The second phase of this year’s vacation involved two days in Glacier National Park. Like many of the places we visit on these multi-state vacations, we could easily have spent a week here if we wanted to see all the sites and take all the hikes.
We had to travel through most of Montana to get to the park from North Dakota. We had accomplished most of the drive the day before, but we still had a couple of hours of travel the first morning to get to the park. The picture (above) is just one of hundreds of long expanses of grassland we passed through. It’s hard to capture in a photo just how far you could see into the distance.
Almost immediately upon entering the National Park we came across a sign for a one-mile hike to Apikuni Falls. A mile? How hard could that be? Well, it was real mountain goat country, but it was quite impressive once we got there. This picture (above) is just the base of the falls.
This picture is a wide shot that shows the full extent of the falls.
This is what we passed through to get to the falls. All of these trees were over 40 feet tall.
This is the Glacier Park Lodge where we stayed. After our first hike, we continued to the lodge and checked in. When the hotel was rebuilt in the 1930’s it was styled on Bavarian or Swiss architecture, because they were billing the area as “America’s Alps.”
We then took at four-mile hike to Redrock Falls. It was a pleasant, mostly-level hike. These falls (only partially shown here) might be my favorite of the many we saw on this trip. The water churned in and around large rock formations, and you could get close enough to touch the water — which was quite cold! You can see from this picture why the are called “red rock.”
This picture is out of order. It shows a view of Glacier from the Many Glacier entrance road. This is how we were greeted upon entering the park. The views were amazing.
One of the appealing things to me about staying in the old, majestic hotels inside the national parks is that they do not have televisions. People gather in these common areas. This picture (above) is the lobby of our hotel. There was always a fire in the fireplace in the center of the room. The weather was in the 50’s and 60’s most of the time, but the fire was nice. In the evenings people gathered here, on the expansive back porch, or other common areas to chat, have a snack, and enjoy the views. There was an enclosed “breezeway” that connected this main building from another building of hotel rooms. The staff had partially-assembled jigsaw puzzles on many of the tables in these common areas for people to work. There was a cupboard full of board games for people to use.
As is our tradition, we brought our dominoes with us. We found an unclaimed table in the breezeway and played dominoes until the sun nearly set (probably 2200 hrs) while snacking on huckleberry licorice and sunflower seeds.
The next day we left Many Glacier and re-entered the park at East Glacier. Driving up the “Going to the Sun” road to Logan pass, we stopped to take a hike that should have taken us to three waterfalls: Barring, St. Mary, and Virginia; however, the path from Barring to St. Mary and subsequently Virginia, was closed. Bears were on the trail feating on an animal carcass, so the park service closed the trail. We did get to see Barring Falls, however.
The views on the Going to the Sun Road were as impressive as those from the Many Glacier area.
We ran into some politicians along the way.
Another view on the Going to the Sun road was Wild Goose Island. There can’t be five trees on this small island in the middle of water, but the brochure said that this is one of the most photographed spots in the park.
Logan Pass was still closed to vehicle traffic, but it was open to hikers and bikers. They are still clearing snow and ensuring that there won’t be any late Spring rock slides.
We did hike a little beyond where the road was closed. Since we couldn’t continue on Going to the Sun Road to West Glacier, we had to leave the park and drive two hours around the southern end to re-enter and see the other side of the pass and the areas around Lake McDonald.
While West Glacier was much more “woodsy” and much less mountainous, we took a hike from the northern end of Lake McDonald toward the Sacred Dancing Cascade. Along the way, we stopped to cool our feet in the numbingly cold water.
As is our tradition, we generally avoid chain hotels and opt instead for mom and pop places. Here is our cabin in Lone Wolf Resort about ten miles outside of Glacier National Park. The cabin had electricity but not much else. We used shower and bathrooms in the nearby comfort station. Amusingly, you needed to put $0.50 into a coin box to get 10 minutes of water in the showers. The women’s showers worked fine, but when I put my two quarters into the box, my shower didn’t turn on. As I had no more quarters, Tom and I split 10 minutes.
The kids enjoyed the upper bunk, particularly finding novel ways to get into it without using the provided ladder.
Off to Washington State via an 1880’s gold mine in northern Idaho tomorrow.