On Sunday we left to drive up to the northwest side of Glacier. You need a four wheel drive, high clearance vehicle. We went up to a lake suggested by our fishing guide. He said very few people go there because of the location. We thought we would try that direction because the main Going to the Sun Road would most likely be packed plus it was smoky out. I want it to be clear when we take the main road through the park as it is supposed to have wonderful views.
You actually drive into west Glacier, turn to the left when everyone else is going straight or right. You take the Camas Road heading north. They have apparently had a fire along this road in the last few years as there were lots of dead tress with lots of young ones growing up around them.
You drive trough Glacier for a long ways then you exit the park at the Camas Creek Entrance.
Once outside the park you drive many miles on the outside North Fork Road. Eventually you get to a community called Polebridge where you turn and head back towards another entrance of the park. If you kept going on the North Fork Road you would come to the border with Canada. Polebridge is an off the grid location. They have a mercantile and a saloon out in the middle of nowhere and are supposed to have excellent huckleberry sweet rolls. We did not stop and buy one, not sure we could have found parking, the place was packed. The saloon had outdoor sitting areas and it was full and when we came back through they had a band out there playing. The parking was full in front of the mercantile and all along the side of the dirt road back a long distance. Several out buildings behind the mercantile but not sure how they were used. They had signs all over about driving slow that they were trying to breath, that dust was a 4 letter word. Interesting place.
After going through Polebridge you eventually get to the Polebridge entrance into the park and you can pick one of 3 directions. You go right and the road ends in about 10 miles, you go straight and you get to Bowman Lake in 6 miles or you go left for 16 miles and you get to the Kintia lake recommended by our guide. Bruce of course went left and the 16 miles took about one hour because of all the pot holes and rocks on this rugged dirt road.
We were surprised to actually see some fairly large homes back in some of the areas. They tended to have giant propane tanks and lots of solar panels.
The smoke made it hard to catch real clear pictures but you could see the mountains in the distance.
Only animals we saw were chipmunks, squirrels and a few birds. The lake was very pretty and they have a primitive campground set up there, fortunately with outhouses.
At this point you are only about 22 miles from Canada. If we had gone straight instead of turning into Polebridge you would go to the border crossing location. It is temporarily closed because of Covid.
The return trip seemed to go much faster and we rarely saw a vehicle other than all the cars at the saloon.
Interesting ride but I don’t see a need to drive back that way again.