We probably should have started to get more concerned as we passed avalanche after avalanche across the trail. But we didn’t. We were having a fantastic hike without a care in the world. Plus, we knew that the three women hikers were ahead of us and one of them was carrying a huge backpack, so what did we have to worry about.

The first three photos are all avalanches that we crossed on our hike. All three had come across the trail. You can see the dirt and rocks on the snow and ground and also the trees that were knocked over by the avalanches. We noticed them but didn’t feel nervous about them. Of course, when we were driving on the Sun Highway in Glacier National Park, I had seen signs along the highway. The signs said “Avalanche area, don’t stop your car”. I interpreted that to mean that while the highway was in an avalanche prone area, if we didn’t stop the car, but drove straight through, the odds were very slight of getting swept away by an avalanche. Remembering that, you might go back to the first three photos and notice that in each instance, I walked past the avalanche area, then stopped to take these photos of my fellow hikers – standing IN the avalanche areas.

The last photo was another clue that we just stood and enjoyed and marveled at. It was quite a few tons of ice hanging on the side of a cliff, just above the trail. We stood and admired it far too long, but the rest of that story will come later – on the way back down the mountain.