Drove the 20 miles from Whitefish, Montana to the western entrance to Glacier national Park. We got the last campsite in Avalanche Creek Campground on Going to the Sun Road. This road crosses the park east-west and is narrow and winding, cut right into the cliffs at higher elevations. It is not open until July 1 when they have finished clearing the snow, but now in August, there is no snow except a few shade mountainsides. Our campground is the furthest we can drive on the road as it is limited to vehicles no higher than 10' and no longer than 21'.
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| A pretty gorge on the Nature Trail |
After getting our site, having lunch and a nap, we took a walk on the short nature trail adjacent to the campground and while Jack returned to the RV, I continued up a second trail 3 miles to Avalanche Lake. Gorgeous shallow lake surrounded on three sides by mountains covered in waterfalls. Unfortunately, the fires in the park are creating a light smokey haze that dulls the photos.
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| Portion of the Avalanche Lake Trail |
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| How come these trees can grow in plain rock and I can't get my grass to grow? |
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| Avalanche Lake |
We enjoyed watching these butterflies land on the burnt logs in our firepit and close their wings and become nearly invisible, occasionally fluttering their wings revealing the hidden bright orange.
Tuesday we caught the shuttle to go up to the summit - Logan Pass where I had planned to do a couple of hikes partway along established trails. The drive up to the summit was spectacular with steep dropoffs on one side and massive cliffs on the other--glad someone else is doing the driving!
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| Glacier National Park is part of the Waterton-Glacier International Peace Park with Waterton in Canada |
The air was clear today, but the altitude was bothering me more than I expected, so did not do either one of the hikes that required some fairly minor uphill/downhill trudging. We sat alongside one of the trails and had a nice lunch, enjoying the mountain views and hillsides covered in wildflowers. Back down to the campground we found it was HOT! No hookups here, so no air conditioning. Luckily, the RV is in the shade and we sat outside hiding from the sun and I set up the cookstove and made homemade spaghetti sauce (aka red gravy). Once the sun set, it cooled off quickly, so we played some cards and it was comfortable temps for sleeping.
The forecast for Wednesday is high temps again, so we decided to move on so we could get hookups for air conditioning. We made a few stops at viewpoints in Glacier before heading out of the park.
We drove southeast and stopped in north central Montana. Stopped late and got the last available campsite with electric. Went to a local pub for dinner and enjoyed some people watching where the cowboys had hats just like in the western movies, but they were not for show since they looked like they had been stomped on and partially chewed by a bear.
Thursday, we headed southeast through Montana. The road passed through parched wheat fields, most of which had been cut under big skies and flat lands that went forever. Suddenly, the landscape completely changed and we drove through interesting mini-badlands with odd rock formations and then quickly changing to dry cattle rangelands as far as we could see. Then it would all repeat again.
We stopped in Miles City in eastern Montana in a campground that has a pool, electricity and good wifi - a miracle that we could get everything in one place. It hit 99 degrees and is forecast to be over 100 for the next couple of days. We decided to stay put here, enjoy the pool and air conditioning and run some errands.
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