There’s a Reason They Call it Glacier National Park

After loading up at the hotel’s breakfast bar, we started out on our longest journey yet to Glacier National Park in far NW Montana.  We didn’t know much about where we were going, but something told us it was going to be pretty durn cool.  In a road trip daze, we missed the turnoff and went 30 miles past the park entrance.  After turning around, our griping was interrupted by a white and wooly mountain goat hanging out right by the road.  He was just the first of many wildlife sightings over the next few days.

We turned into our campsite at Apgar at sunset and were greeted by the stunning Lake McDonald view … pretty unbelievable.

The Lake McDonald pier

It seemed a bit chilly when we made a quick freeze-dried dinner at the site, but the bitter cold truth showed its face in the early morning along with a rainstorm.  The next morning we heard that it had snowed over on the east side of the park, at which point it really started dawning on us that they don’t call it Glacier National Park for nothing.  We decided to soldier on and picked a 4-mile round tripper at Avalanche Lake.  Despite the late morning cold, the hike proved to have a breathtaking payoff.  Liz brought her fancy camera and hopes she loaded it correctly because they’ll be some great shots.

Liz enjoying the big payoff

More scenery from Avalanche Lake

By the time we returned to the car, the day had warmed quite a bit and we decided to drive to a northern section of the park for a picnic dinner and another short hike around another glacier lake.  The uber-friendly Canadian visitor center employee gave us the scoop on a cool bakery we needed to check out after driving 30 miles on a gravel road.  Sweet!  It took us an hour to get there, but it did exist – an eensy teensy hippie enclave with, you betcha, a red clapboard bakery/general store with 50 cent cookies and giant chocolate poppyseed bearclaws.  Score!

The sweetest of bakeries

We decided to go ahead and picnic by the lake and top it off with a pastry on the way back to the campsite.  The lake was beautiful, all right, but it was also incredibly windy and our Atlanta cold weather gear didn’t quite keep the chill out.

Chillin' by the lake

The picnic site was shielded from the wind and we ate our Ramen noodles with the Whitetails, about 5 or 6 of them were grazing along with us.  On the way back to Polebridge for our coveted pastries, Chris spotted a bald eagle swooping over the car during one of our frequent auto birdwatching episodes.

That night turned out to be even colder than the previous, so we decided that 2 sleepless nights was enough.  We headed over to East Glacier the next morning and it turned out to be even more scenic than the west side of the continental divide.  We took another 3-mile hike that passed 2 waterfalls and, chock full of scenery, headed back out and on our way to Helena for a warm bed.

A young black bear posing by the roadside

Another big payoff

The drive through the Montana ranch country was one picture postcard after another, peppered with hawks and antelope and coyotes and (we think) a few foxes, too.  We landed in Helena exhausted, ready for some HBO, and looking forward to our upcoming trip to Yellowstone.  Little did we know we’d wake up the next morning to snow falling on the Focus …

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