06-28 First Day into Glacier National Park - Day 29

Unfortunately the 5o mile Going to the Sun Road, the across mountain route, is closed after only 14 miles due to snow and an avalanche. Today we heard the road is now open for 28 miles so I may be able to get higher up than yesterday.
I was able to get a few photos of Lake McDonald and then we took a back country gravel road to Bowman Lake on the western side of the park. The park itself is heavily wooded, at least in the lower elevations. Along with fir and spruce, lodgepole and Ponderosa pine, cedar and larches grow here. In many ways it reminded me of the temperate rainforests of the Olympic Peninsular but I saw neither mosses nor one of the species indicative of that forest type, the Sitka Spruce. The photo of the small shrub is wild currant. Just outside the big black bus are growing several high bush blueberries… I think. Not being too familiar with western vegetation, they may well be what the locals call huckleberries. Not the blue huckleberries of the Smokies but a red variety.

The drive to Bowman Lake was beautiful with the tall peaks of Glacier to our east. Much of this route has been burned recently and the new trees are coming back amid grasses and other deer browse. A small doe was seen drinking from a small run. At Bowman Lake several back packers were getting their gear together and two fellows were kayaking against a wonderful mountain backdrop.