Day 8 - Glacier National Park here we come

Travel   From: Bozeman, Montana   To: Glacier National Park, Montana   Distance: 292 mi (470 km)   Travel time w/brks: 7 hr 06   Distance since start: 2,915 mi (4,687 km)

Wednesday 6/28/2006

We decided to sleep in one more hour on the clock. Given we had also gotten one hour extra from going into Mountain Standard Time, we were able to get up two biological hours later than usual. We stopped at a Flying-J on our way out of Bozeman to top off our tank. I calculated that it would take us quite a while to reach Glacier National Park, but the roads were better than expected for most of the trip. At one point, almost in the middle of nowhere, we even picked up a free WiFi network along the road long enough for me to make a phone call with Skype, while driving!

Windy roads towards Glacier

We drove through a few smaller towns. One of them, Augusta (Montana), looked especially nice. I thought it would have been a nice idea to stop there and take a few pictures. But we were in a bit of a hurry, so we pushed ahead towards Glacier. On our way out of town we saw an Airstream with WBCCI numbers on it and a horse eating grass besides it. It was parked in a field next to a house. We had only gotten a few miles outside of town until the CHECK ENGINE light came on again! This really sucks. I turned around and managed to make it back to town again, where there was a single garage. They were especially helpful and replaced the filter for us very quickly. Almost at NASCAR speed. We were back on the road again in 40 minutes. The sad part is that we only managed about 900 miles on this filter (from Valley City).

Getting another dirty diesel filter changed, here in Augusta Montana

The rest of the road up to Glacier was windy. Just before getting into Glacier the road passes through a Blackfoot Native American reservation. We stopped in their town of Browning to top off the fuel tank. We then headed towards Glacier as fast as we could. The road from Browning up to Glacier is very windy and goes though plenty of rolling hills, climbing to over 5,000ft (1,500m). The Duramax diesel does a great job. When we got up to Glacier, I bought an annual pass to US National parks, since we'll be going through a few more. We got a great campsite with a good view. But this is boon docking, which means we have no hookups. We had prepared by adding water in Bozeman.

Tough view from the camper..

Since we had already lost one day of our stay here due to the unexpected camping in Valley City, North Dakota, we felt somewhat pressed to take advantage of the little time we had here at Glacier. The original plan was to have one full day just for exploration. Now we only had one afternoon. We were able to unhook by about 1:30pm. Shortly thereafter we headed out for some exploration. Our campground is located in a very strategic place, near the base of the road that crosses over the middle of Glacier NP. We headed towards Logan Pass. First we stopped at the big lake below us, to take a picture of the kids posing.

The kids posing before St Mary Lake at Glacier

We then continued up the windy road to Logan Pass, at 6,600ft (2,200m). This is where were were able to put our hands on some real glaciers. There is a visitors station up there and there are paths up into the snow that you can follow. At first, we just walked up a short distance to see what it was like. Both Erik and I wore sandals, not exactly the most ideal footwear to hike in wet snow. Erik then decided he wanted to run up along the glacier to get a better view. Soon, Karl wanted to do something similar. When both of them came down; Karl was tired. Isabella was also a bit tired and was not too keen to do anything but go back to the truck. But I insisted and we tried a longer hike up.

First dash: after walking for 20 minutes in the snow with sandals and no socks, Erik tries to warm his toes

Climbing the glacier at Logan Pass Karl reluctantly came along at first .. do I have to go?

Full of energy, Erik climbs up high above us and tries something new: riding on his ass

It took about 40 minutes to get to the top, where we first saw a smaller lake and then a very large glacial lake. It was very rewarding. The temperature was about 68F (20C) and very comfortable. There was a steady breeze.

Karl and I pose at the top of the hike (big glacial lake in the background)

We spot a mountain goat grazing on our way back down at the "little lake"

When we returned towards the parking lot at Logan Pass we saw a few more interesting things.

A thought-to-be mink playing in the snow turned out to be a "long tailed weasel"

A big horn sheep (aka Ram) shows up in the parking lot at 6,600 ft

Small reminder about taking it easy.. we especially like the "KILLED" part ..

We drove back to the campground where Erik prepared Rigatoni with tomato and basil sauce. Karl topped off the evening by playing a bit with his cars, outside the trailer.

Campground   Name: St Mary, Glacier NP, Montana   Our hookups: none   WiFi: No   GSM service: No   TV Channels: No   Cost: $17/night (ended up paying for two nights of which we missed out on one)   Reservation mode: Reserve America's web site

[Next day] [Previous Day] [Main] [Summary]

All pictures (c) 2006 Hamnqvist, Background features yellow flowes that grew near the glacier area.