Glacier National Park

Glacier was a new National Park and experience for all four of us.  A park that we have heard grandeurs about from other travellers, family and friends.  Our original plan was to spend some time in Glacier and then travel north to Canada into Waterton National Park, Banff and Lake Louise. Due to COVID (and possibly Canandians not wanting anything to do with Americans anymore), the border is still closed to leisure travel.  This gave us four to five nights to spend in and around the park, which felt like plenty to explore and get a good feel for the majesty around us.

Based on some recommendations by Jill Harrell (Kieren’s 3th grade teacher and now Maren’s Oregon Family School coordinator), we headed up to the less visited NW part of the park on a 40 mile bumpy, gravel road.  Our first stop was the isolated and nearly 100 year old Polebridge Mercantile, reportedly Montana’s best bakery and home of the Huckleberry Bear Claw.  This place was no secret and it seems many made the drive just for the pastries, which were indeed excellent.  After we powered up, we headed further up the road to the beautiful, glaciated carved Bowman lake.  A scene that reminded us of lakes we had seen in New Zealand, long and deep and surrounded by huge peaks.  

After our hike was shortened by rain, we headed back to West Glacier and connected with some Bend friends for a campfire & smores. The Welch’s, who are also on a RV trip around the west with their two sons, were staying just down the road at the KOA.  We had no idea they were in the area until just a few days prior when it came up in one of Maren’s zoom school day meetings, because their son, Marek also goes to Oregon Family School.  It was great connecting with them and we left with possible plans of connecting later this winter in Florida. 

Our second day was spent checking something off Maren’s bucket list….a family ropes and zip line course.  Juli and I had zip lined in Costa Rica before, but had never done a ropes course where you have to navigate obstacles, jump from one platform to another, and step across moving blocks, all while holding on 60 feet above the ground.  Granted, you are connected by a harness, but it still gets your heart racing as you swing or jump across, trying not to look down at possible death below you.  We had no doubt Maren would excel, as this is right in here wheelhouse, but we were both impressed with how well Kieren performed in this challenge.  

After a morning of school, we spent the next afternoon driving up the Going to the Sun Road.  It truly is a white knuckle, sweaty palms climb up to the 6,650 foot Logan Pass on the Continental Divide.  And it didn’t make it any easier driving up the steep, narrow road in a huge dually pickup.  A few times, I literally had to pull as far over to the edge of the cliff to let other cars drive by and there were times I thought our rear fenders may drag against the guardrail or cliffside rocks, but we made it up to the pass, unscathed.  We arrived in the late afternoon as most tourists were leaving, which was perfect timing to catch the late day light and spot a couple of grizzly bears not too far off the trail digging for roots on our hike to Hidden Lake.  It does make you a little nervous seeing these huge bears so close, but my guess is that they see plenty of humans in their habitat up here and are more interested in foraging than chasing down people with large cameras.  

Our last day in Glacier was spent riding our bikes into the park and visiting the Apgar visitor center on the west end.  Facilities in the parks seemed to be very limited right now, although there are a few rangers around to ask questions of, and most exhibits are either very limited or closed. That was the case at Apgar, where the doors were locked with a few rangers stationed outside.  You could spend several weeks in Glacier exploring the backcountry, and we plan to come back but for now it was time to keep heading east.  My guess is that the snow starts to fly here in early October and we have no desire to see how the 5th wheel does in snow, so east towards North Dakota we go.