Everyone,

It's time to head out of Kalispell and drive down to Jackson, Wyoming.

Yesterday, I drove into Glacier for the last day of the season for Going-to-the-Sun Road. It was cool, as usual, up at Logan Pass -- but the restrooms were closed which is not usual.

I headed out on the Garden Wall section of the High Line Trail from the trailhead at Logan. It was an interesting combination of wind and sun on the trail . . . I was a little uncertain about it at first, but that just goes to show my inexperience with these things.

About every quarter to half mile, I would go from shade where it was quite cool in my t-shirt and sweatshirt to full sunlight where it was hot. The wind was gusting hard and would try to take off my cap at regular intervals and make me sway on the often narrow ledge of the trail (frequently well under 3' wide). Any sweat soaking through my clothes would cool rapidly during the hardest gusts making me kind of chilled.

The views were great and I have a few pictures of them posted at http://www.dave-tech.com/f/GardenWall. There were plenty of mountain goats and bighorn sheep munching away both below and above me on the trail . . . and one guy (a bighorn) who decided he wasn't sure he should let me pass! I got several pictures of him but none while he was blocking the path directly for about five minutes.

While I was waiting for him to clear the road I began to think about how if I turned around now I would still have a reasonable hike in -- somewhere between 7 and 8 miles -- and I could get back to my hotel in time to clean up, take a quick nap and then head out for a local meal that wasn't fast food.

So that's what I did. I asked the desk clerk to recommend a place for a steak and a glass of wine and she sent me to Jagz on US Route 2 just north of town. It was a nice place with very good food and I enjoyed it thoroughly. If you're ever in Kalispell, I recommended it.

I had been running a calorie debt these last three days but I may have made up for it entirely last night.

I've had a great time in Glacier National Park and it's now time to head south. Because hotel rooms still seem to be a bit hard to come by (which surprises me this late in the season), I decided to book a room for tonight in Jackson, Wyoming, just south of Yellowstone and Grand Teton National Parks.

I'll head out soon and should be there not too long after dark.

Dave