In hindsight, I’m glad that I postponed this part of the trip. It allowed me to plan an entire week just for this park alone. One week is barely enough to scratch what this great park had to show. All the wild and beautiful trails that go for miles leading to more breathtaking lakes, valleys and views.
Getting to Glacier was almost as action packed as actually being there! I have always wanted to go to this park. It had actually been a part of the road trip plan that I had designed for the 2020 National Park trip. I was going to tie in this park onto the tail end of that trip but as I was planning and mapping things out, I realized that I didn’t have enough time during my week’s vacation to achieve all that I wanted to do. So this part of the trip was postponed.
About 8 months before the trip, I booked our flights having found the best price for tickets from Atlanta to Spokane. The plan was to fly in and rent car to drive out to Glacier. I then booked the rental car, hotel and AirBnB just outside of St Mary’s. The next steps were to figure out the vehicle reservations. This was the tricky part: You have to reserve the vehicle reservation tickets 3 months in advance. Add 2 complication in: These tickets are only good for 3 days so to get access for a week, I needed two sets. And the sell dates fell right in the middle of our Italy trip so now I’m not just figuring the different time zones from Eastern to Mountain zones, now its from Italy to mountain time zone! LOL All went well until we tried to get to our first hotel. We had booked online with Booking.com the same as any other trip we’ve ever had but when I pulled up the address on GPS to check in that night, the hotel was labled as permanently closed! Not Booking.com fault, the hotel never closed down their account but now we were scrambling to get a place for the night. After quick research, we booked into Wander Camp Glacier. Not knowing what to expect, I was pleasantly surprised! The tents are shaped like tepees but the treasure was inside where you get to sleep on very comfortable cots. After not getting much sleep before flying out and then driving hours to the park, we had a wonderful evening when they lit the communal fires and a great night sleep!
Justin and I got up almost at the break of dawn, and even though we didn’t want to get out of bed, we hit the road. I wanted to be able to spend as much time exploring the park as possible. The first thing we did was drive the length of the “Going to the Sun” road. True it’s only about 30 miles long but plan on being on this road for about 2 hours, just taking it 1 way. Why? well first, everyone is driving about 20- 30 miles/ hour. Second, everyone, including yourself, is stopping to look and the magnificent scenery! You jus can’t help it! Thirdly, Wild animals just walk all over the street, or cross at random times with no warning! And fourth reason: expect the unexpected, it will happen! Take the picture here: Traffic got stopped going both ways just outside of St Mary’s becuase the medical helicopter landed in the middle of the road. Unfortunately, I never did find out if the person was ok or not but it was pointed out to a bunch of us that there were no hospital services on that end of the Park so anyone who had an issue or encountered a wild animal, would have to get airlifted out. It was the fastest way!
I can’t pick out my favorite hike for this entire trip. Each one that we did has their great qualities. so I will tell you the ones we took and why I loved them. This first hike was out to Hidden Lake OverLook. You can hike the trail down to the start of the lake but when we went, that part of the trail was closed due to bear activity. There was a momma bear and two cubs swimming and eating at the head of the lake, we could see them! Hiking up to the overlook was as much fun as getting there: two weeks before our trip in July, they had had another snow fall. So when we arrived, much of the snow was melting but not all of it! This caused many waterfalls and streams to form where they probably would have been dry had we come later. And my son loved sliding down the snow banks in the high altitude where the snow was still laying on the ground, covering the trail.
The second trail we took was a relatively short one to St Mary’s waterfall. You could tell that the area around this part of the park had had a forest fire and it was working to recover. It didn’t make it look bad though, it gave it more of a starker look, still very beautiful! St Mary’s lake had such a blue hue to it, from above it’s quite striking against the stark treeless surroundings.
As part of our give and take for vacations, I do my best to make sure my son can go swimming while he tries to be a good sport during the hikes and picture taking. One of the first places I found for us was the glacier fed river that leads into Lake McDonald. Its a beauful though very chilly river that meanders all along the mountains. But the super chilly water worked wonders on our sore over used feet after our hikes!
What we hadn’t planned for was the 4 mile long connector from the Chalet to the loop to get the bus back to our parking spot. We had started very early in the morning, having parked at Logan Pass. It was quite chilly during that time but as the sun rose and we got warm from our hike, the coats came off. Mind you there was still snow up in some areas, giving those areas a chill but once we passed the Chalet, the heat of the day and the fact that we were now further down in altitude, walking in the direct sun made it extremely hot! So hot it aggravated my heat stroke sensitivity. So…. more water and a pair of shorts. Don’t ask why I recommend bringing toilet paper, just do it! LOL
The next hike that we took was the Highline trail. This was the longest trail that we took and the views were magnificent! I would do this hike again and again! But next time, I would bring more water, a pair of shorts and toilet paper along with our snacks! We layers very well with coats, and tshirts. We brought snacks and water. side note: the moon cheese is the perfect snack along with trail mix for this 7+ mile long hike to the Chalet.
Lake McDonald is probably my son’s most favorite place place out of all that we went! I knew that would be the case but he got into paddleboarding and never wanted to stop! It was alot of fun but they warn you when you rent paddleboards or canoes to stay away from the piddle part of the lake because of the head winds that will carry you further out that you originally plan to.
We did one more major hike up to Avalanche Lake. This place is beautiful! You can swim here too but the water is really cold! The view is striking though with 4 waterfalls coming off the mountain tops. I can totally understand why this has become many people’s favorite hike. On a plus side: on our way back we had a deer that followed us, finding food to eat. truely amazing experience.
The amount of wildlife that we were able to see and at close rang, was incredible. with as many parks as we have visited, we have never run into this much wildlife! In these pictures I show how close Justin got to the buck, a fox crossing the road, horses crossing the road and a bird that followed Justin and I along the path. We did get to see the movements of a bear around the river and also in the surrounding hills of St Marys but they move quickly and blend in well. I couldn’t get a very clear shot of them.
