb quickly to other climbers and Fred wanted to be first….and he was.  The left skyline route is now in “Fred Beckey’s 100 Favorite North American Climbs.”