The Book of the National ParksYard, Robert Sterling
History
The Book of the National Parks
Yard, Robert Sterling
National parks and reserves -- United States
It is probable that little remained but the Algonkian shales and
limestones when the Ice Age sent southward the first of its three great
invasions. Doubtless already there were glaciers there of sorts, but the
lowering temperatures which accompanied the ice-sheets developed local
glaciers so great of size that only a few mountain-tops were left
exposed. It was then that these extraordinary cirques were carved. There
were three such periods during the Ice Age, between which and after
which stream erosion resumed its untiring sway. The story of the ice is
written high upon Glacier's walls and far out on the eastern plains.
IV
Into this wonderland the visitor enters by one of two roads. Either he
leaves the railroad at Glacier Park on the east side of the continental
divide or at Belton on the west side. In either event he can cross to
the other side only afoot or on horseback over passes. The usual way in
is through Glacier Park. There is a large hotel at the station from
which automobile-stages run northward to chalets at Two Medicine Lake,
the Cut Bank Valley, and St. Mary Lake, and to the Many Glacier Hotel
and chalets at Lake McDermott. A road also reaches Lake McDermott from
Canada by way of Babb, and Canadian visitors can reach the trails at the
head of Waterton Lake by boat from their own Waterton Lakes Park. Those
entering at Belton, where the park headquarters are located, find
chalets at the railroad-station and an excellent hotel near the head of
Lake McDonald. There is also a comfortable chalet close to the Sperry
Glacier.
To see Glacier as thoroughly as Glacier deserves and to draw freely on
its abundant resources of pleasure and inspiration, one must travel the
trails and pitch his tent where day's end brings him. But that does not
mean that Glacier cannot be seen and enjoyed by those to whom
comfortable hotel accommodations are a necessity, or even by those who
find trail-travelling impossible.
Visitors, therefore, fall into three general classes, all of whom may
study scenery which quite fully covers the range of Glacier's natural
phenomena and peculiar beauty. The largest of these classes consists of
those who can travel, or think they can travel, only in vehicles, and
can find satisfactory accommodations only in good hotels. The
intermediate class includes those who can, at a pinch, ride ten or
twelve miles on comfortably saddled horses which walk the trails at two
or three miles an hour, and who do not object to the somewhat primitive
but thoroughly comfortable overnight accommodations of the chalets.
Finally comes the small class, which constantly will increase, of those
who have the time and inclination to leave the beaten path with tent and
camping outfit for the splendid wilderness and the places of supreme
magnificence which are only for those who seek.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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