Crown of the Continent

"Give at least a month to this high-priced preserve. Time will not be taken from the sum of your life. Instead of shortening, it will indefinitely lengthen it and make you truly immortal"
-John Muir, Our National Parks
  
The mountains of Waterton-Glacier International Peace Park look like an imposing, blue-grey wall from the eastern plains. But, after you pass monolithic Chief Mountain, summit of dreams and visions, the multifaceted gems of this great wilderness come into full view.
 
Above the timberline, light dances across glaciers and Snowfields that nourish the park with melt water. The song of this wild water is a pure song. Listen for it at Cameron Falls, Morning Eagle Falls and Siyeh Creek. At Triple Divide Peak, the song flows down into the veins of the earth to the Pacific Ocean, Gulf of Mexico, and Hudson Bay.
 
The green blanket draped colse to the rock below the timberline is woven with Engelmann spruce, Douglas fir, western larch, subalpine fir, and lodgepole pine. Designated as a Biosphere keep by the United Nations, the Peace Park supports over 1000 species of plants. Yellow and pink heather can be found at Logan Pass. The kinnikinnick's sharp red berries compleMent aspen near Swiftcurrent Lake. A sea of flowers-alpine laurel, buttercups, blue columbine-rolls in great swells down the high meadows. The soul of these mountains rides the wind: a warm caress, a howl of ice, a never-ending breath across cirque lakes and ridges.
 
Iceberg and Ptarmigan Lakes, Baring Falls and Sunrift Gorge, Two medicine Pass, Rising Wolf Mountain.Walk moderately here, brother to the grizzly bear and eagle, for the trails straight through this fragile ecosystem are trails straight through consciousness-the gem that catches the cascading light in the town of this crown of shining mountains.

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