A Glacier is Snow that Never Melts: Days 6, 7, & 8

Rain, Rain, Go Away
We got out of Jamie’s quickly and headed to another Super Walmart. We bought a few supplies, most importantly, an extra fleece blanket. The drive from Missoula to Glacier was shorter than I expected. I spent most of the ride working on my blog. By the time we arrived at the west entrance to Glacier, it was raining. We stopped at the Visitor Center and found out that the main road (Going-to-the-Sun Road) through the park was closed in the middle. We could drive in like 16 miles, but then would have to exit the park and drive around to the other side. Wow, the day wasn’t looking good. The ranger suggested a few shorter hikes and told us which campsites were still open for the year.

Despite the rain, Glacier proved to be amazing. We stopped at a pullout along the road. There were stairs built down to this small little set of falls. As we were checking them out, I looked down river and saw a moose drinking some water. We got a ton of photos of her. Between the moose and the pretty creek, I was starting to get over the rain and the closed road. We drove as far in as we could. Right before where the road closed was the “Trail of the Cedars Nature Trail” (nice name, ey?). I wasn’t looking forward to a hike, since my knees had been bothering me. What we wanted to see on the hike was Avalanche Creek, and lucky for me it wasn’t very far in. The creek was amazing. The creek cut through these dark purplish-red rocks. The forest around it was full of huge cedars and hemlock trees. We read on one of the signs that the forest hadn’t burned since the 1500s.

On our way back to the main road, we stopped at the creek where we saw the moose. Adrian wanted to climb out on the wet-slippery-sharp rocks. Normally that wouldn’t bother me, but apparently all the warnings about drowning got to me. Apparently, the number one cause of death in the park is drowning. I’m sure he was super careful out there with his camera. He made it back to the car in less than 3 minutes, but it felt like much longer.

We headed out of the west entrance of Glacier and got on the road. We planned to camp on the east side of Glacier at St. Mary’s. The drive around the park took awhile, but even in the rain it was beautiful. The mountains looked amazing and the trees were amazing yellows and oranges. We stopped at Goat Lick overlook, but alas, the goats only lick the side of the mountain during the spring. Once we got to the little town of East Glacier, the skies had cleared up. The sky was totally blue with pretty clouds hanging over the mountain range. In East Glacier, we got a fine photo of the World’s Largest Purple Spoon. It was awesome. We drove on, enjoying the leaves. We got to the turnoff for Two Medicine and decided that taking it was a good idea. It was especially good since the road to St. Mary was closed and we could think of no alternative. On the road to Two Medicine we saw our first bear. It was a black bear and he was right along the road. We took some pictures from the car and then headed on.

By the time we got into the park by the campsites, the weather had turned nasty again. I told Adrian that if there were no other tent campers, we were certainly not setting up camp there. There were about four RV’s and one tent camper, so we decided to give it a try. We set up camp in record time, broke out the camping stove and heated up some sloppy joe’s. I think we set up camp, cooked, and ate in less than 30 minutes. It was freezing and wet. It was still too early to go to sleep, so we decided we would watch a movie on the laptop in the car. It seemed somewhat ridiculous to be watching a movie while camping, but it was warm, dry, and entertaining, so why not? After the movie, we piled ourselves under the blankets (including the new fleece from Walmart) and tried to get some sleep.

The Rain Stops But the Wind Blows
When we woke up, it was still freezing outside, but it wasn’t raining. Had we decided to take down the tent, it would have rained. We had decided to camp in the same spot two nights in a row, so with our extra time we made ourselves some pancakes. True to form, the first two pancakes I made were pretty ugly, but still tasty. The rest turned out quite nicely. The park ranger came around and told us how to get around the closed road to St. Mary. It would take us a bit longer, but we could get there easily. After breakfast, we loaded up into the car and headed out. Along our detour, we saw lots of cattle. On the way, I taught Adrian the difference between a dairy cow, a beef cow, and a horse. Now he knows when to say “Got Milk?’ and when to say “you’re what’s for dinner” and when to not find the animal appetizing.

We arrived at St. Mary Visitor Center mid-morning. The wind was so strong, the flag was about ready to fly right off the pole. The ranger gave a few hike suggestions and we started along the other end of the Going-to-the-Sun Road. Along the road, we saw two coyote pups running along. We snapped about fifty pictures of them. It was a bit excessive, but they were kind of cute.

We stopped at Sun Point to do a hike that was supposed to take us to some waterfalls. Sun Point itself was a point overlooking St. Mary Lake. The wind there was so strong you nearly fell over if you didn’t lean into it. Adrian made some comment about not feeling wind like that since he was in the Navy, though the way he said it alluded to something that made me laugh crazy hard. He later would deny saying such a thing.

The hike led us to a small waterfall and Sunrift Gorge. Adrian really enjoyed the creek and the gorge. I might have enjoyed it more if I hadn’t just hike a mile to reach something that was 40 feet of the main road. Adrian begged me to let him climb down into the gorge. Again, I was worried about the slippery rocks, but I gave in. He took off his shoes and socks and waded across the creek. His enjoyment of it was quite entertaining. We got back on the trail to head back to the car. We had been instructed to make lots of noise as we hiked to warn any bears that we were coming. Apparently, bears don’t like to be surprised. Adrian settled on belting out Queen’s “Fat-Bottomed Girls” every few minutes. It must have been effective because we didn’t see any wildlife.

After the hike, we got back in the car to head up the Going-to-the-Sun road. The drive was really beautiful. The mountains in the park are this amazing purple color. Since it had been raining and cold, up on the peaks was a dusting of snow. It gave the mountains a wonderful texture. We stopped at Jackson Glacier Overlook, which is the only place in the park you can see a glacier from the road. We made ourselves some sandwiches and ate lunch while enjoying the view. A few miles later, the road closed again, so we turned around and headed back out of the park.

We drove a few miles north to Many Glacier, another road into the park. We stopped at a hotel on Swift Current Lake. The ranger had told us the wind would be better here, but we had no such luck. Adrian took a few shots of the hotel, which looked like a Swiss Chalet. We decided to check out the lobby (anything to get warm). There was a huge fire with couches around it on all four sides. The hotel guests were making great use of it, with their feet up, leaned back and reading books. We bummed around for a while and then went back out to the wind to get more pictures.

The creek and the falls near the hotel fascinated Adrian. He insisted on climbing all over the rocks to get great shots of them. I mostly just wanted to get out the wind, but I waited patiently, trying not to blow away. By the time we were done I was exhausted and perhaps a bit cranky. I was done exploring for the day. It was time to head back to camp. On our way out we noticed some people staring at the side of the mountain. One had a huge telescope. We stopped to see what the fuss was all about. As it turned out, there was a black bear with her two cubs. Adrian got some shots with his telephoto lens. We talked to the people with the telescope. They let us take a look and “gave” us pictures they took with it. (We had to buy their DVD of other pictures of the park).

Once back at camp, Adrian suggested we cook hotdogs on the fire for dinner. The burn-ban had been lifted so we finally were able to burn the firewood we had been dragging around since Yellowstone. It was nice to have some heat from the fire. We ate our hot dogs and had some s’mores. Soon we had burned everything we had, but unfortunately, it wasn’t even dark. We had to find something to do before going to sleep. We decided we’d watch another movie, but didn’t want to have to sit in the car. Adrian maneuvered the car right up next to the tent so we could have the laptop in the tent while it was plugged into the car. We watched “My Cousin Vinny” and then crashed out for our seventh straight night on the air mattress.

We woke up around 8 am. As we were contemplating crawling out of the covers, we started hearing raindrops on the tent. Go figure, apparently taking down the tent in dry weather would not be something we’d do more than once this road trip. It cleared up a bit so we packed up camp. Just as we were taking down the tent, we got about 2 minutes of small hail. Lovely.

We had been discussing whether we would head up to Banff. Neither of us wanted to explore another park in this kind of weather. We found a phone number in our atlas for “Travel Alberta.” As soon as we got cell phone service, we gave them a call. Adrian asked for weather information for Banff. It sounded like the weather would be equally bad as it had been for the last few days. Adrian and I decided it would be better to visit Banff in more palatable weather. I really enjoyed Glacier even in the nasty weather, so I want to come back. We decided to take a road trip to Banff NP, Jasper NP, and Glacier NP in the future.

We had stopped to make the call in front of a café called “Brownies.” We both agreed brownies would make an excellent breakfast. Well, the skim milk we washed the brownie down with was healthy at least. Now we’re back on the road headed towards Seattle.

In a few days we’ll be starting classes, so I’m glad we got out of the city to take this trip before we get swamped with studying. We saw a crazy amount of beautiful stuff. September gave us an amazing backdrop of colors to view this part of the country (so I suppose the nasty weather was worth it). Adrian and I still like each other and all that fun gooey stuff, so I would call the trip a successful one. Like our other trips, I’m sure I’ll be enjoying the memories of it for a long time.

By The Numbers
Days gone: 8
Nights slept on air mattress: 6.5
Showers Taken: 2
Distance Traveled: 2900 miles
Distance driven by Ana: about 700 miles
Stops for Gas: 14
Books on tape finished: 3
National Parks Visited: 3
Times Crossing Continental Divide: 10
Times Crossing Hudson Bay Divide: 2
Highest elevation: Dunraven Pass, 8859 feet
Pictures Taken: 1077
Pictures Kept: 353
Bears seen: 4
Geysers seen: at least 63 too many
Blog posts written about trip: 4
Word count of blogs: over 4900
Times it rained taking the tent down: 3
Times it didn’t: 1
Trip cost: $0.35/mile
Trip value: priceless (you didn’t think I could resist that, did you?)