Rajah the Doodle!

We are dog-sitting for a friend -- we have a very sweet Golden Doodle named Rajah (which means "king" in Hindi) staying with us for 2 weeks.  I have the day off today, so we decided to go for a hike.  It was a good day!  First of all, Rajah loves the car.  I love watching Rajah in the car:

We hiked up to one of our favorite spots: the overlook at the end of Meyer's Gulch.

Of course, one of the reasons to pick this trail is the aspen viewing…..

On the way home, Rajah was too tired to stick his head out the window.  But Tom kept the windows open, which kept plenty of breeze in the car.  This view cracked me up!

squash pie

Last week I was in the grocery store, and they had a huge bin filled with Colorado grown squash.  So I bought a butternut squash, and two Red Kuri squash.
Now, if truth be told, I was thinking about recipes that I'd seen that had called for Kabocha squash -- but since I've never seen this variety, I had no idea what I was looking for….
So when I came home and discovered that Red Kuri squash wasn't what I thought it was -- I went to the internet to find recipes.
Well, it turns out that (happily enough) Red Kuri squash and Kabocha squash are similar: sweet (when roasted) & creamy/easily pureed.  So what to do with the squash?  After making a couple of dinners out of one squash, with the remaining squash I made pie.

I was intrigued by this recipe because it uses very little added sugar.  For those of you who know me well, you know that while I am not carb averse, I try to avoid added sugars/concentrated sweets.  I will tell you: this squash was so sweet on its own, I'd recommend trying only 1/3 cup of sugar rather than 1/2 cup.  It was delicious!!!

Here's the recipe -- it was EASY.  (Bonus)

For the "crust":
1 1/4 cup roasted peanuts (I used pecans)
3 TBSP sugar
1 1/2 TBSP egg whites
After roasting and then cooling the nuts, process with the sugar (in the Cuisinart) until you have a fine mixture (like a coarse flour).  Add the egg whites, pulse until it comes together.  Press into a buttered pie plate, and bake the crust for 8-10 minutes; allow to cool completely before filling.

For the pie:
2 cups Kuri Squash (roasted, skinned and pureed)
1 cup of cream
2 eggs
1/2 cup sugar (here's where I'm going to try 1/3 cup)
1 tsp vanilla
1 tsp cinnamon
1/4-1/2 tsp ground ginger (I used 1/2 tsp; we like ginger!)
1/2 tsp salt
(I would also recommend to add some nutmeg or allspice… or whatever you want)
Process all ingredients together (I just dumped my roasted squash into the Cuisinart, so I didn't have to do any work to puree it, then added the remaining ingredients one at a time).  Pour into the crust, and bake @325' for 50-60 min -- until "just about set" in the middle.  Cool for 6 hours or more (overnight is fine).

The whole pie, if you use the entire 1/2 cup of sugar, has 160g of carbs (so only 14.5g per slice, if you cut it into 12 slices) -- of which, only 100g is added sugars.  So if I try it again with 1/3 cup of sugar, each slice would only have 5.5g of added sugar.  Not bad.

GNP -- the home of the vault toilet

Another one for Lanie:

I must say, Glacier National Park has an amazing array of vault toilets.  Now, this may not seem like something to brag about, but after hiking 5 or more miles into a backcountry lake, I find it impressive that nearly every destination has a BIFFY (bathroom in forest for you).  I sure appreciated them!

Finally, here was the view from the Many Glacier hotel, where we had our drinks & sausages.  Not bad, eh?  (After all, we are nearly in Canada!)

The day just stayed perfect

We were so lucky -- the skies just stayed blue. 

We took a slightly different route home, around lake Josephine.  Tom went searching for fish; we were perplexed that there were none -- but it was still beautiful.....

Here is the boat dock at Swiftcurrent Lake, which will take you to the Many Glacier hotel.  We didn't take the boat, but we went to the hotel on our way out, and had a drink and a nice sausage sampler platter. 

Awesome wildlife

One of the best things about today was the animals we saw:

A mama and her baby goat

A small herd of (I believe) adult mountain sheep

And, of course, lots of "tiny bears."  We also saw a black bear on our way out of the park today, but my photos pretty much show a black spec on the mountain....

Grinnell Glacier or bust!

I admit -- the glacier itself is a little anti-climactic.  This is because it has mostly melted.  But it was a great hike on a perfect day....

"On a scale of 1 to 10, today was a 14." Mark Rosenblum

Well, we waited and waited for the weather to improve.... And we were rewarded.  There are so many superlatives that I could use to describe today that I don't think I should even try!  We saved our best for last: our 11.5 mile hike to the Grinnell Glacier. 

First of all, the weather was fantastic.  Very blue skies, with highs around 60, I'd guess.  

Last views of St. Mary's

Here was a shot from the Logan Pass parking lot:

And one from a pull-out on the Going to the Sun Road:

Trail wildlife

Today, we saw a Hoary Marmot.  I thought marmots only hung out at elevations higher than 10,000 feet.  But now I'm guessing they live anywhere higher than tree line. 

And, for yesterday –– I forgot this one:

I think they are juvenile sheep.

Hidden Lake

Today we decided to return to the St. Mary/Going to the Sun area of Glacier.  There wasn't a lot of sun, but we soldiered on!  We drove up to Logan Pass -- which is amusing in and of itself, as it is the major Continental Divide pass here -- at 6,600 feet.  We hiked 3 miles to Hidden Lake, which was beautiful. 

We had been quite optimistic about the fishing, but no bites....

This photo makes it look like we were hiking in the snow -- but we weren't.....

They're watching us!

Who is "they?"  In this case, Verizon. 

When we got close to the border this morning, my cell phone started going nuts with text messages. 

Day in Waterton

Today's forecast for the Many Glacier area was 50 degrees and raining half the day.  We decided it was NOT the best day to attempt the Grinnell Glacier!  The forecast in Waterton, however, was for cloudy but no real rain.... So off we went. 

Since we've been hiking fairly long distances, we had no desire to bite off anything substantial.  We chose a 4-mile round trip to a nice waterfall.  Then, we went to the Prince of Wales Hotel for afternoon tea.  Overpriced?  Terribly!!  A nice way to spend a dreary afternoon?  Absolutely!!!

Here is the hotel from the outside:

Cool Canadian road signs

No, this isn't a hunting/shooting icon; it's a point of interest/scenic point:

A cloudy but lovely day

Today was a day of relative rest & recovery -- which means we meandered for ~8 miles through the Swiftcurrent Valley.  We had nearly all overcast skies -- so not much to share for photos.  However, this amused me (especially in America, seems perhaps they should be a bit more precise):

The cool sightings of the day were a mama brown bear & her cub (from the car; no photo) and tons of mountain goats.  The goats hang out really, really high on the cliffs.  Can you see one here???  (I know, it's just a white spec -- but in real life when the spec of snow moves, you know it's a goat!!!!)

The view from Paul Ranch

Tom and I are staying at a place called Paul Ranch -- 4 miles north of Babb, MT (better known as the town at the Many Glacier entrance to the park).  My only expectation was that this should be "luxury camping," since we are renting a trailer on a cow ranch....  Well, this place has far exceeded my expectations!  

First of all, everything works -– including the heat.  ☺️ Seriously, though -- it's got a shower with hot water, a washer & dryer, and a full kitchen (including a coffee maker). 

Last night after dinner, our host (Mike) brought us some fresh rhubarb cake. We had one piece while watching the sunset, and the second on our hike today.  Tonight, Mike brought us some dirty rice.  It's WAY better than the pizza we bought in town....

Wind, wind & more wind!

We were grateful we were already on our way down when the wind really picked up.....

We tried to stop for a timer-shot -- and the gusts were so strong, we gave up after only one attempt.  We were guessing the gusts were 40-50 mph. 

Up to Scenic Point: elevation 7,522 ft -– well above tree line

DTom and I are not used to tree line being so low!  We enjoyed the hike a lot -– and were glad we braved the wind to make it to the top. 

There was even a snow patch across one traverse:

And lots of cool lichen

Last day in the Two Medicine area

We had a truly spectacular day today.  First of all, when we woke up it was 100% cloudy.  But during the drive to our trailhead, the clouds broke up -- and the lingering cloud rings around the mountains were quite a site. 

We started up the Mt. Henry trailhead towards Scenic Point with barely a cloud left.  Since this was a steeper climb (2,200 ft of elevation gain in 3.5 miles) we were glad it was cooler than the previous two days. 

Tom's happy place

Today we curtailed our walking activities -- we took a very pleasant 5 mile hike to Avalanche Lake. 

It was gorgeous -- perfect weather, not a cloud in the sky, and crystal clear water. 

There were lots and lots of babies in the water!

Going to the sun road

We drove the entire 50 miles of the Going to the Sun Road today.  We are lucky, because 10 days ago, portions were still closed (because of fires). But about a week ago, they had 2 feet of snow -- so the fires are out, the skies are clear, and the roads are open. 

One of the most amazing stops was the Jackson Glacier Overlook.  Among other things, we learned that in the entire park, there are only 25 glaciers left (compared to the 150 glaciers that were here in 1850).  All of the glaciers are predicted to be completely gone by the year 2030.  What will they call the park after 2030?

Tiny bears everywhere

Yes, we saw a bear today!!  No, didn't get a photo. It was a small black bear, on the side of the road. Tom refused to hold up traffic while I fuddled around getting the camera turned on, etc.  So I spent the rest of the day glued to the camera -- but no more bears....

Tom and I decided that if you want to see a photo of the wildlife we see most, here it is:

We've taken to calling them "tiny bears."  That way, it's exciting every time you see one!

Having amazing weather in Glacier National Park

Tom and I have gotten pretty lucky so far -- our travel yesterday was easy (on time, and uncomplicated except for the speeding ticket that Tom got - thank goodness in MT that'll only cost us $40). 

Today we set out on a 12-mile walk. It was gorgeous!  The hiking choices are interesting here -- there is very little elevation gain (I called today's adventure a walk because we "climbed" all of 350 ft.), but most every trail is 12-16 miles round trip if you want to make it to a lake destination. 

Our final destination today was here: Upper Two Medicine Lake.  The water was so beautiful.... Too bad the fishing was not. :-)

We saw what we thought was a bear-paw print in the mud, but no bears today....

This shot is for Lanie!

And here was on our way down around Two Medicine Lake -

It's that time of year…

Today was a very busy day… it's harvest time.

Today, Tom picked tomatoes & pulled carrots -- and added those to his garlic & onions (and corn from our local farm stand) to make vegetable soup for the winter.  He also pulled beets.  Gorgeous, gigantic, golden beets.  What to do with the beets?  Make Golden Beet Risotto with Sautéed Beet Greens!  It was delicious.

RMNP - Lake Haiyaha

 For a couple of years now, we've been saying that we need to hike up to Lake Haiyaha with Mark & Joanna.  Well, we finally did!  The hike is not far -- a very pleasant ~6 mile round trip.  And, of course -- it is a good fishing destination.