Blogs from Glacier National Park, Montana, United States, North America - page 7

August 12th, 2011 Friday Apgar Campground, Glacier National Park, MT. Staying in the campground today so ending mileage is still 14838. Declared it a down day. We stayed in camp and worked on blog. Napped and read. Also spent time looking at maps and tour books planning what we were going to do next. Jim and Dianne were planning on heading due south to Yellowstone National Park. We had thought to tag along, but that would put us further south and the weather forecasts showed very hot temperatures going east from that area. We had also been through that same area several times in the past. We made the decision then to leave on Sunday and to continue east from where we were along highway 2 and then down into Great Falls, MT. We had noted ... read more

Geo: 48.6829, -113.799I graduated college in December of 2002 (good lord). Although I had a great internship that would surely turn in to a great career, I had two goals at the time: to attend some sort of Bible school, and to travel overseas. I killed two birds with one stone and attended Capernwray Bible School in New Zealand. I lived there for 6 months and a day. It was a 10-week semester, then a 2-week break, followed by another 10-week semester. I tagged about a month on to the end of the trip purely to travel. During the first 6-weeks of the second semester was an option called Adventure Bible School. This program centered around the outdoors - hiking, biking, sea kayaking, white water kayaking, white water rafting, spelunking, rock climbing - a pretty physically ... read more

"... Where the sun don't ever shine, I shiver'd the whole night through." Being able to tell a tetradonta from a miniata or even a black wattle from an elephant ear is not much use to you in this part of the world. This part of the North American continent is full of what we have been happily calling 'pine' trees. We were wrong of course but that hasn't diminished the enjoyment of travelling through some magnificent forests. The placement of these trees on spectacular mountains in beautiful valleys along rippling creeks and rivers full of water and running strong in the middle of summer doesn't hurt. Neither does putting a road through them with plenty of 'pull outs' so that you can stop for photos. It would really have been good to be able to ... read more

July 21 Glacier National Park Thursday we headed up to Whitefish MT. It is a small town near Glacier National Park and is popular both for summer activities and also skiing etc. in the winter. There must be lot’s of money in this town because there were numerous banks. We did a partial drive through Glacier Park which is essentially one road.The scenery is gorgeous. Dinner was at “Pescado Blanco” a “mountain Mexican” place. We had never heard this term before but it is an upscale Mexican-Latin place that combines meats of the mountains (elk, bison, pheasant) with Mexican and other Latin cuisines. We had the elk burritos which were delicious. ... read more

Luck is on our side. Our itinerary was based on going across Glacier National Park on the Going to the Sun Road, one of the most beautiful drives in the world. It is almost always open by July 1, and it never occurred to me when planning that it would not be open when we arrived to traverse it on July 13. The unusually heavy snows had presented unusual challenges in plowing, and it was a close thing. Where it crosses the Continental Divide at Logan Pass and just to the east, the snow cam top 80' or more. It opened today for the first time this year. We were following the news with some anxiety until the last minute. It generally opens in early June, and today is the latest opening ever. The road cuts ... read more