Glacier National Park

June 22- 26-We have just spent three glorious days in Glacier National Park. It truly has some of the most stunningly beautiful scenery that we have ever seen.  It’s not called the Crown of the Continent without reason.  We camped for four nights at the Apcar campground by Lake MacDonald.  We had forfeited our reserved campsite at Fish Creek and were able to get a site at this walk-in campground.  We had great neighbors from Helena, MT that had met years ago while working at Glacier.  They had great advice and suggestions.

 

We lost an hour coming from Idaho and since the days stay lighter longer up here, we morphed into a 10:00 p.m. bedtime.  That meant I was able to slip away in the mornings while everyone slept and practiced along the lake.  Very nice.

Our first day, it was overcast but not rainy.  We hiked to Avalanche Lake and enjoyed a picnic  lunch while counting 11 waterfalls falling into the lake.  It was a nice two mile hike in and Stefan was my companion today.  We enjoyed talking about quick sand on the way up and on the way out, we were excited planning his lego birthday party.  It was a special lunch today.  Janae and Mark sat on a log bench while Stefan and I sat on one further from the water.  When I sat down to join him, he said, “I love you mama.” 

After our hike, we drove up to Logan Pass on the Going to the Sun Highway.  I had wanted to go on the nature trail hike at the visitor center to see the goats.  However, we never did see the sun.  It was so thick with fog, we could barely find our way from the parking lot to the entrance of the visitor center.  We were able to see the huge mounds of snow and enjoy the waterfalls that went under the highway though.

Our second day we woke up to beautiful sunshine and warm temperatures.  We ventured again over the Going to the Sun Highway.  Again, it was foggy over the pass and it was overcast when we got to the east side.  We decided to go ahead with our plans to take the 2:00 boat ride at Many Glacier Lodge.  It proved to be a good call because as soon as we arrived at Many Glacier, the clouds parted and it was the most beautiful day.  Our boat captain said it was the best they had had in three weeks.

Many Glacier Lodge-An ew ah moment when saw this after parking our car down the hill from this.

 

At the end of our day, on the deck at the lodge

 

We were blown away by the scenery surrounding the lodge and we all loved riding the older boat across the Swift Current Lake.  After a brief hike over to Josephine Lake, we rode another vintage boat to the Grinnel Lake trailhead.  In spite of hiking with so many people, it was really beautiful and loved seeing the water at the base of such spectacular rock formations with glaciers.  Stefan especially enjoyed skipping rocks while waiting for our boat pick-up.

We learned that to be labeled a glacier, the ice/snow must measure at least 100 feet deep and 30 feet across.  One of the glaciers we saw today was over 300 feet deep.  There are only 23 glaciers left in the park and scientists are predicting that by 2030, there won’t be any left.  The global warming is only 1 degree warmer but over time, this can make a difference.  We also learned that the reason that the water is green is because of the glaciers.  The glaciers pulverize the rocks to such a fine powder that when they enter the water, the light in fracture makes it look green.  Neither the rocks or water are green.  Glacier Park is labeled the Crown of the Continent.   Spanning the continental divide, the water is divided three ways:  to the Pacific, to the gulf, to the Hudson Bay in Canada.

On the ride back to the boat dock, the boat was leaning heavily to the left as people were straining with binoculars to see a blond grizzly bear.  After enjoying a hot dog and the gorgeous views from the deck of the lodge, we pulled ourselves away for the drive home.  We stopped to do a short hike at St. Mary’s Falls as we had gotten a tip that there might be a lot of wildlife in here.  We didn’t see any wildlife and since I thought it would be dark going over the pass, I used up all my film on the instamatic camera I had bought. (My battery had run out on my camera).

What we were to experience next was nothing short of magical.  As we started the descent from the top of Logan Pass, it was 8:30 at night and the sun was shining gloriously.  The lighting was breath taking on how it reflected off the mountains, snow and waterfalls along the road.  We even saw a lone goat in the road and then a few miles down the rode, we saw a herd of mountain sheep frolicking and stopping traffic.  We were so overjoyed by the views that we all said a  verbal prayer of thanksgiving.  Stefan spotted a wonderful overlook point, where Mark played his trumpet.  I was anxious to keep seeing the views and Stefan said, do we have to leave?

 I kept having huge regrets for not having a camera but we stopped at an overlook point and asked this man there if he could send us a couple of his shots.  Turns out he’s from Woodland Park, Co and is a professional landscape photographer.  The pinks and oranges in the sunset were magnificent.  We joked on the way home how I was mortifying with all the questions and chatter I gave the poor guy.  We enjoyed seeing a black bear at dark on the side of the road.

We were supposed to leave the morning of the third day for Yellowstone but it was such a pretty day, I didn’t want to leave.  We opted to stay one more day.  Mark wanted to get in some fishing but after driving to Polebridge and then a half hour on a dirt, bumpy road to Bowman Lake, it was not a good place for fishing.  He would have had to hike another 6 miles round trip to get into a good fishing lake.  We did enjoy seeing the more remote side of the park, the beautiful lake and stopping in Polebridge to eat at the historic restaurant and bakery: great elk and prime rib sandwiches and everything from the bakery was awesome.  The elk head hanging in the bakery was shot by our campground neighbor when he was 15 when his parents owned the business.

 

Much to the dismay of Janae and Stefan, the third time can be a charm as we decided to Go Up The Sun Road again.  I wanted to try and recapture if possible some of the incredible shots I had missed.  It was amazing that as we hiked in the snow at the top of the pass, it was sunny on the east side and looking like it was getting dark on the west side.  But again, at 8:30 p.m., the sun broke loose and illuminated the whole west side as we drove down.  We saw sheep again and though the colors weren’t as magnificent, we got some great pictures.  Hard to believe that there was full sun at 9:00 p.m..

Hard to believe it's 8:30 at night.

Now we know how they named it Going To The Sun Roak

Pretty surreal driving in this

9:00 p.m.

We all enjoyed Glacier immensely!  Next time we hope to hike the headline trail and nature center trail at Logan Pass.  Also, would like to hike hidden meadow by Polebridge.  There was supposed to be some great wildflowers in there.  We woke up today to a thunderstorm and rain so it’s time to move on.  It would be fun to rent horses by Many Glacier too. Yellowstone and Tetons, our next and final stop.