After Seattle, our next stop was Glacier National Park where we hoped to camp… weather permitting of course. It did not.
Starting off on the drive around 5:30 AM (and it was my turn to drive… goody) we waved goodbye to our ballin hostess Katie, grabbed coffee and hit the road. The first bits of Washington Interstate were surrounded by some pretty spectacular mountains with evergreens and a little snow around. The last 90% of driving in Washington was less than so mostly with rolling hills/flat areas. The weather was pretty good though. For driving.
We rolled into Glacier National Park in the afternoon and immediately set out to find a glacier. Our plan was pretty much thwarted by the fact that the main road that runs through the park was closed after about 12 miles or so. We did manage to make it to the trail leading up to Avalanche Lake which was about 2 miles or so. It took us through mud, dirt and a ton of snow. There was a lot of birch lying around, and we walked along Avalanche Creek for a bit (which had some pretty powerful rapids for being a creek). When we finally got to the lake, we just kind of stood there with our jaws dropped for a while. It was set in some snow covered mountains and we’re pretty sure we saw a glacier out on the other side of the lake, but it was pretty small. David, Drew and Kris started to venture off the trail towards the lake shore and what ensued was pretty entertaining. Drew took a misstep through a thin layer of snow that looked like a rather thick layer. Luckily for him, he only dipped his shoe barely into the water. He needed help getting out, so Kris gave him a hand… and then he paid the price. He managed to soak his entire foot in water, to which Drew laughed his head off at him. Kris didn’t get a helping hand up, not even from Drew. Karma didn’t take kindly to that, and found yet another thin spot in the snow for Drew to slip through and soak his other leg up to his mid-calf. After all this madness, we found an actual trail. Then David proposed going and actually touching the glacier. Now, I didn’t really want to go all the way over there for a couple of reasons. A) That was more than a mile away without a trail. B) It was after 7PM and we were running out of daylight. We took a few steps in that direction then stopped and turned back. Then I fell through the snow (didn’t get clothes/shoes wet though), but I guess I just had the need to join in on the fun Kris and Drew enjoyed.
The walk back was a lot easier, and we saw some really cool wildlife on the way back to the car. I also got some excellent footage of Kris dominating Drew and David in a snowball fight. I almost got involved but my shoulder was still a little sore from a soccer injury I got about a month or so ago. We walked by a group with some binoculars out looking at a mountain across the way and they pointed out some mountain goats to us. They were too far away for me to get a shot with my camera unfortunately. But as we walked further along, we saw some deer, up close and personal. We were very quiet not to spook them and I got some pretty excellent video of them. We got back to the car then (relatively incident free) and told the folks waiting by the beginning of the trail about what we had seen.
The drive was pretty amazing. We drove around Lake McDonald for a bit and then saw a car on the opposite side stopped. It was kind of curious, and then they flashed their brights at us, so we stopped. On the opposite side of the street in the ditch… there was a BEAR!! No joke, a black bear! So we all whipped out our cameras and got the best pictures we could, but it was kind of difficult since the bear was in the ditch. We tried to hang out the windows to get a better shot of it, but it really didn’t improve much. And we were definitely not even thinking about getting out of the car for a better look. After a little bit of that, we then drove on and Drew and I caught sight of a Red Fox dashing across the road from the lake back into the woods. We only got a glimpse of it, but it had a white tip on its tail which gave it away.
After all this, we drove on towards Kalispell, Montana for a late dinner (seriously, got there right at closing time) and then grabbed a motel for the night. Weather.com told us to expect freezing weather and an 80% chance of precipitation. We weren’t too wild about that at all.
