It’s daunting, writing after the fact about a long trip. Maybe next time I should bring my computer and blog in real time. I do take a few notes, so I remember what I can, but it’s hard to come back, have loads of work to catch up on, and also want to blog about my trip. That being said, it’s worth it, and the good news about this fall is that I’m not quite as busy as I have been in the past. (I remind myself this truly is good news, not bad news. I have plenty of work, it’s just not overwhelming me and making it so that I don’t have any time at all.)
Since getting home, I’ve been doing all the pampering things. I got my hair done today, and the other day I got a pedicure. There’s something about camp showering that just doesn’t make you feel as clean, and then, as the trip went on, showering happened less often—sometimes because the showers weren’t available, other times because, well, you get used to being a little dirty! At first we felt like we were too clean—showering every night at Canyon? Staying a cabin and having a shower available? I mean, and seriously, an air mattress topped with a foam pad? Were we even technically roughing it? But after three weeks of travel and living out of a car, I can say, yes, we were.
So we left off at the Roosevelt Arch.
Day 7, continued: We drove towards Bozeman, Montana, where we had located a Walmart to purchase the foam pad, and where we hoped to have lunch. We’d always heard Bozeman was a cute outdoors-y town, and my hiking shoes were made by a company founded there, so we wanted to stop by. We found a great place to eat called “Jam.” (insert this is my jam joke). It was a little bit of a wait, but well worth it! I had a beet and root vegetable hash with toast and homemade strawberry balsamic jam and it was downright delicious.
Super hipster, super delicious. I had an avocado on top even!
After our brunch, we hit the road for Glacier National Park. We had been on the interstate for some of the trip (speed limit 80 in places) but after a bit we were on more back roads, and the whole drive was quite beautiful (spoiler alert, nothing like future drives on the trip, but still beautiful).
We planned to enter the park on the west side, through West Glacier, as we were staying one night near the west side at Lake McDonald. We got to the park just before 6 pm as the visitor’s center was still open for a few minutes. Then we drove towards our lodging, and stopped to take a few pictures along the lake.
I’d booked us one night in Snyder Hall near Lake McDonald Lodge, which was a “dormitory” with a shared bathroom. It ended up being quite nice, as we didn’t even have to go outside to use the bathroom, haha!
We decided to eat dinner at the hotel’s dining room, which was called Russell’s Fireside Dining Room. There was a bit of a wait, but we were able to get drinks and walk around outside while we waited. The sun was starting to go down and it was very lovely to be lounging around in front of a grand hotel in the “parkitecture” (Park Architecture, this is an actual thing) style.
There was a boat dock from which one could buy sightseeing tour tickets or rent various boats.
The Lake McDonald Lodge from the boat dock.
Dinner was very nice, though perhaps not as good as the night before. I had a tofu dish, and we shared a vegan caesar salad. It was a nice salad, but didn’t taste like a caesar salad! The inside of the dining room was of a certain style, lots of wood, animal heads, etc.
This was the lobby, but the style was similar throughout.
After dinner, we walked around a bit as we headed back to our lodging.
We made plans to get up quite early and try to beat the crowds. I didn’t sleep terribly well as our room was near the entrance to the Hall and people kept coming and going all night long and into the morning and each time they did the door slammed shut. Oh well. When we woke up, we decided to make a mad dash for Logan Pass to try to do a hike there. Logan Pass is the Visitor’s Center at the top of the Going to the Sun Road, which is a terrifying and beautiful drive through the heart of Glacier NP. The parking lot notoriously fills up early (they say between 8 and 8:30, but it was earlier the day we got there) and it caused me a lot of stress to think about trying to beat crowds and such. There were other ways to get there involving shuttles, but then you have to wait quite a lot, and as Americans, we love being near our car.
We rushed the drive up to Logan Pass, which meant we didn’t really appreciate the Going to the Sun Road on the West Side of the Park, but we found a spot in the lot! (I nearly had a heart attack when the sign said full, but we got one.) We had arrived around 7:45 am, and by the time we got out of our car around 8 am (we made lunch, had breakfast, etc) there were cars circling the lot.
We did a hike called Hidden Lake Viewpoint, which was about 3 miles round trip. I was feeling quite tired and had some trouble with the hike—the beginning had just tons of wooden stairs and was kind of a pain, but the views were very beautiful. I think that morning I was just feeling run down and groggy and in retrospect I wonder if we should have just rented a canoe and relaxed around the Lake for a bit instead. But nonetheless we had a good time!
It was a bit cooler that morning!
Louie wanted to continue to the lake itself, but I just didn’t have it in me that morning. I don’t know why I was dragging so much, but I was.
We saw a bunch of these squirrels. Wildlife always leads to people chatting, and we have learned over the years to never volunteer information because it’s either wrong or will be rudely corrected even if it’s right. We just smile and nod, and keep things to ourselves.
Then we decided to hike part of the Highline Trail. Some people do the Trail as a one way and take a shuttle back, but we thought we’d go about 2 miles to a certain point and then double back.
Almost right away we saw a few Mountain Goats! They were sitting up high on a cliff over the trail.
The views were amazing, and really expansive, and I started feeling very scared. The trail was narrow, not super narrow, but narrow enough that I started feeling weird, and then we got to a place where you held on with a chain, and it was a little windy, and I started freaking out. I got to the end of that part, and we took a break, and I thought I was okay, and then I just wasn’t. Louie was nice and we turned around and I made it back past the horrible chain part.
After that, before we finished the trail, we sat down on a few rocks to collect ourselves. We were enjoying the “cheeps” of the chipmunks and other small animals, when suddenly there was a loud galloping sound, and the two mountain goats ran past us on the trail. I think I screamed! I also think they were as startled to see us as we were to see them! We didn’t get a picture, but they ran RIGHT past us and then kept going on, probably to get away from us. It was a very neat experience! When we got to the trailhead, only a short distance away, we talked with a couple who saw the whole thing from a distance, and they were saying they tried to get our attention to warn us, ha!
Anyway, after that, we decided to continue down the road, and make stops along the way. We were staying at a KOA Campground in St Mary that night (and for 3 nights total) so we needed to be on the East Side of the Park by evening, so we needed to finish driving the Going to the Sun Road.
We made several more stops along the way. Some stops were too busy to find parking, but we managed to stop at Jackson Glacier to see it, and then parked and hiked to Sunrift Gorge, Sun Point and Bering Falls, a beautiful but easy hike.
We got a lot of compliments on the car, and saw a lot of other Subarus around. What else would one do with a new Subaru other than drive to see a bunch of National Parks??!
Anyway, we finally made it to the end of the road and found our KOA and checked in. I had decided to reserve at the KOA because many of the best campgrounds in the park were first-come, first-serve and we didn’t want that stress. We would likely stay in the park next time, but I wanted a place to do laundry before we left and it was nice to have shower access. We also didn’t have to stress quite as much about bears (we got more comfortable worrying about bears as the trip went on, especially in Canada where we were told the bears don’t break into cars like they do in the States) and we got to have hot water to wash our dishes and our hands! The last reason we stayed at the KOA is because it was actually a little closer to the Many Glacier area of the park where we were going the next day.
The campsite was TINY though, and the firepit oddly located near some bushes. We had a nice amount of privacy however, and it was a nice wooded area, far from RV’s.
We made dinner and relaxed.
Day 9: Grinnell Glacier Hike. We had tickets for a guided ranger hike to Grinnell Glacier from the boat dock at the Many Glacier Hotel. We needed to meet the boat at 8:30 am, but it was about 30 minutes away, or more, so we left around 7 to 7:15 am. I had a little panic attack (Glacier NP was stressing me out a bit more than I expected, due to crowds, internet posts about how busy things were, and I think, general tired-ness from being on the road) about where to go, but we found a ranger station, I asked, and then we doubled back to the hotel where we had originally almost parked, and parked there. It was fine. We got to the hotel before 8, so plenty of time, and then Louie realized he needed something back in the car and he doubled back while I went ahead to find the boat dock and get our tickets. They weren’t even open yet, but after they opened it was easy enough, and then we had some time to chill. (It’s worth noting I also tend to get stressed out in advance of long hikes, and this one I was worried I wouldn’t be able to keep up and/or I’d be too scared of heights to deal with it…so this was all a bit more stressful than I actually wanted to be on vacation, but oh well.)
We boarded the boat with no problem—the hike was with a group, but we had two short boat rides ahead of us first, which would save about 2 miles of hiking each way. The weather was absolutely beautiful.
You can see the Many Glacier Hotel in the background.
Our Ranger was named Dave, and we were going to be hiking up to Grinnell Glacier, about 8 miles round trip. The group was probably about 20 to 25 people. He was very informative and interesting, and talked about geology, wildlife, wildflowers, etc. We stopped every once in awhile to let people catch up and also for him to talk, and I mostly managed to keep up with the group. After a few hours we stopped for lunch, and after that was the steepest part of the hike. There were a few scary parts including a part where you had to sort of walk through or by a waterfall, but I managed and didn’t have any real heights trouble. We saw a few mountain goats from a distance at one point, and bunches of chipmunks and squirrels and such.
Then we made it to the Glacier! The lake in front of it was just so blue. It’s from various minerals that make it that color. The water was very cold as it’s from a melting glacier.
It’s important to note that there were probably hundreds of people around at this point. Or at least many dozens. We chatted with people along the way and met two people, Eric and Carla, (from Minnesota) who were actually staying just a few campsites down from us. We relaxed for a bit at the Glacier, and then headed back down to try to catch our boat back—we were guaranteed a ride at 4:30, and could get a ride later but might have to wait, or walk the 2 miles.
On the way back, we ran into people that had seen a bear—through various telephoto lenses we were able to see a grizzly bear in the distance. Louie took a lot of pictures of it from the distance, but then we needed to keep moving and realized the trail went closer to the bear than we’d like. A bunch of us were hiking closer together and tried to make a lot of noise—I guess we succeeded as we never did see the bear again. In any case, we did eventually make it back to the boat dock around 4 pm and caught a boat shortly after——they ended up doing an extra run because there were more people than usual, I guess.
Another view of the Many Glacier Hotel.
Then we left the Many Glacier area. I didn’t mention earlier but should have: there is about a 15 mile road into the Many Glacier area, and it is terrible! It’s riddled with potholes, and requires careful driving. But along the way back, we saw cars stopped and lo and behold, another bear! This one a black bear.
We got asked to move along though, as in Glacier they don’t like cars stopping to take pictures of bears. It seems that every park deals with wild animals slightly differently, and especially with bears. In Yellowstone you just aren’t supposed to block traffic. In Glacier (and later in Banff) they don’t want cars too close to bears because the bears get too used to cars. It makes sense, but we love looking at them and it seems pretty safe from the car. (Not as much outside the car…and you are supposed to leave 100 yards but who even knows how far that is?)
After we moved along from the first bear…another mile or so down the road we saw ANOTHER black bear. Crazy! I guess they really like the area. The grass was a bit tall to see them too well.
When you leave the official park area, you continue on the Many Glacier road for awhile. There are a lot of large free range cows along the way. I wonder how the bears and the cows interact (I assume they don’t hurt the cows often or that would be an issue?)
Then back to the campsite to shower, have dinner and relax before bedtime.
Day 10: We decided to do something less stressful and head to the Two Medicine Lake area for a hike. It’s an area further south that they say gets less visitors so we thought it might be nice and quiet. We had to go through a construction area with a flagger to get there, so it was sort of annoying, but we enjoyed seeing a bunch of free range cows (you have to be careful as they are even in the road sometime) and the scenery was fantastic the whole way. We got to the Two Medicine area and the parking lot wasn’t even full and it was nearly 10 am!
You can see why the area is less popular, it obviously sucks.
We did a hike to Rockwell Falls which is about 6.6 miles round trip. Louie would (of course) have liked to go further to a lake, but I (again) didn’t have it in me, plus I wanted us to do laundry that night since we were leaving the next night. I was having a lot of trouble in Glacier being tired and a bit stressed out…we had a lot of conversations about vacation, and how relaxing it should be. This day in Two Medicine helped, and even though we didn’t hike as far as Louie wanted, I think it was a nice day.
People can rent boats and such here too. We never did, so maybe if we come back that will be part of the plan. We always end up hiking more and never renting boats!
Along the path we saw a female Moose! She was right on the path in front of Louie, so that was very exciting. I didn’t get a good picture of the moose. There was also a long wobbly bridge with a one person at a time limit. On the way back we ran into another group, and they said “That is the adventure we are looking for”.
If you look carefully you can see Louie on the top of the waterfall. He climbed up a “social trail” further than I dared, and he said there were even more waterfalls further up and back and it just kept going.
After a few hours, we made it back to the boat dock and the parking lot.
We stopped in a very nice gift shop that used to be the dining room for the chalets in the area. Two Medicine Valley was originally more popular and people stayed nearby in East Glacier, but then the Going to the Sun Road was built, and Two Medicine got less popular as everybody wanted to drive that road. I definitely recommend visiting the Two Medicine area as well, and the campground there wasn’t even full when we arrived at 10 am—we could have camped there if we weren’t set up in St Mary! Nonetheless, we had a little ice cream and then headed back, because we needed to do laundry. (I’d learned from past mistakes and really wanted to plan our laundry. This was sooner than half way through but I thought if we did this laundry, we could make it to the end, perhaps with a few hand washed items. It worked out!)
(The view while doing laundry…not too bad!)
We got back, showered, and did laundry, then dinner and hung out by the fire one more night. We made a really big fire to use up our firewood.
Day 11: We packed up our tent, but before we left Glacier, we wanted to do one more hike. We did one right near the East Entrance to the Park called Beaver Ponds. It was supposed to be around 3.5 miles, but we missed the turn and ended up hiking over 5 miles—easy miles due to not much elevation change, but still long! It was a nice hike, not many people around, and we saw a few deer by a pond.
Anyway, the hike was beautiful and a great farewell to Glacier National Park. It was pretty buggy, but we expected that by now. After we hiked we had a lunch in the car (sadly, I believe it was leftover PB sandwiches that we hadn’t eaten before, ha!)
That’s a good time to end this blog post—our next stop would be Waterton Park in Canada, and that’s where I’ll pick up next time!
Oh, Waterton is absolutely great! Good luck on your trip!