Making the transition from traveling alone with traveling with family is a delight. Our son, John, invited us to join his wife, Emily, and his daughters, Luciya and Mirabel, on a camping trip to Glacier National Park in Montana.
Ophelia had never been to Glacier. I had been once, on a road trip with my parents when I was 14. So we were both excited to go. We drove north out of Boise through the mountains of northwestern Idaho, past the Salmon River, then headed east from Grangeville to Missoula.
The drive takes about seven hours through beautiful countryside, especially the last stretch where Highway 12 winds along the Lochsa River. Here's a post about an earlier trip we took along the same route.
John and his family left a day ahead of us, pulling their trailer. We joined them in Grangeville and caravanned the rest of the way to MIssoula.
Ophelia's sister, Jovita, lives in Missoula, and we enjoyed a quick overnight visit before the three-and-a-half hour drive around Flathead Lake to Glacier. Another beautiful drive through some of my favorite parts of Montana. Here's another post with pictures from our trip to the same area in 2011.
We arrived at the West Glacier KOA mid-afternoon. It's located just a few miles from the park entrance in a tree-filled valley surrounded by mountains. John had reserved a campsite on the very edge of the property, almost in the trees. It was a perfect spot, quiet and about as private as a space in a mass campground can be. I haven't stayed in a KOA for many years, and I was impressed by how clean and modern everything was.
Once we got the tent set up and John finished hooking up the trailer, we all put on our swimsuits and headed to the pool. The day was hot, so the cold water of the pool felt great.
The day was hot, but the night was cool. Too cold, in fact. Toward morning, we were shivering in our tent. We were very glad to see the sun rise.
We had heard that the drive up the park's famous Going-To-The-Sun Road gets very crowded, so we started out early, managing to squeeze all six of us in John's truck.
Construction on the Going-To-The-Sun Road was started in 1921 and the highway was finally finished in1932. It was a state-of-the-art highway engineering at the time, and is still an amazing drive, winding up the sheer slope to the continental divide from West Glacier Valley, As you start going up, stunning vistas of the park begin to unfold.
Looking back toward West Glacier from Logan Pass. The mountains loom huge and magnificent on all sides, almost bare of snow this late in the season. Winter comes early and leaves late here--the road is only open from early June to mid-October, and sometimes heavy snow keeps it closed into July.
Wikipedia says: "The road is one of the most difficult roads in North America to snowplow in the spring. Up to 80 feet (24 m) of snow can lie on top of Logan Pass, and more just east of the pass where the deepest snowfield has long been referred to as the Big Drift. The road takes about ten weeks to plow, even with equipment that can move 4000 tons of snow in an hour. The snowplow crew can clear as little as 500 feet (150 m) of the road per day. On the east side of the continental divide, there are few guardrails due to heavy snows and the resultant late winter avalanches that have repeatedly destroyed every protective barrier ever constructed."
The wildflowers were still in full bloom as we approached the high pass.
Crystal-clear creeks rush through verdant mountain meadows.
We saw several mountain goats grazing in the lush grass. The animals were hunted to near-extinction in the early 20th century. Saving them was one of the main reasons for the park's establishment in 1910. The mountain goat is now the official symbol of Glacier Park.
Crossing the continental divide at Logan Pass at 6,646 feet.
The scenery of the east side of the park is just as spectacular as that of the west.
We stopped and took a brief hike along Siyeh Creek.
St. Mary's Lake with tiny Wild Goose Island.
We stopped at the east entrance to the park to decide where to go next. On the map we saw a place called Many Glacier which was reputed to be the heart of the park. It was about an hour's drive north.
Between Glacier Park's founding in 1910 and 1913, the Great Northern Railway built several chalets and hotels in the park in order to attract tourists and boost traffic on Great Northern's routes. Glacier was touted as "America's Switzerland," and so the chalets were modeled on Swiss architecture.
Many Glacier Lodge, built during that period, has been recently renovated. We had lunch at the chalet restaurant. The food was excellent with several innovative items on the menu as well as craft cocktails. This unexpected pleasure was enhanced by the stunning views from the dining room.
The restaurant was crowded, so while we waited for a table, we took a stroll along the shore of Swiftcurrent Lake. Unfortunately, the many glaciers that gave this area its name are rapidly disappearing. When the park opened, there were 150 glaciers here. Now there are 25, and those are predicted to be completely melted in about 15 years. So plan your trip soon.
We had hoped to do some hiking, but by the time we drove to Many Glacier and back, the day was almost over. We got back to our campsite just in time to break out the cocktail shaker and make margaritas. John has a pizza oven that fits over his camp stove, so we rolled out the dough and each made our own individual pizzas. Now that's glamping!
After dinner, we sipped scotch and watched the vivid sunset.
The next day was forecast to be colder, with the possibility of thunderstorms, so we borrowed an extra blanket from Emily and spent a much more comfortable night in our tent.
In fact, the spectacular clouds of the previous day's sunset did portend rough weather ahead. We woke to overcast skies, but we resolved to continue with our plans unchanged.
We started with Emily's delicious Bloody Marys (a meal in themselves), followed by a big breakfast of scrambled eggs and bacon. We finally left the campsite at about 11:00 and headed for Glacier's sister park Waterton Lakes National Park in Canada. It was a two-and-a-half hour drive that took us through the town of Browning on the Blackfeet Reservation.
Jovita had told us about the Plains Indian Museum in Browning, so we made a stop there on our way. Browning, like many reservation towns, is an impoverished place, with a few casinos and many bars. The museum, though small, was very well done, with hundreds of well-preserved artifacts and very informative displays on Plains Indian life. We were glad we stopped.
We finally got to Waterton about 3:00. The weather had closed in by then: clouds an light drizzle obscured most of the view. We debated whether or not to take the lake cruise, but finally decided we would.
It was a good decision, though we had to stay inside the boat to avoid the driving rain. None of us we dressed warmly enough for the combination of wet and wind, and the boat was not well heated. So we shivered and shook as the boat plowed south across the lake back to Montana. Luckily, the guide kept us entertained with jokes and interesting anecdotes about the area.
The thick clouds crowding around the surrounding peaks gave the scene an eeire beauty of its own.
The combined park is called Waterton-Glacier International Peace Park. The boat docked at the ranger station in Montana where we got out hoping for some warmth. Instead there was a open concrete structure with a fireplace featuring a small fire already crowded around by backpackers waiting for the boat back to Canada. We shivered some more.
Visitors are encouraged to leave notes about their ideas for promoting peace.
Mirabel's simple, but brilliant plan: pineapple.
We got back to Waterton chilled through, but the weather had begun to lift, and the sight of the majestic mountains surrounding the lake cheered us. We found a nice, well-heated restaurant and enjoyed warming cocktails and an excellent dinner.
We started home in the gathering dusk, enjoying the now-visible landscape. We stopped to take pictures at Lower Waterton Lake.
One of the most photographed scenes in Montana is Chief Mountain, 9,081 feet. And it is indeed a spectacular sight.
This entire area is sacred to the Blackfeet people, and it's easy to see why.
It was a long drive back to camp. We finally got there around 11:00. Lightning storms were playing in the distance, and the full moon was drifting in and out of the clouds. It was gorgeous, and it was cold. Even with our extra blanket, by around 3:30, we were freezing. We resolved to spend the next night in the trailer.
We were resolved to do at least a small hike on our last day, which was also my 68th birthday, so after Bloody Marys and breakfast, we headed for the Trail of the Cedars, a short but beautiful hike through a particularly lovely section of old-growth forest.
The trail branches up the mountainside along Avalanche Creek toward Avalanche Lake.
Unfortunately, we didn't have time to walk all the way to the lake, but the trail by the creek was beautiful.
Luciya and Mirabel had a great time playing along the way. Mirabel surprised us all with her stamina.
Putting the sass in Sasquatch.
After the Trail of Cedars, we found a beach on the shores of Lake McDonald, the largest and deepest lake in the park. The water was surprisingly warm, and I was sorry I hadn't brought my bathing suit. O and I watched as the others frolicked in the clear, clear water.
Lake McDonald is famous for the multicolored pebbles that brighten its shores and lakebed.
We celebrated my birthday with an excellent dinner at the Lake McDonald Lodge, another of the park's renovated chalets. After dinner, we sat by the lake enjoying the peace and quiet.
And the next day, after a warm night in the trailer, we broke camp early and headed home.
P.
