Moose, bears, and wolfs oh my!

After our canoe trips we headed over to the Many Glaciers area to clean up (showers and laundry, yeah!) and relax while the snow melted off our backpacking route.  We had a great day hike in the Red Rock Falls area.  We saw three more moose (total count is now 7 so it is probably time to stop counting) and a couple herds of big horn sheep up on the mountain slopes.  Unfortunately we also suffered our first wild animal attack when Alexis almost lost a finger to a Colombian Ground Squirrel.  Pictured below center is the aggressive beast mere seconds before the attack.  The slight indentation on her finger recovered quicker than I did as I was seized by a fit of laughter that lasted way longer than she appreciated.

Following two restful nights we set out on a three night backpack staring at Chief Mountain and heading towards Elizabeth and Glenn lakes.  We set up camp for two nights at the head of Elizabeth Lake and then spent the evening fishing.  The next day we set out for a day hike up to Helen lake, along the way Alexis spotted our first wolf of the trip.  We were both pretty excited about it even if we did only see the wolf for a couple of seconds before it disappeared into the forest.  Half of the hike to Helen lake was through the snow (of course) but it was well worth it as the view were spectacular.  I tried some fly fishing at Helen lake but only caught a small iceberg.  As a small consolation to Alexis spotting the wolf I spotted a half dozen or so mountain goats. 

We returned to camp and decided to try our hand at living off the land again.  We bush whacked and crossed over beaver dams to the stream flowing into Elizabeth lake in hopes of finding fish, and find them we did.  When we finally found the stream it was loaded with Artic Grayling and I quickly caught 6.  As it was still early when we had left camp we failed to bring a knife so it was back across the flooded willows and beaver dams.  On are second attempt we found a more direct route and managed to catch and clean (Alexis cleaned her first fish!) our dinner.  We fashioned a fish grilling system to cook the fish over the fire that entire camp was jealous of (in Glacier you share camps with several different parties).

The next day we packed over to Glenn Lake; the trail had a rather long stream crossing, which provided for a bit of a bath.  We set up camp and then headed on another 5 miles to Mowhawk (sp?) Lake.  We were pretty tired that night and went to bed early.  Alexis's birthday was the following day and she got just what she wanted, a grizzly bear!  The bear didn't really seem to care much about us but did pose on a log before ducking into the forest.  She topped off her birthday with a carrot cake Cliff bar (I did make her some brownies that night).   We are now headed to Canada to work on our foreign language skills.

                   

PS Our cell phones are turned off until July 25th!