We woke up bright and early with a plan to see as much of Glacier National Park as we could before we headed on to Coeur d' Alene and our dear friends, the Staples.
We were staying on the western side of Glacier, but still needed to explore The Road to the Sun. So after a brief stop at the Visitor Center, we started on the Road to the Sun and the many stops and turnouts along the way.
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| Lake McDonald Lodge |
First stop was Lake McDonald Lodge. It was a gorgeous building with Swiss Chalet architecture that looked like a hunting lodge on the inside. It sat right on the lake and there was a back porch with chairs and rockers for hotel guests to sit and look out on the lake. This historic building would be a great place to stay in the lap of luxury.
Next stop was a view of Heaven's Peak as we continued to climb up and up in elevation. We drove through several tunnels and took a hairpin turn called The Loop and then we were driving on the other side of the mountain and the edge of the cliff had switched to the right hand side. All of the guardrails were made from blocks of the naturally occurring stone. When the road was first built, the builders wanted the road to look like and come from the mountain as much as possible.
As we drove up past the tree line, we made another stop at Oberlin Bend where there is a mountain goat study area. We saw one goat who was hanging out in the thicket and seemed happy to model for us gawking tourists, and just down the road was a cool waterfall where we became the models and took advantage of the photo op.
We arrived at Logan's Pass which was on the Continental Divide. We checked the time and decided to continue on, and began the descent down toward the east side. Although there were many turnouts and beautiful outlooks, we waited before stopping again until we came upon another waterfall that ran under the road before. It was called Lunch Creek and the waterfall consisted of flat stones that formed a natural staircase, On the other side of the road along the creek were wide flat rocks where you could easily have a picnic lunch. The rocks were tempting, so we began climbing up the rocks next to the waterfall which was a lot of fun.
Further down the mountain, we pulled over to view Jackson Glacier which is the only glacier you can see from The Going to the Sun Road. It was hard to delineate the glacier since there was still snow around it. But with some careful study, you could see the sections of ice coming over the mountain. The sign said that the actual glacier is melting and they showed two photos one from 1850 and another more recent and you can see how much has disappeared. Based on the current pattern, they expect all of the glaciers to be gone by 2030 which means the ecosystem will change and of course so will the park. I think it will be interesting for the boys to remember back and perhaps share with their own children what the park was like when the glaciers were still there.
Our final stop was St. Mary Falls which was less than a mile hike down to a lake and a stunning blue-green waterfall. The hike was fairly easy, but it was also disconcerting to see the sign posted stating that we were entering Grizzly Bear country. We made sure we had our trusty bear spray! The hike was shady as we walked between the trees, and multi-colored rocks. We saw different shades of purple, red and green rocks. It was just lovely.
We were close to the east end of the road and so we powered through to the Visitor Center at St. Mary. By the time we left the park, it was 1:00 and we were now on the wrong side of the park since our goal was to head west to Coeur d'Alene. We began the journey south toward Browning which was the same town we had changed our minds at the night before. The weather was gorgeous and it was a much better drive in the sunlight than it would have been in the fog. It took about an hour to get to Browning, and then we proceeded for the next four hours to drive in a zig zag motion on seven different state highways to finally reach Interstate 90.
The next two hours were spent driving on the I-90 into Coeur d'Alene. Most of the time spent in the park and on the road to and from the park were outside of any cell signal, but once we crossed the river over into city outskirts, 4G returned and my phone began ringing with all of the notifications from the past 24 hours. We arrived at Donn and Susan's home and their four adult sons and families were there to greet us and eat a great meal of Papa Murphy's pizza. Donn and Susan have 10 grand children ranging from 9 months to 10 years old (basically one per year). It was so much fun seeing and meeting some of them for the very first time. I went to bed with sweet contentment as I looked forward to the next day spent with this gracious family.
For another perspective:
With our tummies full and satisfied, we went back to their house. Alex always has a new game to introduce to us, and this one was a bit complicated but still fun. It is based on the show Firefly. We all had to make friends and make money while avoiding the Reavers and the Alliance. Both Joe and I like this cult T.V. show, but Zach is the biggest fan and he would have loved the game. Alex will probably come down our way one more time before summer ends, and he promised to bring the game so Zach can play it too.
