My Race with Time
(Travelogue: Visiting Glacier National Park, Montana, July 4th 2009. Published in 'Darpan' SLC, Utah, Bengali magazine for Chourangee) For those of my readers, sorry about the delay in blogging. Just caught up with life in general!
When I first heard about it, I thought Glacier National Park was somewhere in Alaska or Greenland. The name intrigued me as I thought I had read of glaciers that existed only in cold oceans of the north or south poles. A park that housed Glaciers? I was more than curious but never sat down to Google it up. Life is a race against time and the later wins hands down, always, unless of course you have your own ways of easing out the pain of defeat. I usually find ways of overcoming the results of this fight but of late had turned a blind eye towards the race altogether. Time and I were seemingly running in two different directions. Back of my mind I had a feeling that Time would claim everything good before I could barely sit down.
So for once I did not rush forth to pack for a trip. I let it come to the last day. Very unlike me, but I wanted to needle Time. I did not know if I should over pack with woolens or simply summer fittings. Dumping a few of both for good measure and some food to last the first 8 hours to Montana, I took time to finish off at work before heading home that day. Anu who was at a friend’s house had to be picked up along with Abhijit from the University. Pushing the last few boxes mostly filled with marinated chicken for cooking in the park, into the trunk, I left Inverary Drive that afternoon with a splitting headache. It was close to 90 degrees. Utah was finally beginning to look as if it could sport a summer after all. I reached the University, Abhijit dumped some more ice into the ice chests and took the drive seat, Anu stretched on the back seat completely in the absence of her sister, I popped two extra strength Tylenols and announced that I needed to sleep.
I could hear many phone calls going back and forth between the 3 other families that we were sharing this trip with. We were good 3 hours into Idaho before I could open my eyes. The headache was throbbing its way back into the inner recesses of the brain. Long stretches of land, beautiful rolling hills with some small trees here and there, not a soul in sight and not a car to follow. We drove and drove and drove watching the ads for Idaho potatoes, exits to more park lands, deep blue lakes and light blue skies until the sun started to dip and Anu stirred. For once I was beginning to feel a little relaxed. While Abhijit drove, I unwrapped some parathas (made fondly by a friend’s mom leaving for India the next day) and bhindi sabzi and we all ate a happy cozy meal driving at 80 miles to an hour.
The highway twisted more and more as we drove on. Somewhere in between it poured from the sky. The horizon was so empty that you could literally see up to 50 miles in front and if you happened to look up you could see 50 miles into heaven. It was a gorgeous mix of yellow from the sun and blue from the skies and I was getting a slight hint of winning against my formidable foe.
After several stop and goes at gas stations for filling the car and flushing the kidneys, we managed to catch up with one family. The other 2 families were 3 hours behind us caught by rains and a speeding ticket that thankfully didn’t come. Anu was watching Dhoom 2 at the back totally oblivious to the fact that she was in the US, that nature was beautiful and we wouldn’t be doing this often. Well, I never thought much of nature when I was 8 either. So I stopped bothering asking her to look outside of her window. She did make some comments about the shapes of clouds though. I thought it was more to please me!
I clicked away with my camera as Abhijit wouldn’t give me a share of the drive. I was happy because in any case the whirring of the car made me sleepy. The GPS woman who we forgot about for 300 or more miles in 2 stretches, finally voiced herself out of the blue almost with a jolt and announced that we were supposed to take the exit to South Gate Inn in Missoula in the next 2 miles. This meant we were ~ 120 miles into Montana. We had plans of spending the night there and heading off into the park, another 3 hours drive from the motel, early next morning. The motel room was a good one. Anu jumped around on her side of the queen bed for a while, watched some TV and we all hit the bed. Next morning was bright and shiny. We ate raisin bread, bagels, cereals and fruits and were somewhat late starting off! Again I was a little ahead in the race!
As we assembled together, exchanged GPS instructions, food and drinks, it was getting to be fun. The town was a small one and we hit the road to the park pretty quick. Small houses in the backdrop of huge mountains and single lane driving with an overloaded truck chugging along at 30 miles in front and we weren’t still losing on ‘Time’. Soon we were half way into the 160mile drive to the southern tip of the park. On the way we stopped at a fantastically energetic waterfall that made its way to Flathead Lake. With large boulders strewn along its path, the water made as much noise and froth as the sea. Water bodies in these upper states are always the most blue that you can ever imagine. Like the snaking rivers in Yellow Stone. The water is so clean you can see right up to the bottom. With the sun beating down on us we piled in quite reluctantly to drive the rest of the trip.
The southernmost gate called the Apgar West Glacier Village was crowded with many visitors but there was still plenty of place to park around the majestic Lake McDonald. The blue lake is reportedly 500+ ft deep. It looked placidly at us and the kids howled when they dipped their feet in! It was a beguilingly cold. Waterfronts have always brought the best behavior from life and Lake McDonald was no exception. All you saw in it were colorful sail boats and all you heard was laughter. We cut short our stay there with a quick lunch of an odd combination of noodles, chole and puris as we were supposed to be going in deeper in to the heart of the park to fix dinner at Swift Current Inn.
The road to Swift Current Inn was not falsely called ‘Going To The Sun Road’. My guess is it should be an English translation of a Native American expression that literally meant the same. Going To The Sun Road was a treat to the eyes. The lake cum river followed us all along taking turns to be sometimes on the left and sometimes on the right. 
It was the most verdant stretch with trees in different shades of green. The road snaked along the mountains almost teasing it to throw it off its shoulders. Everyone was awake and taking in the beauty of nature in full galore. We then stopped briefly at Logan Creek (Flat head county 8900ft above sea level). That was where I had the first glimpse of the huge ice covers lying in a distance. I looked up at Abhijit’s face. ‘Is this a glacier?’ I asked. ‘Can there be glaciers on mountains?’ 
Abhijit was curt: ‘Heard of Siachen Glacier? ‘It’s a mountain’, he said. I was little disturbed because I did not find anything spectacular about it.We went around Logan creek, another beautiful and forceful waterfall and took a small hike along the mountain while Abhijit loudly broke into Rabindra Sangeet. I kept glancing at the ice covers a tad bit sad at their lack of impression but we had another few hours of drive to reach the Inn and everyone piled in.
And then as we drove up the mountain flying at almost 9000ft ‘they’ slowly and majestically appeared out of nowhere. First in small chinks through the mountains and then in full galore. Enormous sheets of ice that covered possibly thousands of square feet like white deserts. I gasped with amazement. 
I think for once Time stood standstill letting me win one game after all. These ice sheets stretched and stretched like the arms of a mother wanting to cover its babies forever. It was certainly different from winter snow covered mountains of Utah because it wasn’t snow. It was ice. Where the ice has melted there was water pouring down the valley under them. It was a remarkable site to see these rivers emerge playfully under the large sheets of ice. At some place it was called the Weeping Wall as the melted ice just drenched the mountain walls. These were Alpine Glaciers; highland glaciers that flow slowly down a valley in a mountainous region like a river of ice. The other type are Continental Glaciers that cover even larger areas. Glaciers are stealthily moving masses of ice that move over some land surface (in Latin Glacies means Ice). 
The mountains had changed colors by now—more greyish. You could almost see the dividing line where vegetation parted ways with rocks. There were fewer and fewer trees. It was getting more and more barren as we climbed up. But surprisingly it was still very very scenic and wasn’t the least cold. We stood next to “Unstable Ice Bridges” and took hundreds of shots. I missed my father and the heavenly interpretations that he would have made of these scenes. And of course our family shots were incomplete without Shuma. Somewhere during these camera stops, the white mountain goats came out of nowhere skipping down the rocks as if they were on flat roads. As night fell, it suddenly got a little chilly. The ice sheets lit up the area with a brilliant white light as we drove further north. I was sad leaving the stunning white covers behind.
It was close to 9 in the night when we reached Swift Current Motor Inn. Built In 1933 it is a hiker’s paradise with trail heads for many of Glacier National Parks’ spectacular views. We were booked into 4 cottages there. Cooking inside the cottages was not allowed. Not to waste the chicken that was cooling its wings in the trunk most of us quickly made our way a little into the camping grounds and lit up the propane gas stove. With some primitive tactics also lit up a bon fire and cooked up the most delicious chicken curry with Parampara masala. The big container of steaming hot chicken was carried to the inn and we ate it with fresh rice and big slices of lime. It was possibly the best meal in our lives! As the sun dipped completely, the trees and animals began to talk and someone mentioned bears too. It was quite a wondrous night at the Inn.
Morning was a flurry of activity as most of us wanted to go to Waterton National Park on the other side of the border. Alberta, Canada. It was a 30 min ride to the border. We crossed over with ease with the only thing that bothered the officers was why the kids were distributed in so many cars. Why weren’t they traveling with their parents! Canada, the land of trees. It really looked like it. Driving through was a picture post card drive. With clouds hanging low and blue, lakes and rivers criss-crossing paths, birds chirping and the sun a benevolent guide, I was reminded of Arthur Conan Doyle’s The Lost Island. Waterton Lake was another blue stretch of cold water with large boats tied to the banks. The kids and men went berserk skipping stones on the lake. We took some of the best photographs and had cool sandwiches for lunch squatting on the lake shore watching deers come by. Most idyllic place to live. On our way back we stopped to have tea and jhaal moodhi at a beautiful riverside. As the river gurgled by, the pebbly bed was clean as a baby’s head. A fallen tree stopped the flow a wee bit and everyone climbed on to the trunk to take more photographs when a trio of horses came chugging along right into the water. It was like from a cowboy movie. Just as the mountain goats these were very sure footed too. We had a smooth passover back to the US side by dusk.
That last night we stayed in Lake McDonald Lodge. This was built in 1913-14 and had a bright, wooden interior with heads of deers and stuffed bears adorning the walls. The evening was spent trying to fix a flat tire on a friend’s car but with the holiday weekend all we could get was a donut. Next morning some of us went on motor boats on the lake. Kids had a wonderful time playing on the shore. By evening we started driving towards Missoula reluctantly leaving the ice sheets behind.
On our way we saw some great 4th of July fireworks almost celebrating the wonders of nature. We reached Missoula very late at night with the friend’s donut car in front of us heating up every few miles. Just as I reached for the bed in the motel, tired and sleepy I thought I had beaten Time for 4 days. Quite a win I must say! 
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