Once we got that out of our system, we headed north for West Glacier, MT. Along the way, we passed Flathead Lake. Huge lake and just beautiful. I belive it is one of the, if not the largest lake in the continental US (not counting the Great Lakes). We'll definitely be coming back to see it again some time.
Further north we entered Kalispell. Cathy and I passed through here once a while ago when we flew in on our way to Big Mountain to go skiing. It is now called Whitefish Mountain to better align it with the town it is located in. In any case, Kalispell is a nice town. Big for a town. I needed to make a couple of stops in search of a new polarizing filter for my big lens. I lost it at Mt. Rushmore and it would be usefull while we are in Glacier. Unfortunately none of the stores we stopped at had one, so we continued on our way to the campground. We are staying at the West Glacier KOA. Very nice campground and close to the park. We got setup and the boys and I headed to the pool. Where have you heard that one before? :-)
We decided to get up early on Wednesday and hit the park early. Unfortunately so did a lot of other people as there was a line-up of cars waiting to get in. Once we were through the turnstile, we headed to the "Going to the Sun" road. If you haven't been on this before, it is quite the trip. It was built in the 20's/30's by the CCC. It starts out very tame and then the fun begins. It snakes along a cliff for the majority of the assent. It is very narrow and not much room for opposing traffic. Let's just say I was concentrating as the road was not designed for a big butt truck. The road has a 21' length and a 8' width restriction. Both of which I measure at! The views were breathtaking (when I could look). We stopped at a few of the turnouts to take a longer look and snap some photos. The morning sun presented us with some great photo opportunities. Near the top at Logan Pass, we stopped in a small parking lot. Right in front of us, maybe 30' away, was a big horn sheep. He just stood there while we took a number of photos. Quite the animal and fun to see fairly close up. After looking around some more, we went up to the pass and stopped in the visitor's center there. The ranger there gave us a tip about making sure we went to Many Glacier, another location in the park. She indicated we would have a good chance to see grizzly bears and moose. One of Cathy's goals was to see a bear, a moose, and a wolf. Well, 2 out of 3 isn't bad, so off we went. The drive up to Many Glacier was simply fabulous. Just before Swiftcurrent lake, there were a bunch of cars pulled off to the side so we stopped to see what they were looking at. Turns out there was a bear a couple of hundred yards up the slope eating berries. We thought it was a grizzly, given its color, but after looking at the photo, it looks like a blonde, black bear. Even from a distance, it was very cool to watch. A little later we make it to the hotel right along Swiftcurrent Lake. This is another of those old hotels (like Timberline) built in the 20's/30's and the mountains are right there. Just unbelieveable. We had lunch there and got another suggestion as to where we might see some moose. It was a short hike up at the end of the road, so off we went in search of moose. Unfortunately this one didn't pan out. It was a nice hike but the moose were no where to be found. Oh well. We got back to the car and headed back down. Along the way we encounted 2 more grizzly viewings. It was getting late then so we hustled, as much as you can on the "Going to the Sun" road and headed back to West Glacier. Faith had been the trailer for almost 11hrs and I'm sure she was ready to explode. We had dinner in a cafe right in the campground. The operator, was very friendly. He serves BBQ trout, chicken, ribs, and ribeye steaks. Cathy had the ribs, while I went for the ribeye. It was probably the best steak I have had since my days of traveling in Texas. Cathy's ribs were not to shabby either. We got the boys pizza in the campground store, so they were happy campers too.
Swiftcurrent Lake w/hotel
Big horn sheep
Blonde Black Bear
Thursday's update to be done later, I have to go to bed. :-)
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