Greetings from Glacier National Park

Cyclone Lookout

The notorious hike: five miles, steep uphill. To some, that might seem a piece of cake, but for me, it was scary as hell. Mind you, throughout the school year, I was a sedentary vegetable, probably best described as some sort of tuber.

It took 40 minutes of driving just to get to the trailhead. The moment we stepped out of the car, the mosquitos were on us throughout the hike.

The entire hike jam-packed with beauty—cold and fast headwaters, flowers, bears and birds. A view that struck me the most was a stretch of dead trees that had black lichen hanging on them. At the roots of these past wildfires, I could see baby trees resurfacing, in different stages of ecological succession.

As I traveled through Glacier National Park and saw these transitioning forests, it reminded me that while the forests are much larger than myself, and will live for much, much longer, I can still see them changing, and that was incredible.

Sincerely,
Jenny

Glacier National Park

Glacier National Park preserves more than a million acres of forests, alpine meadows and lakes with habitat for a wide variety of plant and animal life.

State(s): Montana

Established: 1910

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