Glacier National Park

While Yellowstone NP sits in the northwest corner of Wyoming, a small portion is within the boundaries of Montana (and a little in Idaho). In my two previous visits, I had either entered or exited the park through one of the three Montana entrances. Montana, therefore, was not a new state for me, although my time spent there could be counted in hours.

Aside from these two roads and the small portion of the park, I knew nothing about Montana. So why not share some facts? Montana:

• Comes from the Spanish word meaning mountain (automatically making it awesome)
• Is the third largest state in terms of area but the seventh lowest in terms of people (making it the third lowest in population density - can you name the top two?)
• Contains seven American Indian reservations and two national parks

From Yellowstone we took US-89 to I-90 back to US-89, which runs all the way to the east entrance of Glacier National Park (which lies in the northwest section of the state. For about half the drive we were in between two mountain ranges, and for the other half, we were in the plains. Big Sky Country is an appropriate nickname for the state. About 150 miles from the park on 89, you begin to see the mountains. They looked like they were right there! But it took another three hours to enter the park.

Glacier National Park (Day 1)
Like Yellowstone, we entered the park in the evening and found a campsite close to the border. Although we could see the mountains before entering the park, it isn't until we were within the park's border the beauty really appears. And it smacks you in the face. Aside: Glacier National Park continues into Canada as Waterton Lakes National Park. I mention this only because I find Canada's name choice to be more fitting. The mountains are incredible (as are the glaciers), but the beauty within this park is brought about by the foreground of massive, natural lakes. The view from our first night's campsite wasn't too shabby either.

Day 2
Again, like Yellowstone, we wanted to another short backpacking trip. After obtaining our backcountry permit, we were off to our 8.7 mile hike in to the campsite named Lake Cosley. On our way to the trailhead, we spotted a bear running through a field in the distance. We debated what type of bear this was, but after studying the differences in the Glacier Visitors' Center, I'm leaning towards it being a grizzly bear (one such characteristic difference, unfortunately, is not color - black bears can be black, brown or blonde).

I'll keep the story about our hike to our backcountry campsite short. It was a beautiful 60-degree day. Most of the hike was spent walking through meadows and forests between mountains. The views were just spectacular, and they never stopped. Here's a panoramic I (meaning Photoshop) pieced together from one of the meadows. The coolest story from that day was we had to cross a rope bridge to continue on the trail (where rope here was actually steel cables). Finally, the view from our backcountry campsite makes it the coolest campsite at which I've ever stayed. After eating dinner, we were sitting on a log on the lakeshore, and one of my companions spotted a black bear walking on the other side of the lake. We were able to watch the bear for about 20 minutes as it walked along the shore looking for food. Fortunately, it never made its way to our campsite.

Day 3
The third day was spent walking this trail back out to the car, then driving around the park (since we couldn't traverse the Going To The Sun Road) to camp on the west side. The only significant and different event of the day included eating a buffalo burger at the St. Mary Lodge (our first time eating out since leaving). Even with the main road was closed, it was a good decision to camp on the west side, just to see the difference in vegetation. As you could see in our photos, our hike (which was on the east side of the mountains) consisted of mostly meadows and little, short vegetation. But on the west side (where it rains much more), the grass is greener and the trees are larger. That drive around the park made it feel as though we were entering a different park.

Day 4
We woke up the next morning and headed toward Washington and North Cascades National Park, but we first had to stop for gifts. I am so grateful of our timing here, because without stopping and camping where we did, I wouldn't have taken my favorite photo from leg 1.

The entire Glacier National Park album

Next Post: North Cascades National Park and Mount Rainier National Park