Glacier National Park

The Glacier National Park in Montana/USA was the final stop of our tour through the great and famous national parks of North America. As mentioned before, it is the southern continuation of Waterton Lakes National Park in Alberta/Canada. The US part is significantly larger and surrounded by the large Blackfoot Reserve. They specialize in buffalo breeding, so we saw several large herds of these animals even before entering the park.

Inside the park, we drove the famous "Going to the Sun Road", which cuts through the park, passing lakes, glaciers, rivers, and a quite high pass. It is naturally beautiful. The number of glaciers that gave the national park its name has greatly reduced in the last century and they have also become much smaller. It is estimated that all glaciers will have disappeared in no more than 15 years. Compared to the glaciers on the Icefields Parkway in Canada or even more notably to those we saw in South America, these ones are hardly worth mentioning anymore. Unfortunately. But of course, the park is still incredibly beautiful. Relatively early on, Jutta complained that we probably wouldn't see any more bears. And if we did, we would be stuck in an endless line of cars and wouldn't see anything anyway. I just think that sometimes you can be the first in line. And what did we see when we went around the next bend? A young black bear (don't be confused by the fur color - black bears are not necessarily black, they come in all color variations from blonde to brown and of course black) alone in the meadow next to the road. No other cars in sight, just us 😂. So, we could observe it undisturbed and it eventually walked right behind our car and crossed the road. It couldn't have gotten any closer. The bear was alone, at first we thought that its mother and siblings must be somewhere nearby. It still seemed quite small. But it wasn't, so it is probably its first summer without its mom. The line of cars formed behind us after a few minutes, but we were the first ones 😂😂.

Just before the park exit on the other side, there were many cars on the road, indicating that there must be some animal. I suspected another bear or maybe an elk. Jutta wished for a real moose. And her wish came true again. A young bull moose was standing in the water, just as you would imagine. Okay, the antlers could have been a little bigger, but let's not be rude 😂. After the young female moose in Grand Teton National Park, now we had the young bull moose. We had some time to watch and take photos before the ranger came and chased everyone away from the road.