Glacier National Park

The drive to Glacier National Park was a small adventure in itself. Since it was a pretty long drive, we decided to do it over two days. After calling three or four Walmarts, we found one in Spokane, WA that allowed overnight stays. When we got there, it looked like there were some trailers that hadn’t moved for weeks. There were also some sketchy characters scoping out the parking lot with binoculars so we decided to continue on.

Our search for affordable RV parks was on. We soon discovered there wasn’t anything close that looked better. We kept driving to a Walmart in Idaho.

It was so much better than where we were previously. The parking lot was nice and clean and there weren’t any sketchy individuals. We were tired from the extra driving and hit the hay. Our new neighbors probably thought we wouldn’t mind loud noises at 3AM (they had various lawn mower motors running right outside our door the whole night). As soon as we woke up in the morning we put up our stabilizers and got back on the road. Driving through Montana was a different experience from California. Open roads, less people, and less traffic!

We were in “Big Sky” Montana for Glacier National Park.

Our campground in Hungry Horse, MT was nice and spacious for Aljo and the Suburban. And before you ask – Yes, the Howe-Ridge Fire was going on while we were there. We weren’t too far from it but our area was not being evacuated so we decided we would make the best of a smoky situation. Plus, we were exhausted.

The first full day at Glacier National Park consisted of driving 2.5 hours to the Many Glacier area. Instead of driving down one of the most scenic drives in America (Going-to-the-Sun Road), we were forced to drive around the park to get there due to the fire. It was going to be one of our highlights but we just had to roll with the punches. We still drove through some interesting areas like the Blackfeet Indian Reservation. Gas prices on the reservation were cheaper ($2.83) compared to Hungry Horse ($2.98).

We got to the Many Glacier Hotel and starting exploring. The hotel is an original structure from the early 1900s. With the fires, the smoke was obscuring the beautiful mountains behind the hotel.

One of our travel books highly recommended the Grinnell Glacier Trail. I thought it was going to be a 4 hour-hike with some stops in between to enjoy the views but that’s not what happened. From the start, we added an extra mile to our hike by parking a little further from the trailhead. We also didn’t have a lot of guidance since the workers at the information desk didn’t even acknowledge us. Another half a mile was added because the north rim of the trail was closed due to bear activity.

Initially we were doing well because everything was really flat. We even came upon a moose munching in the lake. It was our first big animal!

The trail was narrow so everyone hiked single-filed. We were excited about the trail since it was highly recommended. Once we got to the base of the mountain, things got steep. We also got a lot slower.

Things got serious when we saw this sign since our safety was not guaranteed.

They take bears seriously here. Everyone should be carrying their bear spray.

See Jared for an example.

Our hike up was long and tiring. I had to stop a number of times because of the steep grades and smoke. We stopped for a few pictures too.

On our climb, we got to see a goat! She was hanging out in the cliffs as we walked by.

Everyone is really nice about spotting animals and letting others know.

We had to walk through a small waterfall, which was really cool.

Let’s just say, we almost turned back. We were getting tired and our legs were barely holding us up. We brought 4 water bottles and 2 Gatorades and we were running out. We ended up asking some ladies coming down if we were close. They said they started their hike down an hour and a half ago.

Going down is a lot faster than going up so we knew we had at least 2 more hours to go.

These ladies were encouraging us to continue and said the views were worth every step.

So, up we went.

We just kept going higher and higher.

I kept joking with hikers coming down that the end was right around the corner hoping that someone would say yes. But we still had a ways to go.

And guess what we saw?

Grinnell Glacier. This slowly receding glacier is expected to disappear by 2030.

I laid on a rock while my legs recovered.

The water was freezing!

 

We had a long hike down so after resting a bit and taking in the scenery, we started our trek down.

We saw some more wildlife on the way too.

Jared got a little surprise when he turned a corner.

Some hikers behind us went pretty close and took pictures. We stayed farther back because a mama goat will protect her baby if she needs to. We weren’t fond of getting rammed with her horns.

The mama goat and her baby finally moved out of the way for us to pass.

We were basically running down the mountain now. There weren’t a lot of people on the trail anymore because of how late it was. The dangers of bears came rushing to the forefront of our minds. We constantly made noise while hiking so there wouldn’t be any more surprises around the corner.

By the time we were close to the Many Glacier Hotel, the sun was starting to set.

We were walking along the lake when we heard some more rumbling. I took no chances when I saw a huge mass of brown and fur. I made some noises with my walking sticks and walked a little faster towards some bigger trees.

Jared wanted to check it out so he walked closer and looked. Some more tourists were walking towards it too but I stayed behind my trees.

It was a huge moose with a baby so I did not want to mess with it.

After making sure the moose wasn’t a threat, we continued on the path to the car. We finished Grinnell Glacier (13 miles with all the detours) in a little less than 7 hours.

We could barely move once we reached the car. We chugged down some water and started our 2.5-hour drive home.

The next day – we designated for recovering from our hike. We got up late and weren’t up for too much physical movement. We decided to visit the Apgar Visitor Center and get some information on the fire. It was even smokier than yesterday!

We went to see Lake McDonald, or at least, part of Lake McDonald.

We skipped rocks and explored the souvenir shops and called it a day.

Saturday, August 18^th, 2018 aka Mallory’s Birthday

It was my birthday!

I was excited for the day because we were going back into the park. We checked the webcams and they looked pretty good. So we drove the 2 hours to St. Mary’s Visitor Center and got stuck with a lot of smoke again. We couldn’t do anything with all the smoke today so we read up looked at exhibits in the visitor center and headed back to the campground for some rest.

It was my birthday so I got to decide what was for dinner.

Fried Chicken.

We also got some ice cream to celebrate.

It was a nice and relaxing day before we hit the road again.