Blogs from Montana, United States, North America - page 5

In case you are looking for places to eat while in Glacier National Park here are the places we went: 1) Waterton - Prince of Wales hotel dining room. You don't need to be a hotel guest to dine there. The food was good. We did have the best pancakes ever, so try those. 2) Waterton - Lakeside Chophouse. Ate there twice. Nice selection of local beers. Bison Reuben was yummy. Also had spaghetti with a white truffle cream sauce and short ribs, both were delicious. 3) St Mary Lodge dining room - looked basic, but had good fish tacos and bison meatloaf 4) Many Glacier hotel dining room - great cocktails and HUGE desserts 5) West Glacier - Glacier Highlands restaurant. Another place with a good selection of local beer and wonderful pies! Chocolate banana ... read more

We stayed one night at the Village Inn at Apgar. Very cute, decorated retro 1960s. Right on Lake McDonald. You can see in the picture on the left and towards the center some of the smoke plumes from the fires. All hiking in the Lake McDonald area is still closed. We are hopeful that by the end of our trip we might get in there. We are now staying at the Cedar Creek Lodge in Columbia Falls. After a full week of small rooms, double beds and cruise-ship sized showers, this room seems HUGE. Two queens and a full shower/tub. You have to sacrifice charm for modern amenities. Oh the things we get used to in our daily lives. It is nice that there is onsite laundry because after a week of hiking my suitcase is ... read more

Hiked to Grinnell Lake this morning. Decent length , 3.6 miles (one way)but fairly flat. Quite windy again today. Saw a moose! Also hiked to Red Rock Falls (1.9 miles one way) a bit uphill. And yes, the rocks are red.... read more

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

We left Denali and drove north to Fairbanks, hoping for clear skies so we could see the northern lights. Not – clouds and rain again. I doubt we’ll do this long drive again, but given enough time and resources, I’d like to fly up here in the winter, as Fairbanks is one of the best places to see the aurora borealis. I have a very short bucket list, but seeing them is on it. About Fairbanks: we talked to a waitress who said, “It’s not the 40 below temps; it’s the darkness. We only get 3-4 hours of light each day.” Fairbanks was as far north as we got on this trip, after we eliminated the Dempster Highway from our plan. (Oh, by the way, we checked the weather during the two weeks we were going ... read more