We started in Many Glacier… getting up later than the sun… having
breakfast in the hotel, then heading back out of the park… Glacier is different
than most national parks… a mountain range with only one road across (within
the park) it is instead a series of units… each a drive in from outside the
park boundry… we had started in East Glacier (the hotel outside the park
boundry) then drove in to Two Medicine… our again then in at St Mary… then back
out to East Glacier… Back in the next day at Waterton (really a separate park
in Canada) out again to go back in at Many Glacier, out again to go back in at
St Mary for the Going to the Sun road…
(we would leave again from West Glacier to re-enter at Pole Bridge, then
out again and back in again at West Glacier…)
Back to Wednesday… We turned west at Babb, pausing for gas
and ice. Back in at St Mary, then along St Mary lake… beyond we hit this years
road construction… and a flag man and one way traffic… We were told we would have to wait 13 minutes…
not 10 minutes, not “a few minutes”, not “no more than 20 minutes”, but specifically
13 minutes… and 13 minutes later we started through the construction site lead
by a pilot car…
The road construction meant that we were now traveling in a
bunch… a crowd… and crowded became the theme for Going to the Sun… at Logan
Pass the parking lot was full and overflowing… and after trying to find a place
to park for some time we abandoned hope and moved on… Going to the Sun road is
a high alpine pass… a spectacular road, but not unlike many others… we were a
bit disappointed. The crowds felt like
Yosemite Valley on a summer weekend…
This is not the park’s fault… it is our collective fault, for we are loving
our parks to death… Without parking
hikes were out of the question…
We dropped down the west side (I suspect the road is more
spectacular driving west to east, but we were driving east to west) To Lake McDonald, then to the Lake McDonald
lodge where we checked in… (we are in cabin 7… room 3… cabin 7 is a real log
cabin… not just logs nailed to a wood frame… we face away from the lake, but the
lake is right around the other side… the room is tiny but clean and nice, the
lodge a few hundred feet away via a lake side trail) then headed out, first to picnic nearby, then
to the visitor center (the visitor centers at Glacier are not the big interpretive
centers found in other parks… they are more commonly an information desk a few interpretive
panels, and the mandatory book/tee-shirt/post card store), then out of the park
and north to Pole Bridge where we reentered… and from there up to Bowman Lake… This side of the park is less spectacular
(i.e. few big granite walls). The lake
is more an area for outdoor recreation than a place to worship nature… Like much of the park this side shows the effects
of a burn… ghost trees surrounded by new trees… this country doesn’t recover
fast… the ghost trees last for 40-50 years… it was a 6 mile dirt road in… one lane… We walked around a bit… then returned to the
jeep to find a moose in the parking lot nearby… There were a couple of deer in
the other direction… We stopped at the
Pole Bridge store and bakery on the way back… (Tina had a huckleberry bear
claw) Then back into the park… we drove through West Glacier Village and Apgar
to see what they looked like (like Tee shirt shops, outdoor outfitters, café’s
and motels)
We had dinner in the Lounge/Bar then tried our luck with the
wifi in the lobby… It worked better than
Many Glacier, but not well… I ended up posting one post to the blog 6 times…
(since removed)
Now Friday morning… it rained last night, and is grey and
cloudy this morning… I got up early for coffee and a bit of (very) slow WiFi…
Tina is stirring and starting to pack… we want to be out by 8:00…
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