Blogs from Glacier National Park, Montana, United States, North America - page 2

So I'm catching up...been offline for almost three days. The Many Glacier area is just the place to do that. NO cell reception and the Many Glacier Hotel only had WiFi in the lobby, but it was slower than dial-up. Weird but good to be unplugged for a few days. The hotel is old and charming, but a little on the noisy side. Squeaky floors and you can definitely hear your neighbors. But luckily most people quiet down by 10pm. It's right on the Swiftcurrent lake where you can easily spot moose. We also saw mountain goats up on the hill and some bears. We hiked Apikuni Falls on the way to the hotel, short hike but pretty much straight up. Had a very close encounter with a black bear, which we watched for about 20 ... read more

Mileage 269.6 We didn’t have to pack up the van as usual because we’re staying in the same hotel tonight, so we started out early this morning. Susan’s driving down the road and my GPS has us going a different way than we had planned. So, cutting across multiple lanes of traffic multiple times made us look crazy. But who cares? As we were driving down the road, we saw a guy cutting the grass in the field that was at least as big as a football field with a weed whacker. Seriously, this is when I would buy a lawn mower, not a weed whacker . . . Jerry! We finally made it to the West Gate of Glacier National Park and got on the “Going-to-the-Sun Road”. We drove down the road bordered by trees ... read more

This was our final day at Glacier, so we had to make it count, even though the weather was not taking our last day into consideration. At breakfast we enjoyed conversation with other guests at the Bed and Breakfast and upon their recommendation we decided to go hike the Avalanche Lake Trail. Though we had rather go hike one on the east side of the park, the amount of travel swayed us from that trek. Donald had briefly considered driving to the Yaak Valley area of Montana in search of Tom from the show Mountain Men. He would have loved to have purchased an animal fur that Tom himself had trapped and skinned. But that would have been a 3 hour drive there and a 3 hour drive back, so we stuck with the decision to ... read more

Today we ventured to the East side of the park. Since the Going to the Sun Road is not open yet (due to clearing snow), we were unable to travel through the park to the east side, so we had to go around the park. It was a long drive, but scenic. All along the way, we followed the railroad tracks. The area is very active with trains. We saw train trusses, train bridges, train tunnels through the mountains, cargo trains, Amtrak trains, everything trains. The route took us through a small section of Glacier titled Goat Lick. We stopped to see if any goats were out for they like that area due to the salt content on the mountain side (hence the name) but were not there at the same time as they were. So ... read more

After breakfast and packing (we had to change cabins today..) we drove back to Logan Pass, in the sunshine this time! The morning started out quite cold (38 degrees at the coldest point), so we set out wearing down vests, jackets, and gloves. By the afternoon, I was in a hiking skirt and tank top! The hike to Hidden Lake starts on a boardwalk at over 6000 feet. The boardwalk uses steps to climb steeply and then turns into a trail and climbs up to 7000 feet in the first 1.3 miles! It was hard going at first... The trail is very popular, and there were quite a few people until we reached the overlook, where most turned around. Just before the overlook, a mountain goat joined the hikers, and followed us along. We tried to ... read more