Glacier National Park - Day 3 (Monday)

Many Glacier Hotel - Runñing Eagle Falls

Another smoke free day! Something to celebrate! Lots of clouds in the sky, though and the wind was whipping. Holy Moly. Breakfast today was a repeat of yesterday. We had the yogurt parfait again even though as chilly as it was, oatmeal sounded good too. We were checked out and on the road by about 8:30, driving the Going to the Sun Road again. We didn't take too many pictures because it was so cloudy, but some of the views were pretty neat because of the clouds. And the tops of the mountains were dusted with snow. So that rain we got last night fell in the form of snow in the upper elevations. Brrrrrr!

Bob had his heart set on hiking the Hidden Falls trail so we pulled in at Logan's Pass where it starts. Hahahaha. I don't know how hard was blowing, but it was wicked. And the temp? LOLOL. Let me just let the photo tell the story. 

And that's the temp not factoring in the wind chill. We decided not to risk pneumonia and got back in the car. Hopefully, we'll have the chance to do that hike another day. Just like yesterday, the sky seemed clearer and bluer in the east. Since the hike didn't pan out we decided to drive to Many Glacier hoping that it would be pretty enough to do a short hike there or get some nice shots at the very least. Yeah well, not so much. As we headed east leaving the park the sky did look better. But then we had to head west again going back into the park to Many Glacier. It's like there was this black cloud over the park. The Many Glacier Lodge is modeled after a Swiss Alps lodge. It was beautiful. And the location? Wow. But the cold temperature and the winds and the clouds made it feel like a winter day at home. We went in the lodge and had lunch. When all else fails, we eat and drink. 

After lunch we drove 89 to 49 to Two Medicine. There were hikes in that area of the park we want to do too. Plus we were still hoping the clouds would go away and show us some blue sky. These roads go through the Blackfeet Indian Reservation. There are cows all over the place. They graze wherever they want to. Right next to the road. And they look at you when you drive past, as if to say, "Whatchoo lookin' at homie?"

The views on 89 were really pretty. The clouds made for some dramatic images. And when we hit 49 things got even more interesting. Glacier is huge and mountains are ginormous and there are so many of them! It's not like there are only a few. It really is mind blowing. And we haven't seen any of them under great circumstances. 

The drive into Two Medicine was equally as beautiful. Here's a view of the lake before we turned back into the park. 

This is the view we'd been seeing on the webcam for the last month or so. Looked pretty much the same. 

Everything is so dry here. All the lakes are dry, the creeks are barely even still creeks. It's just sad. It's hard to believe it's so dry when they routinely get 80' of snow a year. That's a lot of snow. Anyway, there isn't much at Two Medicine - A ranger station, campground and small store. That's about it. We did do a small 1/2 mile roundtrip walk to Running Eagle Falls. We didn't expect much so weren't too disappointed. This one is glacier fed so at least there was something coming out of it. But all in all it was really dry. 

I took these pictures to show the "bridge" you should need to walk across to access the falls. All this rock bed should be covered with water. Instead, we're walking across dry rocks. Crazy, isn't it?

It's around 4:00 so we headed to our hotel. The Dancing Bears Inn. It's a step up from the Lake MacDonald Motor Inn. When Bob made our reservations all the lodges were full so he took what he could get. But now all the lodges have vacancies. Ugh. And we couldn't cancel without losing part if not all of the reservation. It's fine. We're just scoping out where we'll stay next time we come. 

The East Glacier Lodge. Wow. Wow. Wow. Built in 1912 and it is still amazing. Would love to stay here. The support tree trunks used all throughout the lodge weigh 15 tons each. Yeah. Really. Wow. Amazing. I know. I'm repeating myself. Can't help it. So much history in this place. Google it. You'll be amazed too.

We ate dinner in the lounge. I got a Glacier Mojito, made with some kind of huckleberry liqueur. Uh huh. It was good too! Didn't send this one back! 

Bob got a local oatmeal stout he loved. And we both got a chicken salad for dinner. Nice end to the day. 

Quote of the day: Bob was eating and said he needed a FitBit for his arm. Maybe you had to have been there. It was funny at the time. LOL

It's only 10:00 and I'm done with journaling!! Early night tonight!

Glacier National Park - Day 2 (Sunday)

Avalanche Lake

The day dawned overcast and chilly, around 60 degrees. It rained a little bit last night so we had hope the smoke would be on hiatus today. It was. Yah!! We started our morning off with a Greek Yogurt parfait with huckleberries and granola for breakfast. It was soooo good! Came back to the room and made our PBJ sandwiches for lunch and was on the road by 8:00.

Our first stop was Avalanche Lake. Even though it wasn't sunny, it wasn't smoky either so we figured we'd hike down to the lake, supposedly about a 5 mile round trip, fairly easy hike with a nice view at the end. In the parking lot a guy two cars over said something to Bob about the Subaru. He had never driven one before and got it as his rental. He loved it. The conversation went from there and we ended up hiking most of the way with him (Mark) and his 10 year old son, Michah. They were great. Micah was a great kid who just love doing all kinds of things and he certainly was a trooper on this hike. Like Mark said, most of the people you meet hiking are great people because jerks don't usually hike. LOL 

The hike itself was fairly easy, albeit a bit boring. There just wasn't much to look at along the way. When we got to the lake, we could see how under different conditions it would've been incredible. But with the overcast skies and dry season, the water was very low and, while it was pretty it could've been a lot prettier. (You can see the difference in the water level from the photo above.)

We snapped our pictures, rested a bit and headed back. We took a couple of wrong turns - I know, imagine that - and that 5 mile hike turned into a little more. It's all good. 

Back at the car we dove into our PBJ sandwiches and enjoyed sitting down. About noon we started driving the rest of the way down Going to the Sun Road (hey, I didn't name the thing, just journaling about it). Again, we got glimpses of how beautiful this park is. We stopped many times and took lots of shots but with the clouds and no sun, they aren't going to begin to show the majesty that is Glacier.

As we climbed the temperature plummeted. We watched it go from the mid 60's to upper 40's at Logan's Pass, which is about 6200 feet elevation. And the wind was starting to get strong. 

Shortly past Logan's Pass we started seeing patches of blue sky and sunshine!! We got so excited! The more we drove the bluer the sky got! You should've seen us doing the happy dance! As we got closer to Goose Island we saw the remnants of the Reynolds Fire. Wow. It's hard to wrap our brains around the devastation. It was everywhere. And this was a small fire in comparison to the others. 

Of the three fires in the park the Thompson Fire is the largest. The last time we heard a figure on that fire they said it had burned about 16,000 acres. Everyone around here says the only thing that will put them out is winter. Snow. That's what they wait for. Until then it just has to burn. So sad. 

Look at that blue sky!! What a difference it makes!

By the time was got to Goose Island the wind was whipping. At St. Mary's Visitor Center it was probably gusting 35 mph. St. Mary's Lake is on the eastern side of the park. Lake MacDonald, where we are, is on the western side. As we were leaving the visitor's center we felt droplets of rain, and boy could you see it coming. The sky was dark and thick. We barely made it out of there before the bottom fell out. I had said the car needed washing. The rain we got last night made a mess of it, probably from all the smoke in the air. Well, it got washed. We got so excited about the blue sky and sunshine on the way to St. Mary's I had visions of getting all kinds of gorgeous shots on the way back. Nope. Wasn't meant to be. We didn't stop one time. There was quite a bit of traffic on the road. Between the rain and the traffic it took us about an hour to cross the park. 

Back at the room about 3:15, we unloaded the car, unpacked our bags and headed to the lodge. After all, it was pint time!! The lounge was packed so Bob got our beers and we grabbed a spot on the couch in the lobby and started uploading pictures to see if we got anything worth saving. After about an hour we slipped in and got a table so we could eat dinner. Both of us ordered a pasta dish that sounded really good - it was. Then Bob ordered a piece of huckleberry pie for dessert. It also was very good. 

We waddled back to our room, I showered and we went through pictures again. I'm sitting here thoroughly enjoying the sound of rain and a thunderstorm (and snoring) in the background while journaling. Hopefully I'll get to bed a little earlier tonight. Hopefully, this rain will keep the smoke at bay for another day and tomorrow will be bluer and brighter than today. :) 

Glacier National Park - Day 1 (Saturday)

KArrival

(Preface - it's been a dry summer for the northwest. There are fires burning all over Washington and Idaho. A couple of weeks ago Glacier started lighting up as well. We've been keeping track of what's going on, stalking the webcams all over the park, and crossing our fingers things would be better by the time we arrived. Not so much. They've closed many of the hikes around the area and at times even parts of the roads have been closed as well.)

Our morning started in the middle of the night with a 3:15 wake up alarm for a 6am flight. Needless to say, there weren't many cars on the road. The airport was hopping though. Thankfully, both flights were pretty uneventful (our connection was in Chicago - O'Hare). As we got closer to Glacier, we could even smell smoke on the plane. It was pretty eerie. We landed in Kalispell about noon, had the keys to the rental car (a little Subaru XV Crosstrek - Bob was stoked) and our luggage and were on the road by 12:30

It was crazy smoky. You really couldn't see a thing other than maybe a faint outline of some of the mountains. Even though we had been stalking the webcams for the last month and knew it wasn't good, we were still disappointed. But it is what it is and we'll do our best to make the most of it. The lady at Alamo told us we'd find a Super 1 Foods on the way to the park, so we stopped in there to pick up a few items. We were at the entrance to the park by 1:30. 

The smoke wasn't dissipating, it seemed to be getting worse. After having seen the pictures and knowing what it was supposed to look like, it really was deflating to know how much we couldn't see. We passed Apgar Village on the way to Lake MacDonald (which is where we're staying). This is where one of the webcams is located. And yup, it looked just like the images we'd been seeing every day at home. The man at the Visitor's Center said the smoke was mainly from the Washington and Idaho fires, not the Glacier fires. Huh! We hadn't even thought about that. 

We found our way to the Lake MacDonald Motor Inn where we were booked. The lodge was full back in February when Bob was trying to find rooms. So for a couple of nights, this is Home Sweet Home ...

I guess that fan on the wall is our air conditioning. I ask Bob if he'd mount it on the ceiling song could have a ceiling fan. I suffered. No fan. 

After checking into our room at about 3pm, we headed to the lounge at the lodge for an adult beverage. And it went down real smooooooth. Since we hadn't had lunch we thought it smart to order a little to nibble on to tide us over until dinner. The beer was a Scotch Ale that even I liked. Our appetizer was some toasted baguettes, celery and carrot sticks served with a salmon dip. Yummm, it all hit the spot.

We walked down to the lake for a view and could tell it would've been gorgeous ... if you could see anything. You could barely see across the lake. There's hope that we'll get some rain tonight and wash the smoke away, even temporarily. We'll take what we can get. Supposedly, there's even more of a chance of rain tomorrow. As I'm sitting here writing I just heard some rain for a few minutes. I sure hope we get more than that. 

We went back to the room and chilled until we got to close to falling asleep and ventured out to the lodge again. Even though we really weren't hungry yet, we figured we'd walk over and see how long the wait for the main restaurant was. Forty-five minutes, so we put our name down. It ended up being only about twenty-five minutes. Not too bad. There are plenty of people here, but it doesn't seem to be too crowded.

I ordered a Huckleberry Smash (Huckleberries are big around here! They have huckleberry everything!) and Bob stuck with the Scotch Ale from earlier. Our server promised if I didn't like it I could send it back so I stepped outside my box and went for it. Eh. I sent it back. LOL. It really didn't have much flavor and what flavor it did have needed to be a little sweeter. I don't like sweet drinks, but I don't want to pucker up when enjoying one either. 

I continued my out of the box ordering by choosing a Black Bean Burger for my entree. Bob followed the outside the box movement by going for the bison meatloaf, which came highly recommended. My burger was good. Not great but ok. I'll try something else next time. My burger was better than Bob's meatloaf. Not what we were expecting. Oh well, you live and learn, right?

The sun wanted so badly to come out and put on a show for us. It kept trying to peek through all the smoke and clouds. People were walking around with cameras like there was actually something to take a picture of! I didn't get it. What I was seeing wasn't worthy of me dragging my camera out. I just popped out my iPhone and was done with it. 

There were two couples sitting at the table behind us. Bob thought he heard the lady mention Virginia Beach. So at some point he turned around and asked her if that's what she said. Would you believe one of the couples lives on Sandbridge Road, about a mile from us? And the other couple lives in Kempsville? Holy cow it's a small world. They're on a bus trip together that does a loop from Calgary. They said the smoke has been on again, off again. They've had some good days and some decent mornings. There is hope.

After dinner we walked back down to the lake. Amazingly, we saw patches of blue sky and some clouds. Major improvement. Crossing our fingers tomorrow is better. Came back to the room, packed our backpacks, cleaned camera lenses and have a plan for tomorrow. 

Of course Bob is snoring while I'm journaling. Life is good. And I'm out. Been up about twenty hours. I'm done. 

Night.