Glacier National Peace Park

We left for Glacier after our visit to Craters of the Moon. Somewhere south of Flathead Lake, the road narrowed to a two lane highway that was under construction. Despite the remote location, there was a long line of traffic, and progress was slow. It was at this point that I realized I had to go to the bathroom, which was made more urgent by the in-progress road, which had many sections of bumpy gravel. After trying to hold out for half an hour I spotted an office building complex in the night, and I was more than willing to go behind it to relieve myself. Unfortunately, there were some active lawn sprinklers to dodge, and in the wet grass I twisted my ankle, but it was worth it. Later on, we saw fire blazing up in the mountains, like rivulet of lava on the mountain's side. We finally arrived at the southern edge of Flathead Lake, where we stopped for the night.

We woke up early on the third day, and drove north along Flathead Lake, entering the park around 8:00 am at West Glacier. Here we turned our tires onto the Going to the Sun Road, the only road that runs through the park, and an engineering feat of its time. Our first stop was at the Avalanche Lake/Trail of Cedars trail. Half of the Trail of Cedars loop was closed, but we were able to access the Avalanche Lake trail at the back of the loop. Because we were up early, this trail wasn't too busy (it is one of the most popular trails in the park) and was pretty peaceful. The forest is cool and dark, and the sunlight coming through the trees made the whole place something out of a fairy tale. There were squirrels and chipmunks everywhere, and spider webs strung between the trees. The trail follows a perfectly clear stream to the lake. We were running a little bit behind due to my injured ankle, and we made a decision to stop short of actually reaching Avalanche Lake to make sure that we could stay on track for all the other trails we had planned to hike that day. After leaving that trail we headed to Logan Pass visitors center to hike the Hidden Lake Trail. When we arrived, the parking lot was very full, and it took us some time to find a parking spot, which required us to use all the people stalking skills we learned from tying to park on campus in college. Once we were parked, we took a little walk through the gift shop, and then headed out the back, taking a boardwalk up the hill.

The hill was steeper than it looked, but it was a beautiful, sound of music kind of place. There were little streams trickling down from the mountain, surround by beautiful, thick beds of flowers. As we reached the top of this rise, some evergreen trees came into view. We saw some ptarmigans nestled against some rocks, taking very good advantage of their summer brown feathers to blend in almost completely. Just a little ways further up we saw our first mountain goats, a mother with her baby. From that point on, along the trail we saw a few here and there resting in the shade. Finally, we reached the crest of the rise, and could see the Hidden Lake below. It was the most beautiful deep blue. The photographs we have do not even come close to doing it justice. While we were enthralled with the lake, squirrels were moving in. We caught them in the act of trying to chew into some one's backpack that they had foolishly left on the ground. While there is a trail leading down to the lake, it looked very long and steep, and we had miles to go… so we turned back for the car, and the next trail, but there was one more surprise for us. From around the bend ahead, and just a little higher up the mountain, came a small herd of big horn sheep. It was 3 females being herded by a male, who chased down one stray and forced her back with the group by giving her a love tap in the rear with his thick skull. They weren't interested in hanging around though, and were quickly out of sight. We passed back by the mother goat and her baby, the mother having left her baby far behind as she headed for the tree line, the baby followed, bleating plaintively. The trip down was a lot easier than the trip up.

We arrived back in the parking lot, which was filling up with the classic red convertible sedans which do driving tours along the famous Going to the Sun road. Greeting new arrivals was a big brown bear. Despite the crowd of people hugging him, and getting their photos taken with him, we were able to get a shot of the only bear we saw here.

After the hike to see hidden lake, we had a lineup of several waterfalls. The first trail took us to St. Mary Falls, actually passing a snake along the way. The falls are beautiful, having carved out its own bowl into the rock. Continuing beyond this is Virginia Falls. Along the way there we encountered a fat toad, right in the middle of the path, who lazily walked his way off into the mossy undergrowth. We reached the falls and found them to be very narrow and high. We then returned back along the trail, and once again the fat toad was in our path. He lazily walked himself out of the way again, and we were free to return to the car, excited as much to have seen 2 reptiles on this trail, which we saw no where else in the park, as we were to have seen the falls. From there it was just a skip to the parking lot for access to Baring falls and Sunrift Gorge. The stream flows through sunrift gorge, a deep and narrow passage way, then curves under the road and over the falls. The trail winds out and back, bringing us finally to the foot of the falls. We spent a significant amount of time resting, and watching an American dipper at the base of this rather small but picturesque fall. The dipper is a small, finch sized bird, which stands on rocks in the rushing stream, and dives into the water, hunting for food. While standing on the rocks, he continually does deep knee bends, bobbing up and down. He was a plain grey/brown color, but provided great entertainment.

After returning to the car, we were finally done hiking for the day, having covered over 9 miles. We then continued east along the going to the sun road, coming into St. Mary, where a forest fire had raged just weeks before. Vast stands of trees were reduced to nothing but blackened posts, but the grass was already spring up green among the wasteland. We stopped briefly to investigate a restaurant, but, though we hadn't eaten much but a few rolls and some nuts all day, we just weren't interested in their menu, or their prices. So we headed on to the tiny town of Babb. Babb consists of a hotel, general store, and cheap diner, all owned by the same people. It also has a dinner club steakhouse, which looked rather frightful: concrete and no windows. We had reservations at the hotel, so we checked in, then quickly decided to head a few miles north over the border to see what food could be had in Carway in Alberta. We had to stop in at the border station, and answer some questions about our intentions, and then we were free to drive on. Once in town, we discovered that there was nothing to eat, as every single restaurant was closed; it was Sunday. We returned dejectedly to Babb, and decided to risk the diner club, which we had been told had good steak, despite its frightening appearance.

Let this be a reminder to never judge a book by its cover. Just inside the entrance was an old fashioned bar, with lots of dark wood, and plush red upholstered swivel bar seats (with back and arm rest). Beyond the bar was a grand spiral staircase, all of wood, winding around the trunk of a tree. Seated at our table above, I couldn't help but admire the huge sculpture that hung out over the room below. It depicted a herd of buffalo being run off a cliff, and appeared to be made of stone. We ordered our somewhat expensive steaks, but were rewarded with some of the largest, and best cuts I've ever had. I had a NY strip that hung off the edges of my plate. The steaks were fantastic and so huge I could only eat half of mine, and I was starving.

Full and happy, we got our left overs to go, hoping for a microwave in the hotel room, which we had not actually been into yet. When we got to the hotel, we didn't find a microwave, but we were too tired to care, and fell into bed.