Day 60 & 61 - Glacier National Park

Mike Mladenoff
Jun 1, 2016
4 min read

We did not know this before we arrived at Glacier National Park, but apparently the park had just opened in the last week after being closed for the winter. The Red Bus Tours were just ramping up, so we signed up and they picked us up right at our campground.

We showed the driver our National Park pass and we were in. The first stop was the Apgar Village at the south end of Lake McDonald.

After a quick tour of the Lake McDonald Lodge, we hopped back in the bus to get on the Going-to-the-Sun-Road.

A few miles up the road we stopped at the a trailhead next to Sprague Creek. This was a far as we could go by car, because crews were still plowing the road not too far from here.

We ate a snack and the went on a 30 minute hike.

We turned around and headed back down the road, while the "Jammer" (Red Bus driver) continued to give inform us on the history of The Park.

We made another stop to get out and take more pictures.

We then passed back through Apgar Village and then drove up the western slopes next to Lake McDonald. We stepped out of the bus for a brief moment to look for bears, there were none so we moved along.

At the end of the day, the Jammer dropped us off at our KOA campground where we started.

It was not long before we got the hamburgers on the grill.

After dinner, we played several rounds of pool.

Of course we had to finish off with s'more time. The giant marshmallows made for an extra messy dessert.

Now close to 10:30 it was finally dark and Tyler, as he would frequently do, lit a stick on fire and waved it around.

Day 2

We wanted to see more of the park since we could not get all the way over the Going-to-the-Sun-Road, so we decided to rent a car to drive around the park to East Glacier and go up the other side of the Going-to-the-Sun-Road. Just up the road from the campground was a car rental/ hili-tour shop, so I called them and they picked me up at the campground, drove me back to the rental shop, I drove back to the campground, picked up the crew and the we headed out. Luckily, the rental place was only a mile away or all of this would have been a drag.

Our first stop was the Apgar Visitor Center. The kids got their passport books stamped, we looked around for a bit and the moved on. 30 minutes down the road was Goat Lick Overlook. A location that got it's name from the mountain goats licking the salt formations along the hillside. Sadly, we did not see anything but a train.

It was a good thing that we were not in the RV today, On the way to Two Medicine, the last 10 mile portion called Looking Glass Road was windy and rough. In the small car it was a difficult drive and I could only imagine the adventure it would have been in our 32' rig.

Just before the campground area, we saw a momma moose and her baby cross the road in front of us. This area is unintentionally left blank because we sadly did not get a picture.

It was cool and windy with very few people at Two Medicine. In fact, there was only one other group of people there. Naturally, we asked them to take our picture and then we returned the favor.

Skipping rocks off of Two Medicine Lake.

East Glacier is known as the alpine side of the park. It's hard to miss the reason why as there are just tremendous views of the jagged peaks at every turn. We stopped at several locations to absorb the sights and take some pictures.

On the way to St. Mary, we slowed down to get a close up view of the horses gathered by the side of the road.

Now at the St. Mary's Visitor's Center (and close to Canada), we talked to one of the park rangers for a little while and grabbed some brochures. I did not find out until later that Tyler had an interesting conversation with the one of the rangers. She was telling him that many of the glaciers were melting and that none may be left by 2030 and we should do our part to help curb [man made] climate change to keep the glaciers around longer. Sidebar...While we should be responsible citizens and manage our resources properly, Tyler responded in a lest tactful manner. Anyway, his response was, " I heard that Glacier National Park was named not for the glaciers that are present, but for the glaciers that are no longer here. Many of these glaciers disappeared without the man made climate change you mentioned, so what's the big deal? If these glaciers never melted, we'd be standing on ice, Glacier National Park would not exist and you wouldn't have a job." Ouch! I can't disagree with this statement, but I think there is a better way to deliver this info.

Now, back to the Going-to-the-Sun-Road...East side. Our first stop was the Jackson Glacier Overlook.

Continuing up the road, we came to the end of the road that had been closed just like the West side. We knew about the closure beforehand, but I still felt like we were missing out not being able to go all the way over Logan Pass.

Now heading back down the mountain, we made a couple more stops overlooking St. Mary Lake.

Back at Goat Lick Overlook for one last look. No goats. Earlier, we heard a rumor that there was another location just past the overlook that the goats pass under the highway where a creeks cuts through below. We found this location and peeked around for 15 minutes, but no goats times two.

Exhausted after a long day of driving and seeing the sights, we made one last stop at the West Glacier Village and ate dinner at the West Glacier Restaurant. The big hit was the huckleberry lemonade and the huckleberry pie.