Many Glacier - Road Trip 2019

The gal at the VC in St Mary told us the road into Many Glacier was ‘horrid’, but the 70 mph hiway up to Babb was in very good condition.  She was half right, the hiway was in good condition.  But she must not have driven in San Diego, there are roads in our neighborhood with worse pot holes. We parked at the Many Glacier Hotel, as the ranger said the campground was full.

I was not surprised the campground was full, Many Glacier is full of ’Obscene beauty’.

There is a 2 PM tour of the hotel that Fran would like to attend.  With lots of time we take the short 2.5 level walk around Swiftcurrent Lake.  It’s an easy walk, with views back to the hotel,

and the surrounding mountains

Opposite the hotel is a boat dock, where the boat-n-hike tour.  The passengers are unloaded and hike the quarter mile trail to Lake Josephine and board another boat to continue the journey.  Then a 1.25 mile hike to Grinnell Lake.  I suspect the views from all the lakes are spectacular.

The trail eventually reaches the campground, which we decide to walk thru and discover there is a site available.  We quickly decide to take it and fill out the self-registration form.  And we SCORE! The walk back to the RV is through a meadow that is alive with wildflowers.

The next morning we take the hike up to Swiftcurrent Falls, another easy hike.

with fabulous views from the trail.

The falls are really quite unusual as we watch the Swiftcurrent River take multiple paths as it cascades.

As we are returning we come across another mule deer along the trail.

It’s hard to say goodbye to Many Glacier, it was an awesome serendipitous stop.

There are so very many resources on the Internet for planning a trip to Glacier, as well as many blog posts. Search your favorite blog for their experiences at Glacier. I trust and like the inspiration gained from https://ohtheplacestheygo.wordpress.com. You'll find John and Pam's 'nimble' hikes in Glacier HERE.

For my personal thoughts:
West Glacier - it's the center of activity, where pretty much all the outings can be scheduled.  This is where the families should go. A couple days should cover most of the sightseeing. But more time would be required hiking.
St.Mary's - Definitely worth a couple days, but put on your boots.  Free shuttle to Logan Pass.
Many Glacier - Not to be missed and enjoy the huckleberry cobbler!

No Bad Days at Many Glacier, the highlight of our week in Glacier National Park.  Next time I could spend the entire week here!

East Glacier - Road Trip 2019

We left the hubbub of West Glacier behind with the goal of seeing the less traveled side of Glacier National Park – East Glacier.  Every 7 years the roads in Glacier National PArk are patched and paved. 

Yupper this is the year and this was the day for not just our section to Logan Pass, but also our campground. The campground at St Mary’s is very scrunchy!  With the RV in the adjacent site already parked we had to go around the 1-Way loop backwards to park in our site.

But the view from the campsite is pretty spectacular!

We took the short walk from the campground to the VC.  It’s a well established trail over the footbridge to the VC.

At the VC we inquired about the waterfall hikes: St Mary, Virginia and Baring Falls.  We were told to use the trailhead for St Mary's Falls to reach Virginia Falls and Baring Falls has its own trailhead.

Accurate, but BOGUS!
 We could have parked the scooter at Sun Point – heck we could have parked the RV there! and all the falls reached from one out-n-back trail. Oh-well …

We rode the scooter up to the St Mary’s Falls trailhead and began our hike from there.   Not far along the trail we met this young mule deer acting as the ‘greeter’.  I snapped her picture …

and she decided we were worth meeting!

My hiking partner?  Fran fled!  leaving me and ‘Molly’ the Mule Deer on the trail alone.  So much for hiking with a buddy … oh well I have a new buddy!  And Molly is sticking to me like velcro! 

This is one deer who has received too many hiker treats, eventually she gives up.  On to the falls.  St Mary’s Falls is beautiful and we have it to ourselves!

WOW!  After crossing the footbridge on the way to Virginia Falls my knee goes out again!  Virginia Falls is UP, and going up is easier, but even after readjusting the support I volunteer to wait if Fran wants to complete the last mile RT.
 
We turn back together, my best hiking partner!, and this is as close as we were to Virginia Falls.

Even Molly looked concerned

Baring Falls is just a few 100 yards from the trailhead.  I’ve set my hiking pole to be more of a cane than a pole and off we go! A narrow log bridge leads to the base of the falls.

Altho not as spectacular it is a refreshing break.

A couple more views from the road, just to show the east side is spectacular even when overcast

We’ve seen 13 black bears on the trip thus far, but TaDa our first grizzly bear!  Check out the rounded ears and the long face.  I did not see the defining ‘hump’ in any of the pictures but  …

It’s time to leave East Glacier.  Hiway US-2 was having extensive work done with long delays as we came in.  As we looked at other options to continue our eastward journey we note there is a local option MT-464  out of Babb, MT.

Once in Babb it’s a left turn to Many Glacier, or a right turn to continue east without all the construction delays … to be continued …

Despite the delays in St Mary, we had No Bad Days there!

Up next our route out of Babb …

West Glacier - Road Trip 2019

We left the ideal conditions of Banff behind to visit West Glacier next. Since we are travelling in a generally eastern direction there is a bit of backtracking to the west required.

Alberta’s Kootenay National Park lies between the trans-Canada highway on the east side of the continental divide and British Columbia’s Radium Hot Springs on the westside.   Unfortunately we are back in the clouds and rain!  Arg!

Near Radium the clouds have dispersed!  To add to our excitement there were 7 big horn sheep lazing along the roadside as if they were the official town greeters. 

It was a travel day, so we continued on … until another thunderstorm descended upon us.  We checked into the Will-O-Bend RV and Golf, I did not even hookup just parked.  The morning was postcard-perfect!  The park is beautiful, what pleasant stop!

I took my morning walk around the park, which has its own driving range (FREE), hiking trails, with exercise equipment and a well maintained common area.

While Fran played a round of golf I did the laundry and gave the RV a sponge bath.  Fran said this is the most  enjoyable course she has ever played.

I also had time to whip up myself some breakfast and try some of the pea-meal bacon.

Although very tasty, I find the bacon to be quite high in sodium, more so than most other bacon or ham products.  The pea-meal is a cornbread wrapping, which makes the bacon less suitable for use in a sandwich. Yes I would buy it again. 

I searched George’s recipe page on his blog HERE for other ways to prepare pea-meal bacon, alas he has a lot of great ideas for the grill, just not the bacon.

The only place with a spot for us near West Glacier was American RV about 5 miles outside the entrance to West Glacier. 

Trust me 5 miles is a long scooter ride on a 70 mph 2-lane highway!
But we made it just fine … Our first stop was to join the crowds at the Apgar Visitor Center.

Kami has had a hand in the design of 3 of the 4 National Park games for sale here!

 BTW – Hogwart’s Defense Against the Dark Arts is coming out.  A short clip with Kami introducing her game is on Twitch TV can be seen HERE.

We scooted on the Going to the Sun Road along Lake McDonald to the lodge.

About a mile beyond McDonald Lodge is the trailhead for John’s Lake, which is about a 2 mile loop.  This is a very nice trail past the lake before returning to the McDonald River.

Once back at the river a foot bridge crossed above the Dancing Cascade

Then on to McDonald Falls

The road to the Lake McDonald Ranger Station was closed for repairs.  The sign made it pretty clear we were not welcome.   “No Walking, Hiking, Biking, Crawling past this point.”

The reason the Ranger Station was an important destination is The Chouters posted this was where Ansel Adams created his famous photo.  All of the Ansel Adams photos from Glacier National Park can be viewed HERE.

We continued up the Going to the Sun Road to the Avalanche Trailhead.  The parking lot was closed,but there’s always room for a scooter!

I only have this single pic from the Trail of Cedars.  I somehow managed to change the settings on the camera and have several time-lapse photos of the inside of the camera case.

We returned to the Lake McDonald Lodge for lunch.  I like to try something local and unique and could not resist the Elk Burger with huckleberry and goat cheese. OMG so good!

We ran into a total traffic jam returning – miles long!  With the scooter we advanced our position to a turnout and shade to wait.  An hour later we heard sirens of the first responders.  The single car (large SUV) accident injured 3, but fortunately no fatalities.

Although a family of 3 may disagree, at least we had No Bad Days.

We’re off to East Glacier next as we continue to work our way to Ohio.