The weather has officially gone into the dumper. Yesterday brought rain and a high of about 50. Still, some friends and I crossed the Middle Fork to measure a huge larch I found a couple of years back in Glacier National Park. The tree had a base circumference of 21 feet, 2 inches and four feet up had a base of 17 feet, 1/2 inch. How does it stack up to other big trees in Montana? Read about it in the next issue.

On a side note: The Middle Fork is quite low right now and easy to cross. It's supposed to warm back up later in the week, but until this clears, expect snow in the higher elevations.

Yesterday I taught a group of students about photography techniques in Glacier. They were artists and writers from Canada and the U.S. — winners of a competition whose name escapes me. At any rate, I showed them the good old "red shirt technique." A red shirt, particularly against blue skies, does wonders to brighten up a photo. I had an editor who would drool if I came back with a photo of someone in a red shirt in the mountains. Now I just carry a red shirt with me. It really does work.

Answer to the photo below (not one person even guessed): It's the old Doody Homestead, en route to Harrison Lake.

Can you guess where this is?

In partnership with the Glacier National Park Fund, we're selling off about 35 prints (mostly large ones) from the 100 mile hike at a special event Sept. 2 from 7 to 8 p.m. at the Crush Wine Bar in Whitefish, which is above the Toggery.

ALL Proceeds will go toward the Park's accessible trail project in Many Glacier along Swiftcurrent Lake. The prints from the Leica M9 in particular came out fantastic with amazing detail.

All the prints are reasonably priced and I also made up some whimsical posters of the above image. I put up a short slide show of some of the photos from the 100 mile hike here.

If you can't make it but you'd like to buy a print, e-mail me at editor@glacierparkmagazine.com and we'll get you what you'd like. Most photos from the project can be made into prints as large as 24 by 36 inches.

These flowers blooming in a Glacier Park prairie this week are gorgeous, right? Well, not exactly. They're weeds and they choke out native grasses and other native plants. Weeds (pardon the pun) are a perennial problem in Glacier.

Bighorn sheep clunk heads at Logan Pass. This was a real wilderness experience. There were, oh, 50 people standing near me, watching as well. I joked that the show was $3 for the sheep and the goats around the corner were $2 extra. It got some laughs. Honest.

Glacier nearly set a record for visitation in July. The only busier month was July 1983. Here, folks enjoy the view and pose for photos on the Hidden Lake Trail, which sees thousands of visitors a day in the peak season. Can you blame them? Look at the view... I always remind myself that this is a NATIONAL park, not my own private playground. Fortunately, on most days, I get big chunks of it all to myself.

The Boy Scouts organization turns 100 this year along with Glacier. Scouts from across Montana and western Canada have spent thousands of hours volunteering in Glacier this year. So if you see them working (mostly painting) give them a little encouragement and space (if you're driving a rig). Here, a scout from Columbia Falls paints a log bumper in Apgar Campground.

Grizzly bears continue to move east of Glacier National Park. Before the white man, grizzes were a plains animal. Here's the story, here.

A moose! The entire sequence (and the moose's expression when the bear gets closer yet) is featured in the upcoming issue, which details the 111.5 mile journey in its entirety. The issue is due out in a few weeks (early September). Subscribe now, if you don't already, here.

On the 100 mile hike I photographed this bear swimming in a lake.

It also swam by a creature that made for a very interesting photo.

That creature was

1) a mountain goat
2) a great blue heron
3) a frog
4) a moose.

Vote now!

Also, the next edition will come out in September, a few weeks later than usual. Forgive us for the delay.

When I started out the 100 mile hike about four miles in I set down my gear to take a picture. I had the wrong lens on my M9 for the photo I wanted to take so I set it down on the ground, put on the 21 mm and took the photo. I then packed up my stuff and headed out, leaving the 50 mm summicron — a $900 to $1,200 lens (used) behind. I discovered this later that day, but there was no way to turn around without screwing up the entire trip. So on I went. Well, Saturday I went back to look for the lens and lo and behold, there it was. It had been rained on several times, in fact I found it during a rather violent thunderstorm, but was no worse for the wear, other than the focus ring being slightly stiff. It will probably need a clean, lube and adjust, but that's a small price to pay. The 50 was (and still is) one of the finest lenses in my bag.

And this photo? A moose in Red Eagle Lake at dawn, taken with a 21 mm elmarit asph.