Exploring Glacier National Park

Hey guys -

We've gone from having not enough pictures for a blog to way too many! Bear with me. I think I may have to divide this into multiple posts for my sanity.

Anyway, in case you didn't know, Glenn and I spent the last week in Coram, Montana, which is just a few miles outside of the West entrance to Glacier National Park. It was a great week - we hiked about 40 miles - at least one hike a day. Tiring, but in a good way. And we saw some amazing sites. We flew in late on Friday and stayed the night in Kalispell near the airport.

On Saturday, July 15th, we went to Heron Park in Kalispell and hiked up a mountain for a view of Foy Lake. Foy Lake, like most of the lakes we saw in Glacier, was this amazing turquoise blue color. Something to do with the reflectivity of the glacial deposits. We hiked to the top of the mountain for a view, but it was much easier to just see it from the road.

From there we (after stocking up on groceries in Columbia Falls) we drove to our cabin, which was called Mad Betty's. It was a cute little place and the owners had even bought us wine and food for the fridge.

It was tiny, but cozy, and had Wi-Fi and direct TV and a kitchen. It did not have AC, but it got cool enough at night that it wasn't a problem. The only bad/surprising thing was that there was a train that went by all night, every night, blowing it's horn. I slept through it most of the time. Glenn got earplugs.

Sunday the 16th was our first venture into the park and we were impressed. We drove up past the vast and beautiful Lake MacDonald.

This is the Lake MacDonald Lodge.

We decided to take a hike called John's Lake Loop. (Despite the name, Glenn insisted it wasn't a loop, so we ended up turning around and doubling back when we were almost at the end, so it ended up being a 4 mile hike.) Still, it was through mossy green forests with a soft pine floor, and along a gorgeous river that culminated with MacDonald's Falls. So I won't complain. Much.

I'm in the middle of this pic...

At one point, we stopped to sit on a bench and a big buck emerged from the woods right next to us. It was like something out of a dream - I told Glenn, I half expected him to start talking to us. He let us take a few pics and just walked away.

I wish this pic wasn't blurry...

After the hike we lunched near Lake MacDonald (disappointing - almost all the food we had in Montana was wretched), we took a boat tour. It was OK, but the docent was annoying and we didn't really see anything we couldn't see from shore.

Those are the highlights from Day 2.

Woo-hoo!

Monday, July 17th was our 24th anniversary and also one of the hardest but most amazing days of our trip. We started out hiking the short Trail of the Cedars (we'll revisit this later) - I don't think we really appreciated it because it was 52 degrees so we basically ran through it to keep warm.

From there, we drove to Logan's Pass which is on the Continental Divide at an elevation of 6,642 feet. To get there, we drove on Going-to-the-Sun Road, which was built in 1932. The road is extremely narrow and windy, and goes up very steep terrain. There are few guardrails and, depending upon your perspective, riding along the precipice of a vast abyss is either breathtaking or terrifying.

I was terrified. Nope, nope, nope, nope, nope. Not doing that again.

At Logan's Pass, we had to circle the parking lot for 20 minutes before finding a space, but I was in no hurry to get back on the road. Here, we decided to take a 3 mile hike called Hidden Lake Trail, and it was one of the hardest hikes we've ever done.

The first half mile went straight up the mountain via steps. I had my knee brace on, but it was still strenuous, and being at that high altitude made it even harder.

Look how far down the steps go!

Some nice lady pointed out to a us a spot on one of the mountainsides that just looked like a bunch of rocks. Superzoom, however, was able to reveal that these were actually Big Horn Sheep. Talk about camouflage!

At any rate, we kept climbing. After the steps, like something off the Discovery Channel, we crossed a wide snow plain. It was also all uphill, and very slippery. There were a few spots that were steep and precarious and slipping would have been VERY BAD.  I was really thankful for my new hiking shoes.

See the line of people coming up the mountain?

We got up to near the top of the mountain and the hike just KEPT GOING. We finally made it to a flatter area where there were pretty little ponds, and scrub brush and wild flowers.

It was right past this point that we saw the mountain goats. They were very unafraid of people and came right out on the trail with us.

But hey, the name of this trail is Hidden Lake. So was there a hidden lake?

Yep.

We learned later that Grizzly Bears have been spotted swimming in this lake, but we didn't see any. Still, it was a gorgeous view and worth the difficult hike. Going back down was really hard too - especially across the snow.

Still, an adventurous anniversary!

We could hardly walk the next day, but we pushed on. Stay tuned for Part II of our blog. Coming soon.