Day 13 – Glacier National Park

Better grab another cup of coffee and use the rest room.  This post is going to take a while to get through.

We’re finally about to enter one of the primary destinations of our 2 month journey…Glacier National Park.

Today, we’re entering the park from the east at the St. Mary entrance and will climb the “Going to the Sun Road” to Logan’s Pass which is as far as we can go due to the fires on the western side of the park.  Fortunately, we were in West Glacier last year but weren’t able to get onto this route because of snow.

We begin the trek to the top.

These waterfalls coming off the sides of the mountains are everywhere.

The next few shots show the fog and haze we had.  I wasn’t sure this would be worth the effort today, given the conditions.

Some of the haze is from the smoke of the forest fires.  We can smell the smoke although it isn’t overpowering.

At one point we travel through the mountainside.

In the distance is another waterfall on the side of a mountain.

We arrive at today’s first activity…the Logan Pass visitor center…

…and a hike to Hidden Lake

There’s a bear warning here but I think, lots of people walking the trail, should be no problem.

We begin our ascent UP the mountain.  As I recall, we needed to gain about 500 ft. in elevation on this little outing.

This part of the trail is boardwalk, but I’ll guarantee that the stair risers don’t meet the building code.  They were quite tall.

Yes, that’s snow on the cloudy mountain.  We continue on as Kathy gets a little ahead of me…which will be an important point later.

The wild flowers are pretty.  I think it’s Spring here going on Winter.

As a matter of fact, Kathy just read me a notice from the weather service of a winter weather advisory for up to 8” of snow in West Glacier tonight.  That could get interesting.

Anyway, we continue along and pass dozens of these little runs of water running down the hills.

Now for one of the high points of the day…We spot a grizzly bear and a cub.

These shots are with a very long telephoto lens so I’d say the bears were a half mile or more down the mountain.

Look at the claws on that animal!

The bears disappear behind a ledge and we continue on toward the Hidden Lake overlook.

Here’s another little waterfall.

Now, there was a lot of activity between that waterfall picture and the next one but I was a little preoccupied with other matters…You see, that mama grizzly and her cub decided to use the same trail that I was using.  Of course, Kathy was far ahead of me so it was just me and the bear about 100 yards apart.  All I could imagine was that bear using a nice easy trail to amber along.  It was then that I hollered for Kathy so I could offer her up as ransom to the bear.  Fortunately for both of us, the bear decided to continue to climb the mountain and was gone.

So after all that I arrived at the Hidden Lake overlook.

We were up in the fog at that point, so it remained hidden.

It was supposed to look like this.

After all that excitement, we were ready to head back down the mountain.

Leave it to the government to build a boardwalk around a rock.

It had cleared a little so there were some views on the return trip.

We made it back to the visitor center, looked through that and then found a place to enjoy the lunch we packed.

This looks like a good spot.

It’s a scenic little run of water.

We weren’t satisfied with the standard view near the road and went exploring a little downstream.

Sometimes there’s a payoff to going a little farther.  Not this time.

So with our bellies nourished, we stop for activity #2 today.  This was scheduled for tomorrow, but I felt up to another walk in the woods. Who knows?  Maybe we could find some more bears.

The goal is to see a St. Mary and Virginia Falls.  Off we go.

The trail leads through an area that I later found out had burned in 2015.  So this is what 3 years of recovery look like.

We saw these ducks along the river.  

That’s a duck I’m not familiar with.

We arrive at the first falls after a mostly downhill trek, St. Mary Falls.

Then continue on to the Virginia Falls.  This trek is all uphill gaining a few hundred feet in a half mile or so.  There’s one waterfall after another all the way up to the main attraction.  I’ll just post the pictures in order of the trip up the hill.

Until we arrive at the Virginia Falls. 

 It was worth the climb

Then we moved down just a bit for what I thought was the best viewing.  Here are some of my favorites

And my favorite photo for whatever reason.

So what started out as a bit of a disappointing weather day, wound up as a very entertaining day.  I’d be willing to pass on any more encounters with the grizzlies.  That was frightening.

Like I said, tomorrow’s weather could be on the nasty side so there may not be so much touring but on a positive note, the smoke haze dissipated with the wind shift late this afternoon.

Glacier National Park is incredible.  Everything here is on a grand scale.