Glacier National Park part 1

8/21/2020

Put your reading glasses on your probably going to need them, looks like he’s been picking at a keyboard for hours on end.

We moved about 68 miles yesterday, we have a week booked here and FINALLY the heat wave has vanished and it got down to 50 last night, here in the valley the high will be 87. We didn’t even turn on the A/C yesterday as it was so comfortable, again that’s FINALLY!!!!! It might be time to break out the extra blankets:)

Just an observation, highway 93 going from Missoula MT to Kalispell, 120 miles,  must be the busiest non expressway rural road in the country. It’s non stop traffic both north and south. To go with the heavy traffic the speed limit is 70 mph with a few sections  are just 2 lane with curves and hills. A few days ago when we left Ronan to go to the bison range, before daylight, I thought we would never get a break in the traffic to pull out onto 93. 

Once we arrived at the campground, to go along with the super busy highway the town of Kalispell is extra busy at least this time of year. Traffic everywhere, it was not uncommon to sit through a light twice before getting to go.

On our way up to the campground we pulled into the Walmart parking lot and was going to buy some groceries, the parking lot was super busy with people everywhere. It was so busy that we decided to forgo grocery shopping there.

Later after we got set up we went back out and found a Smith grocery store, owned by Kroger, it to was busy and crowded also, this was Thursday afternoon, 2:30-3:00. Unbelievable how busy the town is.

This morning we pulled out around 8:30 and headed to Glaicer national Park, West Entrance.  Little did I know until a few days ago, but all the entrances on the East side are closed. That’s where we tried to make reservations a couple of weeks ago, gave up and found something here on the west side. The east side entrances are on the reservation lands and out of caution concerning the Covid-19 thing they have closed down most of the reservation to outsiders.

So anyway we’re here on the west side, we drove into the park to explore. I did not intend to drive the Going to the Sun Road today but ran out of side roads to explore.

Now the problem with driving the Going to the Sun Road was, I think, at least half the population of America was driving on the Going to the Sun Road today, and 1/2 of them were afraid of bumping the rock berm that keeps you from falling off the edge of the earth or they were afraid  of scrapping the sheer vertical rocks on the mountain side. It’s a skinny road and when the vehicles coming at you are crowding the center line that doesn’t give you much room.

Speaking of sheer vertical walls I didn’t like thinking how many feet straight down the man made rock walls were, that held up the road and how well they were attached to the mountain side. Just something to think about when your on the outside and you know the man made wall, it opened in 1932, are several feet to stories tall. Enough of that, lets just say the road was very busy and few if any parking spots at most of the pull offs, we did find a few along the way. We read this one sign about the summit parking lot, it’s usually full from 7am to 5 pm, you’ll be lucky to find a parking spot there. It’s the trailhead for a very popular hike.

At the spot where we took our 2 mile walk, Baring falls, with the rangers blessing we parked in a no parking area in a curve of the parking lot. The walk/hike was on this narrow path along Lake Saint Mary, it was on the skinny side and pretty busy, someone was always needing to find a wide spot and step out of the way. I will say that everyone was very cooperative in trying to make room. I told this one girl not to hurry because it gave me more time to rest, after that Mary said something like that, about me, every time we moved out of the way. HA HA.

We plan to go back several times but it’s a drive, we’re about 35 miles from the entrance and then the Going to the Sun Road is closed about 44 miles in at the reservation, so then you need to turn around and come back the way you came.

With the east side closed down and probably more than 1/2 of the hiking trails accused from the east side, That pretty much leaves driving the Going to the Sun Road and stopping along the way so the only option for exploration.

8/22/2020

We were both tired this morning so we decided to stick around town. Not seeing any value in buying bear spray we opted instead to attach some bells to our stuff. Hobby Lobby had a package of them on sale. Bells and a roll of wire tie and we soon had bells on our walking sticks and packs.

More pictures at RMTravels.smugmug.com

The End