Glacier National Park

Day 3

Our first activity out of the gate was a 1/2 day whitewater rafting trip on the Flathead River for Bruce, Seth, and me. It was Seth’s first time, and he said he didn’t want to paddle… That lasted about 2 minutes and then he slid into a rowing position. We hit some level II amd III rapids, and when allowed at the end Seth went for a swim in the 55 degree water (it was a short swim). It was a great time, and of course Seth wanted to jump back on the bus and do it again.

Arlene stayed with the car and enjoyed the park for a few hours on her own. She found some beautiful snow topped mountains, babbling brooks, and McDonald lake which seemed to go on forever.

After getting off the river and meeting up with Arlene, we ate the lunch we had packed and headed to Going-to-the-Sun road to explore the west portion of the park. The east portion of the park is closed due to COVID. We managed to drive almost the entire 50 miles of the road while enjoying the breathtaking scenery. It is a narrow 2 lane road with jutting rocks on one side amd the drop down the mountain on the other. I was driving so I took it slow, and we made frequent stops for fun and photo ops.

We all walked around at the Logans Pass visitors center where we had some close encounters with Big horn sheep amd mountain goats.

Seth and I did a mini hike at St. Mary’s falls trailhead, but we didn’t get to the falls since we left grandma amd Papa at the car. We did manage to see a whitetail deer eating right at the trail edge, and get a beautiful viewpoint.

By the time we finished the return drive, we were getting tired and hungry. We stopped at a local dive and grabbed dinner to eat outside, and headed back to our rental to get some sleep.

Day 4

We headed back to Glacier National Park in the morning, but after much discussion about what to do with our time we decided to explore the less traveled northwestern portion of the park. We came across the Polebridge area and found a quaint general store.

Bruce was hoping for some fishing, and the rest of us were hoping for some wildlife sightings. We both got what we wanted. We found an accessible by foot part of the north fork of Flathead river on the border of the park, and dropped Bruce off at the river. Seth skipped a couple more rocks quickly

The rest of us ventured onward, and by chance we had a black bear sighting. It was so exciting.

We went back and scoped up Papa, but since we were only 22 miles from the Canandian border so we decided to use the rest of our time to drive up to Canada (there was no operating border crossing in the park). After a very bumpy drive on a mostly gravel road through the forest, we came upon the old border crossing. We got some photos, and headed back to the park entrance.

Now back on the road to our next destination of Belgrade, MT for our yellowstone time tomorrow.