Never know what the night will hold

About time summer rolls around West Glacier, today it is sunny and 80 out but at night it drops down to 40. I've started on a portion of my project and discovered that the beetle is in fact here although the forest is so dense that the trees being affected are going to be hard to see from the NASA images I have. I also had found a map that is most likely going to be my main source to get at these sites because its so rugged and there's no trails in the Great Bear leading to them. I would love to get mega indepth with it but as tourists start rolling in my time off the river is growing thin. For the capstone project I feel my information is suffcient enough and if needed I can grow on it as an independant study or something along those lines. As far as the river goes its been great, Mikey P and myself had another full day but this time we put in all the way up at Bear Creek. That made for about a 30-35 mile day which is almost double what we normally do. My first dinner trip didn't end up showing up after they paid and everything so that was a little dissapointing. I was so stoked to do it so our manager let me take the one today that I'm currently waiting for at 2:00. After the river yesterday the our whole "new" gang loaded up my van with 5 kayaks and 8 people and headed for a small creek inside the park called Mcdonald Creek. It's this baby blue, clear as crystal creek that flows out of Lake Mcdonald and eventually into the Middle Fork of the Flathead. The original plan was to float to the bridge which we quickly decided to tack on another 3 miles and head to Blankenship. Lets just say it was the best float I've ever done for reasons that you only had to be there to witness. On top of the already jammed packed day I was driving back to Wild River and sure enough I see this huge mountain lion walking on the road next to my campsite. It was probably 4 feet long and 3 feet tall just hangin out in our campground. I relayed the message to people at work n the campground because its kinda sketchy when we walk everywhere. Tomorrow I'm on the board for a scenic with Norma which should be interesting because there is no whitewater at all on the scenic stretch. After that the whole work crew is lined up for a free zipline tour in Whitefish down the ski-mountain. Oh the benefits of working in West Glacier. I'm headed out to pack and organize food for this dinner trip, nothing like making fresh salmon, steak, and chicken river side for a family of four.