June 12, Friday: St. Mary, Glacier National Park

Woke about 7 to a beautiful sunny morning, just a few puffy clouds, a light occasional breeze and probably low 60's.  These are record high temps for this time of year and I am loving it!

Hiked a 3 1/2 mile Beaver pond Trail with fantastic wildflowers, views of the mountains, a small lake, and Beaver pond.  No one around and trail had not been used given parts of it were completely overgrown, so I sang loudly and kept my finger on the bear spray trigger.

Yes, the trail is in there somewhere!

Beaver Pond

After the hike and lunch, I drove west out of the St. Mary area, the north on route 89 about 8 miles to Babb, then west for 12 miles into the Many Glacier Area.  The views of the mountains driving into Many Glacier were breathtaking.

I drove straight to the campground but was disappointed to find none of the sites had good views of the mountains like I had at Two Medicine.

After deciding on a campsite, I drove to the Many Glacier Hotel on Swiftcurrent Lake.  Absolutely gorgeous location, but the hotel lobby was not as impressive as the East Glacier Lodge.

I returned to my campsite and sat outside relaxing when a ranger stopped by just to mention that a bear had been in the campground that morning....oh joy.  I made a campfire and was eating my salmon dinner (hmmmm, not so smart given bear love salmon), when......nope, no bear, just some rain.  Put out the fire and retreated inside while it sprinkled off and on all night long.

Once I got a bit away from my campsite, the views were spectacular.