Rainy Day in Glacier National Park, Canada

Cold, rainy day in Glacier on Rock Garden Trail

 

The colder weather started almost as soon as we arrived at Glacier. Our first two days had highs in the low 50's and were mostly dry. But then the rains came and made long hikes a bit more daunting.  We had rain gear but still didn't want to be hiking in cold pouring rain all day for Maya's sake as much as our own. So after an overnight low of 37 and rain still coming down the next morning, we decided a 'camp day' was in order. 

We used the morning to cook warm, comfort food -- steel cut oats for breakfast, tomato soup and grilled cheese sandwiches for lunch and 'Chili Blanco' for dinner.  We stayed cold for most of the morning since we had not used the furnace before and had to figure out how to make it work. After a little grumbling and consulting our owner's manual, David finally got the heat going.

Our Canadian National Park Campground, like the American counterparts, had no power just water and very cold water at that.  So with no electricity for our microwave or convection oven, just two small gas burners on our stove and the gas furnace in the RV for a little heat we prepared our meals. 

Cooking several hot meals on two little gas burners in a tiny kitchen with next to zero counter space was quite challenging.  We were tripping all over each other and there were dirty dishes and food all over our 200 square feet. Until the cold weather, we cooked outdoors quite a bit and had not prepared so much food at one time. Add poor Maya as a speed bump and it was getting ugly.  (Bless her, she was trying to keep out of the way, but it just wasn't working for any of us...)

 

Rock Garden Trail in Glacier

 

Thank goodness about 2 pm the rain let up a little and we decided we could risk a short hike. We drove to the Rock Garden Trail just a few miles away and hiked through a very old rock slide that over time became covered in lichens and moss.  It truly was a ‘rock garden’ as many of the huge boulders were completely covered in moss and had almost bonsai looking trees growing on them and several types of lichens covered other rocks.  It was a bit precarious as the trail over the rocks was wet and slippery, but it was very beautiful to see this special place.  And we had hot white bean and chicken chili waiting for us back at camp.  The day ended much warmer and happier than it started.

 

'Map' Lichen on a rock