In mid June we went to Glacier National Park to visit our old stomping grounds and visit Diana. She raises alpacas and llamas, and has a fiber processing mill. We walked out into the field where all the female and baby alpacas and llamas hang out. Diana was calling to them to come over and say “hi” and they were all basically ignoring us and pretending something out on the road was much more interesting. Finally a couple young alpacas came to visit, and the dominant female llama.
Diana told me, regarding the llama, “She likes to be scratched here on her neck.” So of course I obliged. Yes, she was a happy llama. That piqued the interest of all the other llamas and alpacas who formed a circle around us. That was a bit intimidating, to be circled by 35 animals who were almost all taller than me. It was very cool to make their acquaintance, and everybody who wanted a pet on the head got one.
Some fiber Diana gave me, Blue-faced Leicester/Silk roving hand dyed. A Blue-faced Leicester is a breed of long wool sheep, and their wool has a luster to it, so it works really wonderfully with silk. She made this roving.
Splitting the roving in half, and then dividing one of the halves into very thin strips, and coiling them into rounds.
This is going to be a fractal spinning project. I’ll spin all the little coiled strips on one bobbin, and then I’ll spin the half of roving which was not split up on another bobbin, and then I’ll ply them together. There will be short strips of color on the one bobbin, and really long strips of color on the other bobbin. Once I have my yarn I’m going to weave a scarf with it.
We only spent a couple of days in the Glacier area, hoping to see a couple of bird species we regularly saw in the park and up the North Fork where we used to live. We were successful 🙂
The start of the trail of the cedars, a low altitude old growth grove of cedar trees. Dan is standing near one of the smaller trees at the entrance.
It's cool and twilight under the trees. Spots of sunlight penetrate the canopy and highlight a fern, here and there.
One of the large cedars immediately adjacent to the boardwalk which winds through the grove.
It’s one of the prettiest places in the park, and always a treat to walk the mile long trail.
Halfway around the trail there is a small bridge which crosses a stream that flows into the larger stream that runs through the grove. This little stream has cut its way down from the mountains, through granite, and made a really beautiful series of waterfalls. Even on a really hot day, standing on the bridge above the falls is so cool and refreshing.
The spray from the falls has made lots of moss and ferns grow on the rocks. It’s a neat spot.
This is the larger creek which flows through the cedar grove. It joins into MacDonald Creek, which flows into Lake MacDonald. We were staying in a cabin next to the lake.
Most of the time going through the grove, all you can see looking up is the branches on the underside of the canopy.
Occasionally you can see the mountains towering above, with seasonal waterfalls from snow melting.
We were there too early for the Going-to-the-sun road to be opened. It was still blocked with many feet of snow from avalanches and snow slides.
MacDonald Creek, which flows into Lake MacDonald. This is a nesting place for Harlequin Ducks. Not right here, but they aren't intimidated by the speed and power of this water.
It's a really gorgeous creek, another favorite place to go when in the park.
A female Harlequin duck, all on her own. There had to be a male around somewhere, but he didn't show up while we were watching his sweetie.
View from the shore in front of the cabins. There were heavy clouds that morning, hiding the tall mountains.
We went up the North Fork, and to Bowman Lake. The road to Bowman Lake made the road to our house seem smooth and well maintained by comparison. We’d forgotten how rough it was. Still worth the trip.
View from the boat launch of a portion of Bowman Lake.
Motors aren’t allowed on the lake, so it’s always quiet until a storm comes up, which can happen at any time and without any warning at all. The lake goes back miles into the mountains.
Heading up to Rosalind's cabin we saw the other species we wanted to find, about where we expected to find it.
There were two male Spruce Grouse in the road, displaying to each other. Both had pretty ratty tail feathers, so no hen would have been impressed, but they were certainly entertaining each other.
All in all, it was a very fun trip and that park will always remain one of our most favorite places to go to.
Hi, Finally got around reading all about your trip. What a beautiful place. Southern people do not know what beauty is until to go to place like these. Beautiful yarn. amazing how you can get wool or hair from a animal and make things but that has been forever done. very interesting. Never got to go there.