Day 8

Today was about whitewater rafting, so I don't have any pictures to share. We traveled across the park to West Glacier, MT this morning for our rafting trip. We had booked a full day of rafting on the Middle Fork of the Flathead River, with an included lunchtime BBQ on the river.

As it turned out, Josh and I were the only two who had booked the full day rafting trip. There was another family of four from Portland, OR who also booked the full day trip, but they were in fun-yaks (inflatable kayaks), not a raft. The fun-yaks looked like a LOT more fun than our raft!!!

Unfortunately, this wasn't much of a whitewater rafting trip ... it was mostly a float trip. There were only 3 or 4 rapids, and they weren't terribly lengthy or exciting. Nonetheless, we still had a nice day on the river. The water was REALLY cold, and it was a cool, overcast day, so any thoughts of swimming in the river were out of the question.

The highlight of the trip came while we were floating down the river, and we saw a small black bear who had just come out of the woods and was walking towards the river. The bear actually went into the river and was just kind of hanging out watching the rafts float by ... he was probably about 10-15 yards away from us!!! As soon as the last raft went by, the bear swam across the river behind us. It was pretty cool to see how the bear waited for the rafts to go by  before he crossed.

The other highlight was the lunch! We stopped along the river, and our guide (Kevin) set up for lunch, while we collected some firewood. I have to admit, that as we were collecting the wood, the thought crossed my mind that "our" bear could be close by! Then Kevin cooked up some meatball kabobs, grilled chicken and steak, with a quinoa salad and rustic potato salad as side dishes. Dessert was double chocolate brownies with a cappuccino cream sauce. It was all really good. Apparently, a local woman caters the meals for this rafting company, and I must say, she does a very nice job!

After the trip, we made our way back across the park to our campground, where we cooked up some of the frozen meat we brought out, so that it would last longer, and we broke down part of our camp (our screen room). We're not leaving until Saturday morning, but we're supposed to get some heavy rain tomorrow, so I figured it would be easier to pack some of the stuff up while it was dry, and it just makes less work to do tomorrow night and/or Saturday morning.

We're not sure what we're going to do tomorrow, it's really going to depend on the weather. If it's not too bad, we're planning to hike the "Highline Trail", an 11 plus mile one way hike. The good news, is that when you get to the end, you can take a shuttle bus back to your car!

Anyway, that's it for tonight, we'll be back tomorrow night.