In July of 2020 my husband and I were fortunate enough to be able to go to Glacier National Park in Montana while on our way across country from California to Minnesota. While at Glacier National park, we were able to hike and take in a lot of the scenery. My husband has since told me that for several reasons it is perhaps his favorite National Park that we have visited, including abundance of wildlife and the breath taking landscape.
One of the reasons we chose to make the detour to Glacier, was that we heard it was one of the best places to see Mountain Goats and perhaps Bighorn Sheep. At the park entrance we were told that the Logan Pass Visitor Center and the trail to Hidden Lake behind it was the best place for a moderate hike and to see Wildlife. This stop did not disappoint. Our Mountain Goat and Hidden Lake Trail experience will be the subject of another post, but suffice it to say the experience was amazing.
Prior to hitting the trail, we spotted bighorn sheep and mountain goats on the opposite side of the pass from the visitor center, on the opposite side of the road, and high up a cliff face. The bighorn sheep and mountain goats were little more than specs in my husbands binoculars and in my camera. We decided to go ahead down the trail and hoped that we would have better luck in the near future.
After the hike we decided to go down the road to another trail, the trail to Virginia Falls, another wonderful, moderate hike. We finally returned to Logan Pass Visitor Center later in the day around 5-6 pm and ...... nothing. As it was getting late, we knew that we needed to return to the hotel and get of the tight windy roads before the sun went down. My husband decided he would take a short walk back up the Hidden Lake Trail to see if the bighorn sheep had moved an maybe were grazing up there. Just as he said what he was planning to do, he tapped my shoulder and exclaimed in a low but obviously excited voice that there were now bighorn sheep (Rams) in the visitor center car park. As I got my camera ready he kept counting the number of rams, pretty soon he counted over 20 individuals.
We and a number of others at the visitor center tried to both get into the best position to photograph the rams while not scaring them off. As my husband and I maneuvered around the parked vehicles, we were surprised by three rams walking between the vehicles towards us.
As a note, I watch a lot of nature shows on National Geographic and similar channels. On those shows I have seen where, when rams or even deer lower their head's towards you, you are too close and that the animal might charge you. At least that is what the professionals on the shows have said.
So as I raised my camera to snap a photo of the rams walking around the vehicles, I was about 5 feet away at this point, one of the rams lowered its head toward me. I promptly lowered my camera, moved in a lateral direction out of the rams way, and I rammed right into the back of a Jeep Wrangler. I did not drop and break my camera though so everything was good, just my pride was a little hurt.
Thankfully that was my only "close call." As the rams kept moving in and around the parking lot, I kept snapping pictures. As luck would have it there was a small hillock with vegetation that the rams were grazing on. As the rams silhouetted themselves against the blue sky and the dramatic mountainous landscape I was able to take a few shots similar to the one seen at the beginning of this post.
Amongst the many other wildlife species that we had seen that day in Glacier, this was the icing on the cake, and we did not have to go far into the wilds to see them. It has been our experience that more often then not we find more wildlife species along established, well trodden paths and roads, then we do in the deep bush.
Wow! Logan Pass in Glacier National Park, what a great time.
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