Monday, July 13 Glacier National Park

 Monday, July 13

53 degrees this morning at 6AM. 

 Our campground is at the beginning of the Going to the Sun road, so we get an early start as dawn breaks, just munching a granola bar for breakfast.  Previous trip here it was a very rainy, foggy day, but today looks like it will be gorgeous!  

Within minutes we see two beautiful foxes.  Couldn't get a good pic through the windshield, but it looked like an adult and juvenile.  Never realized how huge their tails are - on the bigger one, the tail is as long as the body!

Tiny Goose Island

Very few cars and beautiful scenery as we begin to climb and the sky brightens.

lots of white bear grass

Two tunnels as we get into some patchy snow and fast-moving streams and waterfalls. Jaw dropping scenery!

When we get to Logan Pass, there is still plenty of parking.  (It fills up by 8:00 we're told.)  They only allow 3 hours, so Greg gets a permit to post on the dash. And we hike into the meadows and mountains. A light jacket feels good.

Absolutely gorgeous!  Evergreens, green grass, a little snow and beautiful wild flowers. 

Twice, a group of big horn sheep crosses in front of us.  

And a lone deer wonders by as well.

 

The yellow glacier lillies are beautiful and this ground squirrel thinks they are tasty too!

Patches of snow here and there and after a while the trail goes into a steep snow-covered hill.  We opt to turn around here, though it is tempting to go on.  Every direction is a postcard view!

The two groups of sheep have joined and are camped out in the high meadow.

Bidding farewell to Logan Pass, we continue along the road, stopping here and there.  This mountain goat posed along one short trail. 

 

Waterfalls everywhere.  

The road is very narrow, with twists and turns and a low rock wall gets a little too close at one point - oops!  But only a superficial scrape.  Certainly can understand the limits on oversize vehicles!   

Traffic gets heavier as we begin to descend to the western part of the park.  Rushing rivers, waterfalls and wildflowers abound.  We drink it in and will return to these scenes again and again in the coming hot months at home.

We took a bit over 3 hours to drive the 50 miles and plan to treat ourselves to breakfast at Lake McDonald Lodge.  But no, we can't even BEGIN to find a parking space, so continue on.  We plan to exit the park, get gas and breakfast, then come back.  As we exit the park on a bit of a curve the line to enter doesn't look too bad, but then we go around the curve only to find a line probably a mile long!  So we change plans and will do a long loop drive around the edge of the park and back to the east entrance. 

But we make the best of this route, first stopping for a nice late breakfast at Glacier Highland Restaurant. 

Then we travel beside an active railroad for a bit.  And stop at a place called Goat Lick.

The rocky terrain here features rocks that hold sodium and other minerals which attract mountain goats and other animals who lick the rocks.  We walk a trail and discover a view that includes several mountain goats amid the rocky cliffs.  They blend in well, but there are several people at an overlook who help in spotting them.

This Momma and baby were my favorite... the little one was quite adept at scrambling and climbing!

This beautiful pink field was on our way back to the main road. No idea what it is!

We pass through part of the Black Foot Indian Reservation before turning toward Two Medicine Lake, which is again part of Glacier National Park.  A bit windy today, so we don't see any boaters on the lake.

We hike the South Shore Trail to Aster Falls, about two miles, 

 and on the way back we spot this moose munching away in a shallow lake. 

These two mountain goats are grazing near the parking area and seem unperturbed by the people around them.

Back at St. Mary's Campground we are on Loop A , but first we drive to the shower house and have a good soak. Beth had plenty of hot water, though Greg wasn't so lucky.

Greg is able to buy some firewood for our first fire!  No ban here, obviously.  Dinner is a spread made with canned salmon on crackers, plus cherries and carrots.  Gotta go shopping soon!

What a day! Beth processes pictures - lots of them, haha. 

  We have a very weak cell signal which comes and goes.  Greg sends out some emails and pictures to  friends and family.  Sometimes they go and sometimes they sit for a while till the signal improves.  This is the story for most of this trip.  Wifi has been pretty scarce, only at the hotel in Amarillo and at Caldwell Camp Ground. Many folks are now traveling with Wifi set ups - Starlink or others.  Perhaps we'll look into that another time...