Biking and Hiking in Glacier

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We left our pretty little campground in the woods and traveled about 30 miles East to a town called Kalispell, MT and have set up camp at the Spruce RV Park on the River. It is quite a beautiful view of the mountains and we are right on The Flathead River. The river makes me nervous because there is no bank, it literally drops off into fast moving water. We spent our first day here just setting up camp and Hanna, Brett and Maggie really enjoyed just being able to ride their bikes around and play at a playground on their own. By the way, we also took a trip to town and Maggie finally got the new bike she'd been needed for a long time.
On Sunday we headed back to Glacier National Park to ride the bike trail near Apgar. It was a very warm day, perfect for bike riding. The trail winds thru the park and the Apgar campground and I think we rode about 8 miles before Hanna and Maggie had enough. At one point we passed some walkers who said they had just seen a bear ahead on the trail, out came the bear spray. We all were riding as close together as we could with Aaron in the lead yelling, "Hey Bear!". We never saw him. Secretly I think we all were wishing he'd just ran past on the trail, but probably best he didn't.
After a great picnic lunch on a cliff over looking one of the many river rapids in GNP we hiked the Johns Lake trail. It is a trail used by horseback riders and was about a 3 mile hike. Not much traffic so we were on wildlife alert. Half way thru you come out to a point where you can go right down to the water at the base of the rapids. You do not want to fall in. Everyone had a blast skipping rocks across the river and then a group of horseback riders crossed the bridge above us.
On our way back to camp we decided to drive to a spot called Goat Licking Outlook. We'd been told it was a great spot to watch mountain goats on the cliffs licking mineral salts. Luckily, when we arrived there were some to view. It was quite a distance from the outlook across a deep valley and river, but thru binoculars you get a good view. It is amazing how they can walk on those steep cliffs and make it look easy. A mama and her baby were the highlight until we crossed the road to another view point. Not many people cross over, but they should...we were up close to the goats now. There were at least eight on the other side of the valley and one large goat right next to us. She was eating under the road overpass. At one point when Aaron was taking some pictures she stood up, faced Aaron and stomped her foot. That was our signal to GO!

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