Glacial Goodness

4 nights in this Glacier-Waterton International Peace Park was a nice respite from our usual pack-up-and-go way of life this past month. The scenes here are outrageously gorgeous causing you to have to blink to make sure they’re real and not just your imagination – though I’m not sure I could dream up even this beauty. God is so masterful!

It was nice to spend a night with my husband’s hospitable uncle and aunt in Bozeman, Montana on our way further north from Yellowstone to Glacier. His uncle recently retired from the amazing job of smoke-jumping where he parachuted downwind of fires to fight fire with fire. Crazy job with crazy stories. I wish we could have learned more from him. Beautiful place out there.

We stayed at Glacier Campground in West Glacier near the Apgar entrance of Glacier National Park. It was a convenient scooter jaunt to the entrance and is the western hub of the park. West Glacier is a quaint little village and had a cute little cafe that we ate at twice for nourishment before hitting the trails and provided us with our huckleberry floats and shakes and delicious huckleberry pancakes.

On our first full day there we decided to tackle the most spectacular highway in America, the Going to the Sun Road, on our scooters and it worked out pretty well. Not only were we able to park in the busy parking lots but we were also able to take some of the turns faster than the cars and not hold up traffic like our 35 mph pace tends to do sometimes. Overall, it was one of the most fun trips on the scooter to-date as we wound through the mountains but didn’t have to battle a steep grade uphill and the road was relatively flat the whole way.

We stopped for a couple hikes along the way as well as a few overlooks. After skirting along Lake Macdonald we stopped at the Avalanche trailhead and walked the boardwalk through the peaceful 500-year-old red cedar forrest on the Trail of the Cedars.

This took us past the gorgeous aqua and emerald waters of Avalanche Gorge and the trailhead to Avalanche Lake which we hiked a couple days later.

Back on the scooters, the road gave way to sweeping views of mountains as we turned the only switchback at The Loop and climbed our way to Logan’s Pass. On the way back west through the park we stopped here to hike up to Hidden Lake which was a gorgeous little oasis with mountain goats walking along side us some of the way (actually making us jump off the trail to side-step him). The wildflowers were mesmerizing, the mountain air intoxicating, and the end view unbelievable with Bearhat Mountain overlooking the lake behind it.

Sun Point gave us a good iconic view of St. Mary’s Lake and the last leg of the road through the prairie allowed us to loosen our grip on the handlebars. After lunching in St. Mary and enjoying some huckleberry ice cream we made the 50-mile return trip back to Apgar stopping at Logan Pass to hike the Hidden Lake trail, the Jackson Glacier Overlook and at the Sacred Dancing Cascades to view part of the blue rapids that swirled over colorful rocks.

That day we also stopped at the backcountry permit center and bought a backcountry permit to backpack to Akokala Lake for a night and then a night up on Kintla Lake in the more northern part of the park. We learned that to do a multiple-day hiking excursion in the back country (in the more scenic places anyway) you have to plan this several months in advance as the open campsites were not in consecutive order on the trail. We had to watch a 20-minute safety video (basically what to do if a bear attacks) before they would grant you a permit.

We found out that the road up to the northwest side of the park was mostly gravel and not scooter-friendly. I battled through the large rocks and huge potholes, sometimes at 5 mph, and 2 hours later reached my destination after 30 miles to Bowman Lake just north of the dinky town of Polebridge. Since the ride up was so rigorous and the pack on my back was a bit heavy giving me some back strain, we decided not to hike up to Akokala Lake and instead pitched a tent on the front country campsite near Bowman Lake and enjoyed the views including a walk up the Bowman Lake Trail 6 miles up and back in grizzly country. I was too cheap to buy or rent the $60 can of bear spray and instead thought I could poke out the bear’s eyes out with a buck knife if need be (this was not in the instructional video).

The morning light on the lake the next day was magical.

But the ride back to West Glacier was perhaps more miserable as it was so cold even with a jacket, pants and gloves. A 20-minute hot shower back at the campsite never felt so good and needed. My core temp was probably a few degrees lower than it should have been as I also felt a bit sluggish for awhile.

That day we also decided that an extra 15-miles up to Kintla Lake was not worth the effort and agreed that if we are to try to back country camp again up there we should have a little more sturdy vehicle and prep for our permits ahead of time. Still, I’m pretty proud of my trusty little scooter as it got me back safely in spite of the skeptical look of the Polebridge park ranger.

So instead we opted for a more leisurely tour boat ride on Lake MacDonald and then a much recommended hike up to Avalanche Lake. On the boat tour we had a remarkably sharp and funny 93-year-old ranger who gave us the tour and had been working at the park since the 1960s! The park is now down to 30 active glaciers and all are expected to be gone by 2030. The horizon was hazy as there were fires in Saskatchewan.

The rest of the afternoon was spent hiking up to Avalanche Lake which was incredible. It was one of those places that you knew you were going to miss as you were actually living in the moment. The distant sounds of the waterfalls thundering down the cliff and into the lake was awesome and the water was so clear.

On the way back we just missed a grizzly sow and her 3 cubs who held up some hikers on the trail as a flushed-face woman hurriedly told us a few minutes after it happened. She asked if we had bear spray and you know the answer to that. I patted my pocket – not even a buck knife. I was bummed that my husband had to make a pit stop, otherwise we maybe would have seen them. As there were not a lot of additional hikers in the trail since it was late afternoon, we continued on our way and clapped and shouted every couple hundred feet – unfortunately no more grizzly sightings.

The last day we were sad to go and leave this serene beauty behind. My sweet husband agreed to pack up the campsite and do some scooter maintenance while I went on a short hike and 2-hour trail ride around the Upper McDonald Creek. The hiking trail was a slightly different route than the horse trail loop so it was neat to see it from different perspectives. My horse was named Robert J. Halfnick and he was a sure-footed and responsive horse and the ride was dusty but pleasant.

McDonald Falls:

We better be back since I still want to catch a grizzly sighting in the wild and try our hand at some backcountry camping since this place is a backpackers paradise with unbeatable views. Tent-camping also makes me appreciate our stiff RV mattress a little more.