Day 12
Fire at Glacier National Park
Camping by Kootenay River at the Dunn Creek Campground, Jennings, Montana, USA
Seeley Lake to Dunn Creek Campground
Summary
Instagram excerpt - See here
Journal
The bears didn’t come at night. I wasn’t sure how many there were or how often they would come. It worried me. I continued up the highway to Kalispell to get to Glacier National Park. It was uneventful so I spend time looking for beavers in nearby streams. I tried to spot their dams but I couldn’t distinguish them from naturally fallen trees.
I pulled into a hardware store to replace the padlock I lost for my top case. I decided to grab some rope for the inevitable bear. The rope came in lengths that had to be cut so I asked an older man who worked there for help. “How much do you need?”, he asked. “Ah, I don’t know, I need maybe 4-5 meters. I don’t know what that is in feet. It’s for hanging food in trees away from bears”, I got my phone out to do the calculation. “12 feet ought to do it. Not many people think about that, you must be one of the only ones”, he seemed impressed. I just saw it on the information boards.
My Uncle passed away before my trip. I didn’t buy comprehensive travel insurance that covered returns for funerals. Everyone was in good health I figured. A gas bottle randomly exploded and killed him. He rode motorbikes and everyone told me he would’ve rathered you go on the trip. The funeral must’ve been this day because I stopped at a craft store and got a special marker. It cost my 5 bucks and I only used it once. I wrote on the side of the top case.
“For Shane 1967 - 2018”, he would’ve loved the ride.
I got to Glacier and rode up to the ranger booth. “The parks closed due to wildfires”, the ranger explained “Oh really?!” “You wouldn’t see anything anyway if you went up there” “What do you mean?” “The smoke” I turned around. It was a shame. I didn’t know what I was missing. I would come across a few people who mentioned Glacier National Park as a place to go.
I found an amazing place called ‘Dunn Creek Campground’ on the Kootenay River. It was similar to the Richland campground. Wide open grassed areas with picnic tables. It was run free for the community by a local company. The difference with Richland was it had a gorgeous river next to it. The person camping nearby was fishing in it. It was lovely and it had reception!
