Hitting the trails

©2013 Lydia Hinshaw

Who said this was a little-used trail?

Along the South Boundary Trail

 WEST GLACIER, MT -- Here at Glacier National Park, we're at the beginning of back-to-back holiday weekends.  Monday is Canada Day, a big deal here since we are so close to the border, and Thursday is the Fourth of July, which needs no further explanation.
 The motor homes and the travel trailers and the tent-toting motorcycles are rolling in one behind the other to the popular campground that is our home for 10 weeks.
 We've spent the past two days trying to get into hiking mode, avoiding crowds by choosing trails that are described as "little-used" in my hiking book.
 Both trails were somewhat boring, which is why they are also lonely.  On Friday's hike we encountered this mule-deer buck, who kept advancing on me hoping I would move.  I stood still, and he finally took off through the woods.  In addition to the buck, we saw only a handful of people on this trail near the Fish Creek campground.
 Saturday we took the South Boundary Trail, which follows the Park boundary as well as the Middle Fork of the Flathead River.  In three hours, we saw just two other hikers.
 Sunday we will be off to Whitefish and Safeway, stocking up for our four-day work week that begins Monday.