Glacier National Park, Montana (and Canada!)

Montana...never gave it much thought, but I'm GLAD Duane did (he's wanted to go for many, many years) because it's a REALLY cool place!!!

We flew out on Thursday night (after a two hour delay...leaving at 11:30 p.m. instead of 9:30, and arriving at 2:30 a.m...ugh!). We checked in at the Holiday Inn Express in Kalispell, MT (a FABULOUS new, clean, nice place!), and went DIRECTLY to bed!

Friday morning, we got up, and headed to Glacier National Park. What can I say about Glacier, except...WOW! What a TRULY amazing place!

We started with a visit to the Canada Visitor's Center, just inside the West Glacier park area. We were planning on going into Canada during our stay, so it was a good place to gather information.

After the visitors center, we sat in line for AWHILE at the entrance to the park. It was WAY less crowded than we thought it was going to be, but the line was still REALLY slow!!!

After paying the admission fee, we headed to Apgar Village to look around. Lake McDonald is on the edge of the village, and it was BREATHTAKINGLY beautiful. The following photos are at the lake...

After looking around the village, we parked the rental car at the transit center, and took the shuttle to Logan Pass. The park has shuttles that stop at all of the major destinations throughout the park, and it's been REALLY great at keeping traffic congestion down.

It was DELIGHTFUL to not have to navigate the windy roads, and let the shuttle driver worry about it! The only down side was that we couldn't stop to take pictures between destinations. We DID get a few shots through the shuttle windows, but they ended up being "filtered" through a window, and didn't turn out as nice as they could have.

Once we got to Logan Pass, we decided to take the boardwalk to Hidden Lake. I say boardwalk a little hesitantly, because most of it was still buried under snow, and we only got to use the actual "boards" for a very brief part of the journey...MOST of the REALLY LONG trek to the lake was on snowpack (in tennis shoes with VERY little traction, it turns out!!!).

We saw some AMAZING scenery, got to witness mountain goats UP CLOSE AND PERSONAL, saw a hairy marmoset (I THINK that's what it was called), and got some GREAT exercise...

the hairy marmoset...cute little guy...

After spending the day in the park, we headed back to Kalispell, had dinner at a great little restaurant called Jagz (I had the cajun pork chop, but was a little unnerved when the waitress asked how I wanted it cooked...I didn't know you HAD an option for pork. My answer: "done please!").

After dinner, we headed back to the hotel and went to bed...we were TIRED!!!!

Saturday morning, we got up, and head towards East Glacier. We drove, and drove, and drove, and drove, taking in GORGEOUS scenery, and continued on to Canada (luckily, we had our passports!).

We stopped to take lots of photos along the way, and I had to mail a package in Essex (I FINALLY found some of the zesty "Some Dude's Fry Sauce", which I've been looking for at various grocery stores across the midwest since finding it a couple of years ago in North Dakota).

UNFORTUNATELY, trying to mail it was a bit of a FIASCO...couldn't find a post office that was open at the times we were traveling north AND, it turns out, they were all closed anyway because Saturday was Independence Day.

LUCKILY, a girl in the post office/restaurant/local gift shop let me leave money, and she said she'd mail it out today (Monday). We'll see if the package actually gets here, but I have HIGH HOPES!!!

Turns out the Isaac Walton Inn is located in Essex, and, while we were trying to find the post office, ran across it...COOL OLD LODGE-Y place, that we would not have explored, had we not been on the "mailing the fry sauce mission"...!

After Essex, we found a COOL "pull off" where a couple of rafters were putting their raft in the water. It was a GREAT "photo op"...

We finally made it to East Glacier, and stopped to explore the Glacier Park Lodge, and had lunch at the Whistle Stop Cafe. I had the bbq-ed chicken, and even got the following message in bbq sauce...how patriotic!!!

After East Glacier, we continued on to Canada... Here's some of the scenery along the way...

Most of the journey was GORGEOUS, but, throughout the trip, we did see the remains of several forest fires (the fire in the following pictures happened about four years ago...), and an avalanche that took out a HUGE swath of trees and vegetation last year.

burned pine cones on the ground at the edge of the burn area...

Just before we reached the border, we came across Chief Mountain...what a COOL and majestic place!

Before we hit the border, we had stopped to take a picture of the following sign. A guy was riding by on a bicycle, and, it turns out, he was riding from Alaska to Washington state, via Montana (the long route??). He took the following photo for us...

Once we got to Canada, we headed to Waterton to have "high tea" at the Prince of Wales Hotel. What a COOL place! Very old, very ornate, and very beautiful!

"high tea" for Duane!

"high tea" for me!!

Jeff and Duane enjoying an AMAZING "high tea"!!!

the view from the hotel

After tea, we looked around Waterton, and stopped at Cameron Falls...very pretty!

We continued to look around Waterton...the next couple of shots are from the edge of the lake...

After exploring Waterton, we headed to Red Rock Canyon to look around. It was very crowded, but the rock formations were GORGEOUS. It was odd...not much red rock until you GET to the canyon, then it's VERY red...

After Red Rock Canyon, we headed back to Montana. The journey back was a little harrowing, as we had to head back on the OTHER side of the road on which we journeyed north. Not a big deal, except that there were NO guard rails, and no "other side of the road" between our car and LONG, treacherous embankments.

Duane did ALL of the driving, but just couldn't deal with the closeness of the "plunge", so I took over. Funny...I'm TOTALLY afraid of heights, but wasn't concerned about the "yawning chasms" just next to our car. Duane, however, was close to having a nervous breakdown...poor guy!

We got back to Kalispell around 10:00, and got to watch various fireworks displays from our hotel room window. Fireworks are big business in Montana (stands set up all over the place to sell them), so there were LOTS of displays to watch....very pretty!

Sunday was "we have to leave" day, so we packed up our stuff, loaded the rental car, and headed back to West Glacier for quick stops at some of the vistas we saw from the shuttle on our first day there.

We were PARTICULARLY taken by the river that ran down through the park. The water was "glacier green", and was so clear and colorful. The following shots are of Lake McDonald, and the river that feeds into it from further up in the mountains...VERY BEAUTIFUL!!!

rocks underwater in lake McDonald...VERY clear and clean!

Glacier National Park (and Kalispell, the eastern edge of the park, and Canada) were BEAUTIFUL, RUGGED, and AWESOME! There's still a HUGE chunk of the park that we didn't get a chance to see, and we DIDN'T get a chance to ride the "red buses", so, I think we're going to have to go BACK to Montana again to do so! What an amazing place!

Hope YOU were able to visit somewhere majestic and GORGEOUS too!