Ray flew in to Colorado Springs from southern California on Wednesday, September 12th. We left first thing in the morning the following day to complete the 9 hour drive to Jackson before the show started that evening.
As I had never before traveled with Ray, it was “interesting” to discover that Ray enjoys singing — out loud — while on long drives to help pass the time. Good thing too, as I feared he may be tormented into diving from the car doing 80mph down the interstate by my singing. When two individuals are confined to a small space for such a lengthy time, it can be difficult to keep conversation interesting. Ray and I didn’t have this problem. Conversation is always interesting when the majority of it is spent attempting to “one-up” the other with personal insults. Good times.
The show in Jackson was stellar as usual. And, since the show is held during the Jackson Hole Fall Arts Festival, it was a prime opportunity to visit the local galleries and be humbled by the plethora of extraordinary work from many of the finest artists in western and wildlife art. Our mornings and evening over that weekend were spent painting and photographing, while during the days, we toured the galleries and ate lots of food.
From Jackson to Glacier is roughly a 12 hour drive. We may have added a bit to that time by going through Yellowstone, but doing so is always worth it.
We arrived in Glacier with just enough daylight left to take a short hike at Logan Pass... surprise! Mountain goats! Mountain goats and the landscape were the two main reasons I wanted to visit Glacier, and in less than an hour of actually being in the park, we came across a few mountain goats. Yes, it was a good start.
For those of you reading this who’ve never been to Glacier, I feel it’s important to point out that the park is very remote. Its extreme northern location means that the season there is short, and we arrived just before they began closing down the park. The first to shut down was the “Going-to-the-Sun” road, which is the road we took to hike Logan Pass. So, once we left that evening, we didn’t have access to that part of the park (with a vehicle) for the rest of our stay, which was a full week. Also, the park is very isolated and somewhat primitive. The Many Glacier Hotel (where we stayed) doesn’t have television in the rooms, they charge for waste water disposal, and seems very much as it might have when it was first built in 1915. The reality of this is that it truly adds to the charm of the park and forces the individual to appreciate where they are. No cell phones, internet or television to distract one from being awestruck by one of the greatest of America’s national parks. The location of the hotel is a subject of its own. I’m not sure there is a more beautiful spot in Glacier and our room had a door that opened right out onto the rocky beach of Swiftcurrent Lake. One morning, I peeked out the window to discover a moose standing in the lake. Yup, it was nice.
During our stay in Glacier, we did a lot of hiking. In fact, if you decide to take a trip to Glacier, plan on hiking. It’s really the best way to see the park. It can also be the scariest. There are bear everywhere. Ray and I saw bear nearly every day we were there — though we were fortunate enough to never come across any while on a trail. Mountain goats are also easy to spot when hiking in glacier, we saw dozens of them.
With the incredible scenery, and all of the abundant wildlife, you’d think it would be impossible to be frustrated as an artist while there, but both Ray and I were feeling that way after a few days. The weather had thrown a proverbial monkey wrench into our plans, keeping us from painting or hiking for a number of days. Ray was looking forward to photographing bighorn sheep and we'd only managed to spot a few from the hotel that were several hundred feet up a rather steep mountain side. The combination of the weather, and the fact that many of the animals we saw were to far away to photograph, was beginning to wear on our morale. Then came a glorious Thursday.
The weather broke that day, so Ray and I first went out and painted near the hotel. Once finished, we cleaned up, ate breakfast, and decided to hike a trail (from the hotel) we'd heard bighorn sheep had been seen earlier in the week. It wasn’t long and we found some. A small herd of rams. Here’s the great part; I’ve seen a lot of rams since I began spending time in the field 7 years ago but I had never had the privilege of observing a ram of the size we found in Glacier. He was a monster.
Ray and I spent several hours watching and photographing those bighorn that day. Ray had finally gotten what he’d hoped for (great reference photos of bighorn sheep), and I got to enjoy them in a setting of unparalleled beauty. We both photographed until we’d filled our flash cards. As a side note, on the hike back to the hotel, we literally stumbled onto a cow moose and her calf. They were both as surprised as us, and luckily for us, decided to run rather than trample.
The next day the weather again turned difficult so we decided to head back to Colorado. In leaving Glacier early, we freed up some time to make a stop in Rocky Mountain National Park. The elk rut was in full swing, Ray had never been there, and there was a plein air show going on in Estes Park which sits on the border of Rocky Mountain NP. We arrived in the morning and went out to photograph elk. The weather wasn’t the best there either and so we didn’t hike, photograph or paint as much as I would have liked to, but it was still fun to stop there so Ray could see the park before leaving Colorado.
We had a great time and got some amazing reference material — which inspired many of the new paintings on this site.
I hope you enjoyed this trip journal entry.
Dustin