Glacier National Park

Saturday, July 17

Today we drove over to Glacier National Park, the "Crown of the Continent". The park is 1.2 million acres of mountains, valleys and lakes. There are over 200 lakes, over 50 glaciers, 936 miles of rivers, and over 700 miles of hiking trails. The park was dedicated in 1910 so this is the 100 year anniversary. There is only one road that crosses the park, the Going to the Sun Highway. We decided to drive about half of the GTTSH today. We will do the second half when we move to the east side of the park.

We should have known better than to visit a National Park on a Saturday, but hey, I am lucky to know what day of the week it is. We are about 18 miles from the park so we drove over and enjoyed looking at the scenery and towns between here and there. We did have to wait a few minutes to make it past the entrance as there were a large number of other folks enjoying the day. We finally made it in and proceeded to the Apgar Visitor's Center. Luckily a parking spot opened up just as we entered. Score! We walked through the center and into a couple of the shops there. I got my Christmas ornament to add to my collection. We also took a walk over to look at Lake McDonald -



As we started up the Going-to-the-Sun Hwy we followed the lake and then the McDonald Creek. There was an overlook of an area where the creek turns from a quiet meandering creek to a rapidly moving rapids area.



We were once again lucky to find a parking spot. The water is very clear and cold. There seem to be a lot of flies along the creek. Turned out that there were a lot of flies all over the park.

Further down the road you could start seeing snow on the surrounding mountains. We had not come to the glacier fields yet, just snow that hasn't melted. As we traveled the GTTSH and went further up we say more and more snow.



One of the things you can do in the park is take the red cars for a tour if you don't want to drive your own car. This is what they look like.



There are many, many creeks and small waterfall types that you will pass on the road. Sometimes it is hard to decided where to look, there are so many. The road is narrow and it doesn't always have an area you can park in to get out and enjoy the sites. There are also not many signs telling you what the names of the mountains and creeks are so sometimes you are guessing what one you are looking at.




We did find the normal traffic jams as people slowed or stopped in the road to see things. This fellow caused a pretty good traffic jam.



One of the unique sites was a portion of the road that had a huge amount of water cascading down. It is called the weeping wall. When you are headed east the wall is away from you but when you are headed west you can get pretty wet. Since it was a warm day there were some people who were enjoying standing under the water. Next to the weeping wall was a cascade of water that we walked up to. This is the area we decided to have our lunch. We were parked in a nice spot and could enjoy the scenery while we ate.




At one spot on the road you can see how it was constructed all those years ago. Here are the three arches.



At one point we found a red light where there is road construction going on. We had to wait for a bit before we could continue but it was nice to sit and look at the view. Once we continued on we headed toward Logan Pass and the Visitor's Center. This is about the half-way mark of the road. We tried to stop and visit for a bit but the parking lot was full and so we went on. Just a bit down the road was another stop light so we decided to use this as a turn-around point and head back. We will be moving to the east side of the park in a few days so we will take the road from that side up to here. Hopefully it won't be as crowded as it will be during the week instead of a weekend. Anyway, Logan Pass is located at the Continental Divide and is at an elevation of 6649 feet. There is plenty of snow still here.




Not too far from the Pass, on our way down, we ran into another small traffic jam. We knew this had to be an animal siting. It was a Mama and Baby mountain goat! And they were close to the road and enjoying an afternoon snack. Cool.



Our next encounter with wildlife occurred much further down the road. There were a couple of motorcycles parked on the side of the road and this is what they were looking at.



We decided to stop at the Lake McDonald Lodge and check it out. While here we visited the outside and inside of the lodge. We also figured it would be a good place to have a snack so we enjoyed some dessert. I had huckleberry ice cream and Bill had a slice of lemon meringue pie with huckleberry ice cream. We also saw a few ground squirrels running around. The inside of the lodge was very pretty.






We did stop in the town of Hungry Horse, just outside of the park, and I purchased some huckleberry preserves. They are really good and I may have to go back and get more.

So that was our day at Glacier National Park. Tomorrow will be a resting day for me. Got to let my legs and feet recover. I think Bill is going to wash the rig, or at least the front. Here is the slideshow of all the pictures.