Ellen and Sally go birding and hiking. Steve and Harry go fishing and lunching.
Ellen and Sally took off for their morning bird walk at a relatively late hour for them, but then sunrise here is at 5:25 am. We are now in Mountain Time.
Steve's first task of the day was to try and straighten out our new swing-out cargo box and bike rack. It seemed to have developed a list to one side. Not a good look. The plan was to empty the box, loosen all the fittings, then level the box and tighten everything back up. After I'd unloaded the box, Harry came out to help. We found that the hitch receiver was a bit larger than the post that attaches the box, giving it a lot of play. There didn't seem to be a way to get the box and its hinge mechanism to stay level.
Shimming the square post seemed necessary, but what to use for shims? They had to be incompressible, so wood was out. Metal would be best but we had no apparent source of shim material until Harry and I both thought of coins. A quarter and two dimes later, the box was almost dead level and torqued tightly in place. I reloaded it and it seems to be stable. Not bad for 45¢.
After Ellen and Sally returned, Harry and I took off to try our hands at a bit of fishing along the creek that runs out of Lake MacDonald. It was nearby, starting at Apgar Village and running to the North Fork of the Flathead River at the town of West Glacier. The creek runs under a bridge on the road to Fish Creek Campground. (Yes, there is a Fish Creek, but it is closed to fishing.)
We bicycled to the bridge. Harry had one of his fly rods and I had my Tenkara rod. We fished along the shore on both sides of the creek near the bridge, calling it quits about noon. We had no luck and I had even less than Harry, losing my new red-headed leech fly under a rock just as we were getting ready to pack up.
Since Apgar Village was right there and we planned to continue fishing, it was off to the village for lunch at Eddie's Cafe, the only place in town.
After lunch, we tried to find a spot recommended by the guys at Glacier Outfitters, a pool off the creek near the bike path. We found the spot, but it was a steep drop to the pool and not a place to fish without waders. On to plan C, at the start of the creek as it leaves the lake. It was back to the village. There was pretty good access behind the Apgar Lodge but Harry had no luck. I didn't get my rod re-rigged before deciding to head back to camp.
It is a long climb from the creek bridge to the turnoff to Fish Creek Campground, probably a mile. I got ahead of Harry and stopped at the corner of the road to wait. As I was waiting, I could hear a soft grumbling noise. I turned around and the grouse was back. He walked right up to me and didn't seem happy to see me. He circled around me and pecked at my shoes and grabbed the bottom of my jeans. I think that he must have a mate with a nest in the woods just off the road and is defending his territory. I think he was trying to provoke some reaction, either shooing me away, or getting me to challenge and chase him away from the nest. I was doing neither and he seemed a bit frustrated.
It got a little stranger when Harry arrived. Now the grouse had to go back and forth between us. We left and he followed for a bit then went back into the grass.
When we returned, Ellen and Sally had gone off for a hike. I unloaded my gear and tucked it away and was getting ready to ride over to the showers when they returned. They'd taken a short hike on the nearby nature trail.
It was another dinner outside today. It is still summerlike with blue skies. We have planned another walk tomorrow. Once more in search of the elusive American Dipper.
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