Hi all! Here is my blog post about Glacier National Park. Just a heads-up that it, too, is a somewhat longer post because of all the photos included. And, here’s a friendly reminder that you can click on the photos and, in most cases, be able to see a larger version of the photo.
Karen and I left Idaho and pretty much headed straight north through Montana for a couple of days until we got to our RV park in Coram MT, which sits about 10 minutes south of the west entrance to Glacier National Park. Glacier is in the northwest corner of the state and extends right up to the Canadian border. The drive through Montana reminded us of the drive through western Texas because on either side of the road you would see fields and pastures that seemed to stretch for many miles, often without seeing a home/ranch until you had driven quite a distance. The one main difference is that you can tell that this part of Montana isn’t lacking for water – we saw lots of green grass and other crops, while western Texas was mostly desert.
The main thing you need to know about Glacier National Park is that not only is much of the landscape topography due to the movement of glaciers through the area many thousands of years ago, but there are still many glaciers still in existence in the park…though they are all getting smaller. I have to admit that when I hear the word glacier, I have this cartoon-like image in my head of a huge mountainous iceberg, so I was half-expecting to drive through the park and see icebergs all around. So, I’ll also have to admit to a little disappointment when the glaciers were pointed out to me…and they appeared to be areas of packed snow/ice high up in the mountains in the park – it just wasn’t quite as magnificent as I was hoping. However, I need to insert a caveat here – Karen and I didn’t really get close enough to one to properly appreciate it. We took a hike on our last day that got us closer, but we didn’t start the hike early enough to go all the way to the glacier, so we’ll just have to work on that on our next visit.
The one thing about glaciers that did excite us was that we knew that the lakes and rivers being fed by glacier melt were likely to be both very clear and to have very turquoise-colored water – something you just don’t get to see with more typical mountain lakes and rivers. So, a recurring theme throughout our exploration of the park was to seek out these beautiful bodies of water. Many of the highlights of the park are fairly easy to explore from one 50-mile road that cuts across the park from the west entrance in West Glacier to the east entrance at St. Mary. The road is named “Going-to-the-Sun Road”. This road was an amazing engineering feat and is considered a National Historic Landmark. It was opened in the early 1930’s. At either the west or east starting point, you’re at lower, flatter elevation, but as you make your way along the road toward the middle, it starts to ascend mountain sides, with the road becoming both narrow and steep, with sheer drop-offs just off the road’s outer shoulder. Only vehicles under 21 feet in length are permitted on the road, so we won’t be driving our RV on it! Just about half-way along the 50-mile road, you reach the top elevation at Logan Pass. Karen and I took the road once from west to east and then once from east to west. More about all of that later.
Since we knew that we had 5 days to explore the park, Karen and I decided to take our time about it. The first day we meandered several miles along the road (from west to east), checking out McDonald Creek, the various falls along the creek, Lake McDonald, and the McDonald Lodge. We chose to turn around and head back before we started the climb up the mountains toward Logan Pass – we’d wait to do that until another day. McDonald Creek did not disappoint us – it was extremely clear and it offered various areas where we could see the turquoise color typical of glacial water.
After taking a day to do errands (including going to Starbucks and Costco in Kalispell MT!), we decided it was time to make the entire 50-mile west-to-east trip on Going-to-the-Sun Road. We had our usual debate as to whether we would take the dogs or not, remembering that when we do take them, it pretty much means we won’t be doing any hikes – it’ll be a day of mostly touring by car. One of the reasons to take them was that we had heard that we should expect the 50-mile road to take us close to 2.5 hours to complete one way. When you multiply that by two and add additional time for some exploring, eating, etc., we knew that it would mean leaving the dogs for quite a while. Our decision was to take them and we’d use it to “preview” where we’d want to hike or spend more time without them the next day.
Based on things I had heard and read, I was a little nervous about making the drive up the mountain sides, but it soon became clear that there really wasn’t anything to be nervous about. Unlike when we drove the dirt road down the side of the sheer walls of the mesa at Canyonlands National Park, the road in Glacier was paved, had a short wall along the shoulder of the cliff side of the roadway, and was definitely wide enough for cars going in both directions. With the drive being easier than expected, it allowed us to enjoy the scenic views of the mountains, glaciers, glacier-cut valleys, waterfalls, and creeks along the way. When we finished the 50-mile drive east, we still had a several hours of daylight remaining, so we exited the park at St. Mary and then drove a little north to Babb MT, which has a road that connects to another entrance on the east side called the Many Glacier Entrance. We decided to drive into the park again through this entrance because it would take us toward a trail we were planning to hike the next day…so we just thought we’d check it out. We concluded our trek into the park at Many Glacier Hotel, which sits at one the eastern end of Swiftcurrent Lake. We didn’t go into the hotel, but the parking area near it was a great place to tailgate, eat the sandwiches Karen had packed, walk the dogs, and admire the view of the hotel and the lake.
When we were driving out of the park, it was getting near dusk and we had been told that this eastern area of the park is usually good for spotting wildlife, so were watching very carefully…but didn’t see anything. We figured that we would just have to content ourselves with trying again the next day. Anyway, as we were making the long drive back toward our RV by way of the southern perimeter of Glacier, we just happened to look up at the side of a hill we were driving by and saw three bright white-colored animals. It took a few seconds to realize that they were a mountain goat family. We stopped the car and got out to go watch them. As we watched them, it became clear that the father was assessing whether they could continue down the hill that went under the roadway — we were standing on an overpass. They were hesitant, so we tried to stay fairly still and quiet. Apparently, we didn’t present too much of a threat because they eventually worked their way down the hill and passed under the roadway. We were so thrilled to have finally seen some wildlife relatively close up and for a significant amount of time!
The next day, which turned out to be our last day of exploring the park, Karen and I took a slightly faster route back to the Many Glacier entrance to the park because we knew we’d need as much time for our hike as possible. That being said, it still took almost 2 hours to get to that entrance…woof. Well, we were rewarded for making the drive when we did. As we were driving toward Many Glacier Hotel, we saw several cars and some people outside of cars looking up at the hillside next to the road. Karen could see that there was a black bear meandering on the hillside not far from the road, so she hopped out of our car with the camera. There was a park ranger nearby who was trying to keep people at a safe distance from the bear. At one point, as the bear started coming down the hill closer to the road, the ranger quickly directed everyone to head back to their cars, including Karen…but not before she got some decent photos.
Based on the recommendation of a park ranger, we decided to hike a trail to the overlook of Grinnell Lake because it’s a turquoise-colored glacier lake, it’s a relatively short (and not steep) hike, and it would give us a decent view of Grinnell Glacier. The hike starts out as a lengthy walk through a forest along the shore of Lake Josephine and then it comes to a fork where you can go left toward the overlook of Grinnell Lake or you can go right, which takes you toward Grinnell Glacier — a longer and steeper hike. We were about to go toward Grinnell Lake, when we ended up talking to another hiker who was coming down from the trail that leads to the glacier. She convinced us that we should take that trail because it would give us a better view of both the lake and of the glacier…and we wouldn’t need to take it the whole way to the glacier. While she may have been correct about the trail, Karen and I found out, once again, that hikes that consistently gain in elevation may have more spectacular views, but it comes at the cost of us struggling with the climb and it takes us quite a while to cover much distance along the trail. As we ran into more hikers coming down from the glacier, it became clear that they thought it was really worth it to make the hike all the way to the glacier, but most of them had started early in the morning…and here we were not starting until almost 2:00 pm!! That confirmed to us what we already knew — that we would just go as far as needed to get a decent view of the lake and the glacier…and then turn around to head back. Maybe next time we visit the park, we’ll make a plan to start early in the morning and hike all the way to the glacier. I’ve included some photos from our hike, but one problem we had was that our hike was taking us west as the sun was moving lower in the sky, so photos of the lake and the glacier were being taken into the sun, which is never great. In addition, the glacier was completely shaded by the mountain, so the combo of the sun coming at the camera while taking a photo of a glacier in the shade, just doesn’t work well.
As we were hiking back toward our car, I was getting a little sad that it was likely our last hike in a national park out west for quite a while, since we were getting ready to start our eastward trek back toward MD shortly. Perhaps the universe didn’t want us to be too sad because as we were walking along the lake and forest back near the beginning of the trail, a couple of hikers just ahead of us gave us a hand signal to stop walking and look at the shore of the lake just in front of all of us. In the water, a few feet from the shore, was a big bull moose with huge antlers, drinking water from the lake and eating leaves from brush near the shore. We carefully moved closer to get photos and videos. The moose knew we were there – he would occasionally turn his head to look directly at us – but he seemed okay about it. Throughout our RV journey to various parks, I kept reading that we are supposed to give moose wide berth – that they can become extremely aggressive if they feel like you’re getting too close. Given that, each time the moose looked our way and started to make even the slightest move in our direction, we made sure to slowly back off. We probably spent close to a half hour watching the moose and taking photos/videos. We felt like this had been the perfect way to close our visit to Glacier. As we went through the last part of the forest at the end of our hike, we were so giddy about the bull moose sighting that we almost walked right up to a female moose that we hadn’t immediately noticed. She was more difficult to take photos/videos of because of all the trees and brush, but we got to watch her for a while too. We then had to very slowly tip-toe past her so that we could get to the end of our hike without triggering her defensive behavior.
Throughout our RV journey we’ve seen lots of spectacular scenery, including here in Glacier National Park. However, when the landscape is more lush (forests, grasslands, and lakes) and the wildlife is more plentiful and visible, that’s a serious plus to Karen, so she would likely say that the Yellowstone, Grand Teton, and Glacier national parks probably rank among her favorites. I find it really hard to rank the parks, especially when they are so different – the parks of southern Utah have such spectacular rock structures, canyons, and mesas, while the parks of Wyoming and Montana have amazing thermal features, beautiful glacial lakes/rivers, and wildlife I’ve never seen close up before. All I know is that I want to come back and see them again. Maybe not next year – there are so many more places to go to that we haven’t seen yet – but sometime in the not too distant future.
This might be my last blog entry for a while. Karen and I will be moving quickly through Montana and North Dakota so that we can get to Minneapolis to hang out for a few weeks with our dear friends Stu & Gayle. After that, we’ll make our way back to Maryland, where we plan to stay in an Airbnb for the months of November and December. We feel blessed that we’ve been able to take this journey over the past many months… but we’re also excited to come back “home” and be able to see family and friends!
