B and D – On the Road

We finally arrived at Glacier National Park. We are staying in a KOA Holiday in West Glacier which is about a 3 miles from the entrance of the park. It is one of the prettiest KOAs we have ever stayed in on this trip. Big long sites with concrete patios that have very nice table and chairs, a big propane grill and a fire pit with benches. The view out the windows is beautiful as we are looking towards the park and can see the snow capped mountains. There are only 3 other RVs in this area of the RV park. The RV park is very large, about 200 sites, with cabins and deluxe cabins, two heated pools, playground, laundry room and a small cafe and ice cream parlor (already closed for the season). There are several other sections of the park and they all seem nice the sites are just not as long.

Glacier is currently suffering from wildfires that started in early August because of lighting strikes. They have it mostly contained at this point but part of the park is still closed and most likely will not open this year. We were here 3 years ago in June and were not able to get all the way through the park because of the snow on the Going to the Sun Road that runs east to west through the park. At that time we were able to go in the west entrance and go up along Lake McDonald but the snow had not been cleaned past the lake and they did not expect it to be cleared until mid July as they had really deep snow and it was still snowing. We stayed 4 or 5 days at that time and left as there was no hope of getting the snow cleared. We are talking really deep snow. In some of the pictures I have attached you will see the wood stakes they use to mark the side of the road. The snow will be up to the top of those stakes or in some cases over the stakes. It takes them weeks to clear the snow once it stops snowing. They have web cams through out the park and at that time you could see the deep snow at some of the sites in the park.

We decided to come later in the year in the hopes of being able to cross through the park before the snowing started again. I guess we will have to make a third trip up here as again we cannot get all the way through the park.  On the west side you can only get up to the bottom of Lake McDonald, you have to go all the way to the east side to get  higher into the park.

When we go there on Wednesday it was cold and raining and that continued in to Thursday. Since I have a cold we decided to just stay in the coach on Thursday and catch up on laundry. Thursday afternoon it had cleared off but still real cold. Someone from the office came by and requested that we move to another area of the park before Saturday. They were moving in fire crews and were concerned that it might be very noisy where we were located. We were located very close to the edge of the park by the forest where they have a fire road cut through. There was a fire camp set up down the road from the park so I guess they are moving it here for the winter since the RV park shuts down at the end of the month. I guess it gives them better facility as they were moving them into lots of the cabins. We were told to just pick any empty spot and move to it and then let the office know where we were located. We packed up and moved, the spot is not as long and the view not as pretty but still a nice spot with all the same amenities. There are now signs out on the highway pointing into the RV park as the fire camp and incident command center.

Friday I decided to spend most of the day in bed and sent Bruce off to the movies. When we had been here 3 years ago we had stayed in the town of Kalispeil at a new hotel that had only been open a few months. There was nothing much there around the hotel except a Famous Dave’s BBQ Restaurant which is the first time we had ever eaten at a Famous Dave’s. Very different now, there are loads of stores and other places to eat and they have lots of new roads in the area. Bruce went to the movies, found a Cabela’s and bought new hiking sticks and a new back pack and picked up food for dinner.

Saturday it was still cold but at least clear so we decided to drive to the east side of Glacier and enter the park from that entrance as you can go about 20 miles into the park from that area. Of course it takes about 2 hours to get to the St. Mary’s entrance on the east side from where we are staying on the west side. It was a nice drive to the park, we took one of the roads that cuts along the east side so got some pretty views. Along this ride it was still clear outside.

Once in the park we were able to get as far as the Logans Pass Visitors Center. It was snowing and 31 degrees while we were there. Bruce got out and went walking around the area but I stayed in the car. It would be so cloudy you could not see the buildings from the parking lot and then suddenly it would be clear as a bell.

After having the lunch we packed we headed backdown the road stopping at many of the turnout points to check out the views. We had not done much stopping on the way up as the turnout were on the opposite side of the road from us.

I spent most of my time viewing the sights from inside the car as I did not want to get out and make my cold worst. As you can see from the picture below, Bruce got out in his short sleeves. I got out a couple of times to look at a glacier and a couple of special views. I left it to Bruce to get pictures for me to view.

There are several waterfalls in the park, but all the ones we saw were frozen and there were lots of icicles hanging at various points.

Along the road you go through a tunnel at one point.

 

 

As we got lower down in the park it started clearing up again.

 

One of the things we wanted to do while here was to take the old park red tour buses to go through the park. Unfortunately most of the tours close by the middle of September. The one that we wanted to take which goes all the way through the park was supposed to be still open until the end of the month but since the road was closed obviously it was to going all the way through the park. We did see 3 of the buses on the road together and they must have been for a special tour group as we saw them dumping off everyone at a big tour bus when they got back to the entrance of the park.

We did not really see any animals while in the park, I guess it was too cold for them to be out.