Kalispell and into the park

I last blogged on arrival in Kalispell…  We stayed at the Kalispell Grand Hotel… a old fashion downtown hotel…  rebuilt and upgraded 20 years ago… It was simply the nicest old hotel we had ever stayed in.  the building was right on the main street… it was wonderfully rebuild and extremely well maintained.  The staff was wonderful… efficient and fun… the cookies in the afternoon, the baked goods in the morning at breakfast were really special.  We loved it.

Being downtown, we took a few minutes to walk around, found their annual Art In the Park… explored then ate dinner across the street from the hotel at Hops… again a wonderful evening.  I wouldn't want to base a Glacier Park trip in Kalispell, but would recommend it as a stopping place on the way.

Sunday morning, Tina took her time getting up (lack of sleep the night before while stuck in the Seattle Airport being rightfully blamed) … even with sleeping in we were driving by 9:00…We headed out of town, eastward on Hwy 2, towards East Glacier… It started to rain… showers were predicted.  Hwy 2 runs along the bottom of the park…  along the railroad… on a whim, 60 miles from Kalispell,  we pulled off at when we saw a sign for a historic district… it turned out to be the Izzac Walton Hotel in Essex, a former Northern Pacific railroad hotel.  Essex  was a railroad town, a section camp and sometime crew change point.  Today snow plows are stationed there.  The hotel was built to serve the railroad crews.

Being a railroad hotel,  it faced the tracks… We sat on the porch,  and had coffee and a huckleberry crumble… Hoping a train would pass by… It continued to rain, then poured, water cascading off the roof edge.  We took a few minutes to explored the place… To our surprise, the Burlington  Northern business train pulled in…  perfectly clean locomotives pulling a train of private railroad car, filled with some of the railroad’s big customers.  They were stopping for a picture and maybe snacks…  Instead of on the lawn as planned they moved to a nearby covered area.  It was an unplanned, unexpected treat.

We headed back to the highway, continuing as the highway for a moment entered the park… we stopped at Goat Lick, an overlook, where across the river mountain goats are said to come to lick the rocks… looking for salt and other minerals…  there were three mountain goats in the distance… easy to spot, as they are white…  A train crossed the steel bridge across the river… another photo opportunity.

Again back on the road… we quickly reached East Glacier our stop for the night…  The rain continued… The Glacier Park Hotel sits outside the park… 300 yards from the Northern Pacific railroad depot… across a wide lawn with flowers  and several teepees…  (there is some evidence of multiple spellings of “tipi” locally)   This was railroad tourism as practiced in the early part of the century…  Railroad access, a grand lodge, and red busses for access into the interior of the park…

We checked in, then headed into the park (not in a red bus, but rather in our silver Jeep.)   

Two Medicine Valley was our first stop… it was once a busy place, but Going to the Sun Road is now the more common visitor target…  The rain paused so we hiked to a waterfall, missing a moose by less than a minute…   then blundered about in search of said moose before heading up to St Mary (no “s”) and one of the park’s visitor centers.  Having visited the visitor center we headed up along St Mary lake, to find a place for a picnic…  off to the side of the road Tina spotted ears… we stopped and the ears turned out to belong to one of a couple of red fox… once they realized we could see them they bounded off into the high brush.

We drove back to the hotel,  had dinner, then tried to find internet (it is officially only found in the lobby)  and while we could find a signal connectivity was lacking…  Internet at Glacier is problematic… a function of slow connectivity and lots of people trying to download movies from Netflix …  (this sadly is not a joke, I was trying to get on, had someone ask me if I could, and had a 4 way conversation with two of the 4 saying they were trying to download movies…)  

I walked over to the depot to see the daily west bound passenger train come in, leaving Tina in the lobby… the crowd gathered at the depot, some arriving in a red bus… an eastbound freight train passed…  A second east bound freight passed… train time came… we waited… a west bound freight passed….  The train was now quite late… then a headlight in the distance… another west bound freight… then another… I gave up and returned to the room (which faced the tracks) where Tina was in bed… not yet asleep, but in bed… 10 minutes later the passenger train pulled in… 

I made another try at getting on the internet (unsuccessfully) as the crowd from the train arrived to check in.  People still take the train to visit the park.  Eventually, unsuccessful and overwhelmed by the press of new guests I abandon the internet for the room… 

Monday morning (aka  now)  got up before 6:00 to find that the internet works at that hour…  and sent this.   We are off to Canada today, to the Prince of Wales Hotel in Waterton Park, the Canadian portion of the greater “Peace Park”…