Glacier National Park

We spent a week in West Glacier National Park area.  

We stayed at the same campground with Paul & Lynn, 

friends who we met at the Big Sky Montana AIM event.  

It was a fun week where most days ended with us getting together for dinner & late nights around the campfire with various adult beverages - good times!  

We stayed at West Glacier RV Park, a brand new campground that just opened this summer right outside the West Glacier Entrance.  Very nice level spots with good space between the sites... we were both lucky to have sites on the end of the row which gave us extra large greenspace.  It's unfortunate that they cut down all the trees when building the sites.. so currently there are only baby trees planted that will take years to grow and provide shade, as while it was mostly cool/pleasant, esp in the morning/evenings.. it did heat up some days with the late afternoon sun with no shade.

Driving the "Road to the Sun"

We took our first drive up “road to the sun" with Lynn & Paul. On the way up we stopped by the McDonald Lodge, a National Historic Landmark, with a Swiss chalet hotel architecture.   

The Fireplace is massive, with messages in several Indian languages  inscribed into it, as well as several places in the ground floor of the lodge.  The lanterns hanging in the lobby are replicas made by the Kainai tribe.

John and Paul got to talk to a Glacier tour bus driver

before he loaded up his passengers for a trip on the "Road to the Sun"

I had been warned how narrow the roads were, friends telling me I'd be white knuckling the drive... but it wasn't so bad, I think because while John was doing such a great job of driving the Jeep, the rest of us were chatting and enjoying the views and not paying so much attention to the road or how close the tour buses were passing us in the opposite lane - LOL.  

Paul especially enjoyed being a passenger on this drive 

as he had always been the driver on previous trips. 

Heavens' Peak

We stopped at many places along the way to enjoy 

the views of the Mountains and Glaciers

Triple Arches

Bird Woman Falls/Overlook

We stopped at Lunch Creek for Lunch (LOL) - a beautiful spot!

There are two tunnels on the drive

I love taking pictures as we drive thru the tunnels 

St Mary Lake - with Tiny Wild Goose Island in the middle of the lake

The island looks so small because it is dwarfed by the size of the lake and the mountains surrounding it.

We drove out of the park at the Saint Mary Visitor Center

Then drove to the Many Glacier Entrance and had a drink at the Many Glacier Hotel overlooking Lake  Swiftcurrent.

After this fun-filled scenic drive day, we headed back to our campground around the outside of the park - we drove 200 miles and we still haven't see all of the park!

Unfortunately the Glaciers are 'shrinking/disappearing. there are a lot less glaciers than there used to be and the ones remaining are getting smaller each year... very sad... makes you wonder if they will have to rename the park in the future if there are no more Glaciers...

Hikes: 

Trail of the Cedars

Beautiful short hike mostly on boardwalks thru the Cedars/forest.

Avalanche Lake Trail

McDonald Lake & Falls Trail

We also hiked Oxbow lake trail - this was a trail near the Apgar Visitor center, however it turned into a pig trail with bushes taller than us... and for some reason we didn’t have our backpack with our bear spray... and it was prime time for animals to come out... luckily we saw no bears.. LOL.

We road our bikes from our campground to Apgar village in the park

2nd Road to the Sun Drive:

Our last day there John and I took another ride on the “road to the sun”. It started out as a beautiful sunny day, but as we drove up the mountain we could see the clouds/fog rolling in over the tops of the mountain....

When we reached the top at Logan’s Pass Visitor Center 

it was completely fogged in!

Logan's Pass

 We  turned around at Logan's Pass to head back 

and just a few miles back down, it was clear again

On Sunday we went to Church at St Richards Catholic Church 

in Columbia Falls with Lynn and Paul.

Then we had lunch afterwards then made a Costco/grocery run in Kalispell, which also has just about every store you can think of!  Ending the day around the campfire - a nice Sunday.

Local/area places we visited enjoyed:

• Columbia Falls-behind O’Briens liquor store, Thursday night they have a farmers market w/food trucks, a band, and a local distillers & brewery.   A fun local event from 5pm- twilight
• Kalispell- John & I had made another trip to Kallispell for a movie on a rainy day - Cinemark with reserved seating (yes!) and ate at the The Brass Tap - great food and beer selection 
• Glacier Distillery - you can buy 4 samples of the many bourbons, etc they distill

And finally - to end the post with some beautiful Glacier Sunsets