Glacier National Park

As I write this, I'm sitting at my sister's kitchen table, and dressed in something other than jeans!  It's the first time I've been inside a house in 8 weeks, and it feels kind of good, but also odd.  As I read my last post on the Canadian Parks, I realized how bad it was – I sounded angry and defensive, and I'm truly sorry. I'm going to edit that post when I get home.

Anyway, Glacier.  What a park!! It's one of the older ones, and one of the most beautiful I've seen.  After a drive from Banff across the border into Montana, the scenery changed from mountains to flat plains, with a lot of crops showing yellow along the road – both sides of the road. I think it's canola but I'm not sure. But soon I began to see mountains in the west, and before long they were really prominent. I loved the shape of that square one kind of in the middle, and watched it for a long way.  Never did find out what it is called, or how it got that way, but perhaps some more research  will answer that question.

I got there in time to get one of the last camping spots (lucky me!!) and also in time to see the most famous part of Glacier – the Going to the Sun Road. Since it was only about 1 PM, I had plenty of time to drive it both ways (which altered my plan for coming home a bit, but that's the beauty of not having a schedule or commitments).  This is a drive across the park; I'd heard that it was prettiest from East to West, and I would have to agree with that, but driving it both ways (which took about 5-6 hours) made it so that I got the best of both worlds.  The views are beautiful and a lot of people were enjoying them on that day (Monday, July 15). 

The crowd in Glacier (this was about half -- there were an equal number on the other side of me)

There was even some wildlife at the campground.  I took this as I was cooking dinner.

I said before that some of my favorite photos are the "wet" ones, and on the West side of the crest, the road ran alongside a creek.  There was road construction and a lot of the pulloffs were closed, but I managed to find one that wasn't and took a couple of pictures.

There was a ranger presentation that evening on fire that I attended, and learned a few things. Did you know that after a forest fire, some of the first wildlife to return are woodpeckers?  I didn't know that, but apparently they find lots of bugs in the singed trees (someone called them barbequed beetles!!) and they are very happy campers! 

The next morning I woke up and knew it was time to start home in earnest.  I was ready.  But another part of Glacier had tickled my imagination – the part called the Running Eagle Falls trail. It was listed as an easy hike, and I was game. It was 30 miles from the main west entrance, on a steep winding road (another of those that I assumed would be flat – ha!!) but so worth the effort it took to get there. I'd never seen a falls that looked like this one, coming from behind a cliff.  It was really fantastic to see – especially the rock arch in front of it that looked like it was sagging.  The creek it ran into provided the opportunity for more of those "wet" pictures I love so much.

Along the trail

Running Eagle Falls

After this stop, it was on to Livingston Montana for the night, a town just a little north of Yellowstone.  The plan was to drive through Yellowstone, not stopping, and get to somewhere along I­-90 in Wyoming for the night, making an easy day to my sister's house in Fountain, CO.  Ha – the joke is on me. Who can drive through Yellowstone without stopping? But that's a story for another day!