Mountain Highs…And Lows - Glacier National Park
“Let’s just go back to Grand Teton.” - Jared and I after about 30 minutes in Glacier National Park
Our northernmost stop on this trip, Glacier National Park, was the place we had been looking forward to most. Pinterest and Instagram had promised us stunning vistas of snowy white glaciers and bright blue water. And while those things are definitely present in Glacier…
We couldn’t get to them.
Because of the pandemic, the Blackfoot Native Americans who border the eastern side of the park had closed their land to all non-essential travel, so the eastern entrances to the park at St. Mary’s were closed. This means that the glacier for which the park gets its name was totally inaccessible. There are trails that overlook the glacier that you can access from the west side of the park, and we were hoping that the Going To The Sun Road, which runs east to west across the park, would be open far enough to get us to the trail head. Unfortunately, that didn’t happen until about two weeks after we left.
We had driven over 2,000 miles to see the glacier, and we couldn’t make it the last 10 miles.
This was, in a word, disappointing.
I don’t want to complain, but I also want to be real with you all. Travel life is not always glamorous. After waking up in a puddle from the tremendous downpour that pummeled our dispersed campsite in Flathead National Forest, we packed up our soggy tent and blankets, and drove into Glacier National Park, arriving around 7:00 am. Most of the campgrounds in the park were still closed because of the pandemic, and one of them, Avalanche, was being used as temporary parking. After squeezing into one of the few remaining parking spaces in the entire park, we attempted to cook breakfast in the rain, having mistakenly believed that by waiting to cook breakfast at the park, we would beat the crowd.
HA.
With half the park closed, all of us nature-seekers were crammed together on the same few trails, especially the very popular Trail of Cedars/Avalanche Lake trail.
I give this hike 7/10 caffeine-deprived hikers.
After a soggy, crowded, but admittedly beautiful hike, our displeasure with Glacier was somewhat abated, but to be honest, I was still feeling pretty cranky. That’s when we found the ultimate FREE campsite.
North Fork of the Flathead River - Free Dispersed Camping!
Our campsite the previous night had been…fine…but this was like the Holy Grail of dispersed camping. Right on the bank of the Flathead River in Flathead National Forest: the perfect spot to regroup and come up with a plan to bounce back from a less than stellar morning. Yes, the trail we had driven over 2,000 miles to hike was still closed, but there was still plenty to see! We just had to find it.
The next day, we hiked to the Huckleberry Mountain Lookout, which gives off some serious Sound of Music vibes.
I give this trail 6/10 yodeling goatherds.
While a less crowded trail and the clear skies did a lot to lift our spirits, the real redeeming moment for Glacier came the next day when we biked the Going To The Sun Road. Although the road was closed to car traffic at Avalanche, you could hike or bike it as far as Logan Pass. They announced while we were there that cars would be allowed as far as Logan Pass starting the day we left, which means that the day we biked it was the last car-free day for the season. It also means that every bike rental in the area was already reserved, except for two 9-speed “comfort bikes”… Let’s just say that after 21 miles uphill, “comfort” seemed like a bit of an overstatement.
Even the constant burning in my legs from biking up 4,000 feet of elevation could not distract me from the beauty of the dramatic vistas all around us. THIS. This is what we had come to see. We still couldn’t get out to the glacier, but at least we got an introduction to what the west side of the park had to offer.
And if that wasn’t magnificent enough, after a triumphant arrival at Logan Pass, we got to coast downhill for 21 miles, approaching 45 mph at certain points. After the previous 6 hours of pedaling, flying down the mountain was a taste of pure freedom.
