This One's For Al...

[marzrw]

Hey Al, made it to the bar in Whitefish...Thanks for the tip...It was a sweet place to have a brew...Didn't fish at all in Glacier NP, but hiked quite a bit...

[AlSara]

AWESOME! Glad you had a good time. I actually have some Montana family here at the house right now. Took cousin (9th grader) to the swimming holes off 73 (about 3.5 miles from exit 30). Some cliff jumping and swimming under waterfalls...

I'll be taking him and his mother to the ADKs for some fly fishing later next week when I finish my guiding obligations.

I miss the PBR and Fat Tire drafts served in mason jars and ping pong at the Great Northern...

Notice the "Good Flies" sign?

That is a memorial for this guy:

http://www.goodflies.com

Mark taught me to tie...and to be a material snob...

Where did you hike?

Did you stop in at Lakestream Fly Shop?

And:

Did you fish at all?

[marzrw]

The Fat Tire drafts were awesome as well as all of the other western microbrews...

That is one awesome tribute. He looks like a really great guy. I love all of the pics, but that fat cutt really haunts me...

The Good Flies sign did intrigue me and was why I photographed it.

[marzrw]

I did not fish at all in Glacier with everything my wife wanted to show my sons that we saw last year and hiking and poor stream conditions due to the volume of snow that hit the west this year. The people at Blue Ribbon Flies in West Yellowstone, MT are ecstatic about it though as they will have great fishing all season even thru August as opposed to last year when inside Yellowstone NP they were requiring fishermen not to fish from like 10am until 6pm. All streams were high and a bit off color. I managed a few small rainbows on the Firehole River. My wife landed one and my son lost a couple, maybe due to the barbless regs. I was happy he hooked a cutt on the extremely blownout Yellowstone where I caught a few cutts last year, but he lost him before landing him also.

I scoured your buddy Russ' fishing book for all of the hikes my wife had planned, but unfortunatley never wet a line. She was very bummed out that the Going-to-the sun road was once again closed this year, even less open than last year until the last day they opened the west road up to the Weeping Wall which is as far as we could go last year. They never made an announcement, we were just driving and it was open that morning at 10:30am. So No Hidden Lake as you had suggested. Another diappointment as my wife really wanted to do that and the HighLine Trail also. And we weren't on the west side but a few hours, so no Avalanche Lake this year like last year.

You asked about the hikes. We stayed on the east side of Glacier for 6 days and hiked:

1)Got there in the afternoon and did St Mary's Falls, Virginia Falls: No didn't try fishing the St Mary's River, very high
2) Blocked off at Jackson Glacier turnout, so we hiked up the road for at least 3 miles and in the distance could see the visitor center at Logan Pass covered in snow and the big plows and snowblowers clearing snow. On the way back a few goats came down the hillside to walk with us which was pretty cool.
3)Next day drove upto the Canada side and did sight seeing and hiked some small hikes like Cameron Lake and Red Rock Canyon.
4)We did Iceberg Lake again. That is one of the nicest hikes I have ever done, twice now. Beautiful scenery. The lake is still frozen solid when last year it was open.
5)Next hiked up along Swift Current Lake to Lake Josephine to Grinnell Lake. No didn't fish. I liked the looks of the stream between Josephine and Swift Current and Russ in his book mentions there are a few nice pools and he was right. Wished I had more time.
6)Next we hit the Two Medicine area and hiked upto Upper Two Medicine Lake. Beautiful. No one was catching fish that I saw on either lake.
7)The last day we drove over to the west side. McDonald Creek was roaring. We kept driving up the road expecting to hit a barrier, but there was none until just above the weeping wall, a somewhat pleasant surprise. So with a late start and not as much water as we normally carry, we hit a bit of the Granite Chalet hike a really awesome hike that we did last year also.
8) We didn't hit Whitefish until past 6pm the day before we were leaving, so no, I never made it to Lakestream, another disappointment. We had a great Mexican meal at Pescado Blanco (Whitefish in Spanish) and of course the brews at The Great Northern Bar were very tasty. Thanks again. That really capped the trip off even though I did not fish much at all, it felt nice, just right.

The west is a very special place where I wish I could spend a lot more time. I already miss it one week later.


1)Upper McDonald Creek from the Weeping Wall

2)Granite Park Chalet Trail

Thanks again Al. wish I had a fishing tale or two for you.