Dave and Sandy On The Road: Glacier National Park

8-22-12 to 8-23-12

On Wednesday the 22nd we drove from Lewistown, MT to St Mary, MT which is the east entrance to Glacier National Park.

After crossing the seemingly endless expanses of Montana, we got our first look of the Rocky Mountains before we got to Browning, MT.

This time we decided to stay at a KOA campground in St Mary, MT on the east side of Glacier NP. I won’t mention how much it cost to stay here per night, but we could have stayed in the last campground for 2 weeks. We will be staying here for 3 nights to explore the area on the motorcycle.

Here is the trike, trailer and motorhome at the KOA.

Today, Thursday the 23rd,we rode the trike over and back on the “Going-to-the-Sun-Road” in Glacier National Park. This is a 50 mile road that runs from St Mary on the east to West Glacier on the west side. Glacier National park was established in 1910.

This is a view as we traveled west along St Mary Lake in the morning.

Sandy quote- “One thing about riding on the motorcycle is you can smell the fresh clean pine- scented air while you ride through the forests”. I won’t make a lot of commentary on the pictures of the mountains as it would get boring when I keep repeating how “Grand and Magnificent” these Rocky Mountains are…. not that our Blog is earth shatteringly stimulating to begin with.

If you want your children and grandchildren to see any glaciers like this, you better tell them to get on the road now. There were approximately 150 glaciers here in 1850, now only about 26 remain. These glaciers are predicted to be gone by 2030. I won’t get into the politics of “global warming” as I believe in global climate change because this area had 5,000 foot thick glaciers 12,000 years ago.

Logan Pass can get up to 80 feet of snow over winter and it may take 10 weeks to clear the road for traffic.

Now how far did you say this path goes? You could only go 1.5 miles to the Hidden Lake Lookout at Logan Pass. After that, the trail was closed because of grizzly bear sightings. The boardwalk has been installed to keep people from tramping across the fragile alpine landscape.

So far this Columbian Ground Squirrel has been the only wildlife we have seen in the park.

“Going-to-the-Sun Road” was originally completed in 1932 and was built to accommodate vehicles of that era. Vehicles over 21 feet long are prohibited. A portion of the road is undergoing major renovation. We had to wait over half an hour for the pilot car. While waiting we met a couple (Noel and Sandy) from Mountain View, Alberta, Canada, which is just north of the park. They were headed to Kalispell where they have a cabin. While Sandy took this picture of Sandy I was getting advice from Noel about driving along the east side of Flathead Lake south of Kalispell. He said it’s like driving through an area in 1950. He said they still put the hay up in round stacks rather than using a baler.

We started today’s excursion at 8:40 and it still took us until noon to get to the Lake McDonald Lodge where we had lunch. This view of the beautiful lodge is from the street side. The historic lodge was built in 1913 and at that time the only way to get to it was by boat until the “Going-To-The-Sun-Road” was completed. While inside eating lunch Sandy said this place reminded her of the movie “The Shining”.