Into the Woods

We leave Lake Louise and travel through Glacier National Park, amazing avalanche         terrain.

Warning signs forbid stops.  We drive on a high speed highway through numerous avalanche shelters.  I get no pictures, so am shaing one from another source.  Avalanche patrols keep the road open year round.  We see a film about it at the visitor center.

Today is mini hikes.  First is Rock Garden.

The understory plants sport dinner plate size leaves.

The mushrooms we see on this trip are so interesting.  We always wonder if they are edible, but no one is up for finding out.

Ben is fairly sure Coral Mushroom is ok.

The huge boulders of Rock Garden create a Japanese Garden effect.

Ben spies a blueberry bush somehow missed by bears.  We strip it clean and find a few tiny raspberries too.

Next is the boardwalk through Hemlock Grove where we see 500 year old Red Cedar and Hemlock trees.

These ancients were missed by the railroad industry that cut or burned most of the old-growth forest in a frenzy of expansionism.

This white goddess of a mushroom emerges from the decaying wood that regenerates the forest.

We eat lunch in this typical shelter equipped with tables and a wood stove. Campgrounds in the Rockies all have them.  Tent campers find refuge in them for cooking and eating their meals.  They are cozy and necessary.

I find a nice mossy rock to perch on.

Our last walk is another board walk through a skunk cabbage wetland.  This caterpillar entertains us as he marches along on his many feet.  The three parks have been wonderful, but marred by loud noise from the busy highway.  We are really shocked by the steady freeway traffic through these remote and imposing mountains.

I include this caribou displayed at the Glacier Park visitor center because we will never see one.  The 2 small herds being closely monitored in Glacier now have 7 members each.  Caribou are seriously endangered and have not been successfully raised in captivity.  Their breeding grounds are threatened by logging and predators.  There are approximately 1500 left in the entire Canadian Rockies.

Back to mushrooms - Hilda and Matthias take an evening walk from our campsite and Matthias finds a patch of champignons and harvests exactly one.  He is certain they are safe but Hilda is not convinced.  I can interest no one in going back to collect them.  Matthias roasts his one small mushroom over his fire and tells us later that it was delicious.