Day 46 Glacier National Park St. Mary’s Campground, St. Mary Montana

Captain’s Blog

Saturday

July 18, 2009

We planned an early start to get out to the Road to the Sun but once again chose to kick back and take our time. It stays daytime light and bright around here until 10 pm so no rush to see everything before dark. Glacier National Park is considerably smaller then both Teton and Yellowstone with no roads running directly through the park. The Road to the Sun is 50 miles long one way with the return trip giving you a different perspective on landscape.

We decided to drive to the end and make the scenic stops on the way back but that didn’t always work out. The road is under repair because of avalanches’ that wiped out large sections of the road. Many of the pullovers were closed because of heavy equipment taking up the spaces.

The scenery was again breathtaking and the mountain ranges beautiful. The wildflowers are in bloom and the varieties are amazing. We tried to get as many pictures of all the flowers as we could. (We’ve each picked our favorite) The artist paintbrush flowers and Beargrass  flowers caught our eye. The Beargrass only blooms every seven years so we were lucky to have caught them in bloom. Ron particularly likes another bloom – don’t know the name- and he was willing to risk being run over to get a perfect picture. I offered to get out to take the picture but Ron said no – we can’t afford another camera. LOL

The number of waterfalls in this area is astounding. At every turn there is water cascading down a mountainside or in the case of the “Weeping Wall” onto your car. The road is very winding with many switchbacks (common for mountainsides) and again very slow moving traffic.

We tried to stop at Logan’s pass both on the way up and back but it is a popular place for hikers and with a small parking lot no room for us.

The sun never seems to be in the right place when we are trying to take pictures so some of our photos aren’t as clear as we would like them to be. There is a famous spot called Wild Goose Island pictured in travel magazines that we hoped to get the perfect shot with the deep blue waters but the timing was wrong. We decided to return on Sunday morning when the lighting will be better.

We stopped at a great place along MacDonald Lake and watched some kayakers enjoy the water and sun. The pebbles and rocks on the beach were beautiful shades of pastel colors and hard to not pick up and bring home. The rules of the National Parks – do not take anything out not even a pebble. We tried to get some photos to show the colors but that didn’t work well.

The entire loop took us about three hours with stops. Unfortunately due to the crowds we were unable to get to some of the shorter hikes and will return for those on Sunday as well.  

 

r0n NOTE: Deb says let the pictures do the Talkin!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!