Hiking in Glacier National Park

The next day I was pretty tired.  We were on the bottom floor of the motel and I could hear the people above me walking around since 3:30AM.  Why anyone would be up that early is beyond me.  I tried to go back to sleep but it wasn't happening.  It didn't matter, I would be going to Glacier National Park and I was stoked!  The only problem, it was drizzling...again!  Okay, we would make the most of it and hope it would pass. 

Glacier National Park is about 30 minutes from Whitefish.  I wanted coffee badly, but we didn't want to stop as we wanted a full day at the park.  It costs about $25.00 to enter but the pass is good for 7 full days so that was cool.  Even though it was overcast, we were going to make the most of it and paid the entrance fee.  We were pretty happy until we saw a sign letting us know that the majority of the Going to the Sun Road was closed as the recent weather had not cause most of the park to be thawed yet.  Again, thwarted by the rain.  That sucked!  Okay, we still were going to make the most of it and pulled into the McDonald Lake Lodge to figure out what we wanted to do which wouldn't be much, unfortunately. 

From nowhere, it began to pour...again!  Things were going downhill quickly, we decided to check out the lodge and make this day work no matter what!  Within 30 minutes the rain had stopped and the clouds began to part.  It was a miracle!  I was really happy as the animal heads in the lodge were freaking me out!

So we headed out and began our first hike.  It was a small trail which was nice, but we wanted more, so we drove up further while I read the literature on bear attacks.  Maybe I would finally get to see a bear!  I soon realized that the trail we were on was too near civilization and wildlife would most likely be further up where we were not allowed to go.  Still, I did end up seeing a squirrel and chipmunk...

This new trail was longer though quite muddy due to the rainfall, but I didn't care, the rain had stopped!  The trail was easy, but great and led up to a beautiful waterfall for those who are more adventurous.  Due to the melting snow the water was raging so I made sure to stay away from the muddy edge, though there were a few crazies jumping around from rock to rock near the edge.  Even though stupid, I have to respect those who don't understand fear!

After our hike and crazy waterfall adventure, we headed up the Going to the Sun Road as it was open a little bit more if you were willing to hike.  We were!  The view was beautiful, but we wanted more so we headed off the beaten track.  Angie was freaked for my life, but I was like a bobcat and kept landing on my feet as I ran down a long ravine and jumped from rock to rock.  Reluctantly, Angie joined me and in the end we both thought it was worth it and decided to hang around the spot for a while.  It was deserted and amazing.  Lesson learned; take the lesser taken road!

Since we couldn't go any further we headed back down to McDonald Lake and spent the rest of our time there gazing out into the pristine lake.   The sun danced on the water, dazzling off of blue and green waves of the purest water.  It was amazing.  We took our time in this area a while to fully take it all in as neither of us had seen water as blue and green as this before except in pictures.

One thing for sure, I will come back to Glacier National Park as I would like to see more of it.  That and I want to take on that 7 mile hike as that is more my style.  Maybe, finally I will see a bear or a moose, anything more than a chipmunk.  Still, it had been a great day with plenty of nature so I was satisfied.

But before leaving the area, Angie and I decided to stop at a local specialty store that sold Huckleberries.  It was a little odd as it had cutouts of celebrities on the front of the store and claimed all the celebrities shopped there.  Angie figured that the chick from Blossom probably showed up once and they ran with the idea.  First off, there was an amazing dog out front.  I figure he was probably about a year old due to how hyper he was.  He went nuts when we came over!  We stayed with this guy for about 15-20 minutes even though he knocked me on my butt a few times.  I was dismayed to see he didn't have any water anywhere. 

Angie suggested we go in the store.  As we entered, we noticed a few people left without buying anything.  I soon understood why!  I had no idea that Huckleberries were apparently so rare that they had to be priced so high.   Everything was so expensive!  We wanted to be polite and buy something, but even a small bag of candy that you could buy anywhere was $10.99 a pound.  Now we understood why the celebrities shopped here, they were the only ones who could afford anything.  So out we left empty handed but not before taking photos with a few "celebrities."  We then decided to eat in Kalispell instead and grab a coffee before heading back out onto the road.  We had a 5 hour drive ahead of us if we wanted to reach Coeur d'Alene by nightfall.

The trip was pretty uneventful until some guy jackknifed in front of us to take a left turn onto the highway even though there was nobody behind us.  We slammed our breaks and tried to keep control of the car.  We honked at the guy but he acted as if we didn't exist; lovely.  We were going about 65 MPH, the speed limit in the area is 70 MPH, I now understood why there were so many white crosses everywhere; we almost became a pair of them.

Luckily, an hour later we reached a river with the greenest water I have ever seen which brought us some tranquility.  We couldn't just drive past it, we had to document it.  If you don't believe me, check out the photos!  They are completely untouched.  Montana was pretty amazing and I was pretty bummed when we crossed back over into Idaho.  I loved Idaho, we just spent more time there than Montana.

Halfway through the drive, we drove back into a rainstorm...again.  By the time we got into Coeur d'Alene it was late so we grabbed a very late dinner before heading back to the room.  Due to the late hour we unfortunately did not play Scrabble...