And Another Picture Heavy Post

Heaven's Peak (from our campsite)

The boys in a hollow tree

Forbidding mountain

Another view of Heaven's Peak

Three Rogues

Butter won't melt

He made it up there on his own

A view from the middle

Lakes

because, frankly, the Rockies are full of them. They are absolutely, positively beautiful, too.  (See last year's Rocky Mountain National Park for the 2009 pictures.

St. John Lake

Avalanche Lake, from the foot

Avalanche Lake, from the head

Hidden Lake, from the overlook (and Bearhat Mountain)

Another view of Hidden Lake from the overlook

Hidden Lake, from the descent

Hidden Lake from the descent, again.

The sparkling waters of Hidden Lake, from the shore

Bearhat and Hidden Lake, from the shore

The other mountains (can't remember the name)

Wiz, contemplating Hidden Lake.

One of the things we seem to do is we choose hikes that go see water.  This is true even here where water is not a common thing.  We had a wonderful time.

Lake McDonald, where we canoed and swam.  

Falling Water

Sacred Dancing Cascade

Avalanche Creek

Glacier-fed waterfall into Avalanche Lake

St. Mary Falls

St. Mary Falls, again

Upper St. Mary Falls

Virginia Falls

We also saw

while walking through the woods, a deer, who found the trail the easiest way to get where it was going.

There were a lot of marmots.  This one apparently was utterly exhausted, and found a nice warm boulder a good place to snooze.

This one posed.  Apparently the camera loves him, and he knew it.

We also saw, for the first time ever, big horn sheep.  They were not as close to us, but we did get pretty decent views.  The mountain goats were pretty fearless, but the sheep were more wary.  

 We did not see bears (which we never do--even when they are supposedly around where we are) but we did see long-tailed weasels, which are harder to find.  The weasels were juveniles, and were having fun playing near where we were.  The ground squirrels were not as amused as we were.