Glacier National Park, East Side

Glacier National Park Travel Tips: The East-side

Today we drove over to the East side of Glacier National Park.  It took 2 1/2 - 3 hours.  We went to St. Mary and back.  (another 2 hours).

The wildflowers were abundant in one part of the East Side Glacier Park

We are thinking bear track.  The closest we got to seeing ANY wildlife while we've been here.    I spotted it :-)

Elk?  Moose?  

Xerophyllum tenax has flowers with six sepals and six stamens borne in a terminal raceme. The plant can grow to 15–150 cm in height. It grows in bunches with the leaves wrapped around and extending from a small stem at ground level. The leaves are 30–100 cm long and 2–6 mm wide, dull olive green with toothed edges.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xerophyllum_tenax.  This species has long been used by Native Americans who weave it in baskets. They also braid dried leaves and adorn them on traditional buckskin dresses and jewelry.^[9][6]

This explains why they were among all the dead trees from a wildfire:  Xerophyllum tenax is an important part of the fire ecology of regions where it is native. It has rhizomes which survive fire that clears dead and dying plant matter from the surface of the ground. The plant thrives with periodic burns and is often the first plant to sprout in a scorched area.

Its fibrous leaves, which turn from green to white as they dry, are tough, durable, and easily dyed and manipulated into tight waterproof weaves.^[6]   

Here, we are coming into St Mary.  From Wikipedia:  St. Mary is an unincorporated community on the western border of the Blackfeet Indian Reservation adjacent to Glacier National Park in Glacier County, Montana, United States. The village is the eastern terminus of the Going-to-the-Sun Road which bisects the park east to west, a distance of 53 mi (85 km). Fewer than 50 people reside in the village year-round; however, the population increases tenfold on a busy summer evening. Several lodges, restaurants and cafés, a small grocery store, two gas stations and campgrounds are located in the village. A large housing area for National Park Service personnel is located adjacent to the village, but within the park.