Biblical rain

Wet and wild, but still smiling near Flathead Lake.

Well, I've about had it.

Apparently the Jet Stream is meeting Gulf moisture, and the result is... rain. LOTS of it. At least there are no tornadoes or hail predicted, so must count my blessings.

The forecast

Saturday: Rain showers until midnight. Chance of rain: 100%
Saturday night: Rain after midnight. Chance of rain: 100%
Sunday: Rain showers until midnight. Chance of rain: 100%
Sunday night: Rain after midnight. Chance of rain: 100%
Monday: High temperature: 46°. Rain showers likely. Chance of rain: 90%
Monday night: Rain showers likely. Thunderstorms possible. Chance of rain: 90%

So, yes, rivers are high and fast. I'm glad I don't have to cross any!

Blue-winged teal

Swan Lake

Since I missed the National Wildlife Refuge at Ninepipes (it looked really beautiful, but it was too late in the day), I decided to see if I could see any swans at the refuge at Swan Lake. I'd seen three flying overhead near Kalispell — easy to identify because they have really, really long necks — so thought Swan Lake might be a good possibility.

Unfortunately, it was... pouring.
Continuously.
No letup at all.

I tried to look for some birds, but the conditions weren't great. The windows kept fogging up, the rain was streaking down, and the rain formed a pretty effective blurring effect.

Most birds were sensibly not flying around or even out at all. So I was pretty jazzed to see three male blue-winged teals and one female. They are quite handsome birds — very stylish, even in the muted gray of the rain, and they seemed to be doing some sort of neck flirtation. The male would stretch his neck up, the quickly put it down, to be repeated by the female and the male again in quick succession.

Rain and clouds obscuring the mountains around Swan Lake

The dominant male was also chasing away the other two, so it seemed some ducky-love was going on!

Didn't see any LIVE swans, but neither did I want to venture out to the viewing platform. Turns out that the only swans I did see were the swans on the mailboxes — seems like "swan" is a favorite motif for these vacation homes!

Also abandoned a couple of letterboxing explorations. It was just plain too wet.

Camped at the NFS campground at Swan Lake. Funny thing, I was the only one there, other than the camp host!

This is the TRAIL, not the creek!

Viking Creek

Given the forecast, I didn't have a lot of hope for the next day's explorations, but decided to get out anyway.

There was a six-letterbox series at Viking Creek in Whitefish, and I decided "what the heck." It was early enough in the day that I'd dry out (probably). For those of you who don't know, a "series" is a set of letterbox finds that all have a theme. They are kind of cool, which is why I decided to just go for it.

The nature trails at are... okay (other than being wet). No big views, and no birds to speak of, other than the stamps that were hidden along the trails (although I did surprise three white-tailed deer, who pranced off into the forest). I found five out of the six boxes. One was completely submerged, but it's a testament to the creator that the box was dry inside.

Soaked Pikahiker boots

The place was known as a "wetland" even in drier conditions; in the rain, it was a swamp. The reason for this is actually kind of interesting: there is an underlayment of lacustrine clay about 18" underground. So it's difficult for water to drain since this clay forms something of an impervious layer. Boy, was that evident. The trails were puddles and creeks themselves.

It was no wonder that my Pikahiker boots were soaked at the end of this expedition! Thanks to GoreTex, my feet actually were mostly dry, but it's still squishy and a little cold to walk in them.

I turned the heat up on the car, and drove slowly north, finding another letterbox at the North Forty Resort, a very ritzy place that I'd probably never even consider staying at, but the gals at the front office were clueless but enthusiastic. The stamp was really pretty.

Retreated to the library at Columbia Falls to start this post, but they closed early, so couldn't send it.

It's supposed to get better later this week, but in the meantime I'm doing a lot of reading and sleeping and thinking.

It's actually pretty heavenly, and I wouldn't want to be anywhere else.