Glacier National Park, Montana July 2016

When we left Yellowstone National Park we drove out the east park entrance because we heard the Beartooth Highway was a site to see. We thought we would continue east and north to Billings for an over night before heading west to Glacier.

Beartooth Highway winds up over a mountain pass. It peaks at nearly  11,000 feet. It is really spectacular up near the top. It was well worth the drive both Brad and I really enjoyed the views.

Because it didn’t take as long as we thought it would we decided to head towards Glacier and overnight closer to the park, in Great Falls. That was actually kind of fun because we went to a movie (Tarzan) which I really enjoyed. I think the last time we went to a movie we saw Star Wars back in 2015. It was just fun to be in a town.Glacier National Park was delightful. We arrived via St Mary’s entrance and almost immediately upon arrival saw a grizzly bear. Since we hadn’t seen any bears in  Yellowstone I had hoped we would have a chance to see one at Glacier. We saw several black bears, in fact one came through our campsite at about 4:00 in the afternoon. I was a bit concerned but it just did its thing and completely ignored us!

We also had a close encounter with a big horn sheep. Brad and I were walking up to road to the trail head for Hidden Lake. The ram ran across the road at high speed right in front of Brad who was leading the way. It happened so fast both Brad and I were slow to react. I am glad it was just running across the road and not defending its territory.

The main road through Glacier is call “Going to the Sun” it cuts all the way across the park and is likely the main attraction. Parking at trail heads is pretty tough, so after we secured our campsite we decided to thank the free park shuttle up the road to the trail we wanted to hike when we first arrived. Well we just missed the shuttle and it only runs every 45 minutes or so. Instead of waiting we decided to hitch hike. This worked out really well because we got a ride from a Blackfeet Native and his lady friend a Blood Native plus his adorable 4 year old daughter Lilly. They showed us lots of photos of wild life, scenery, and flowers on their phones and told us a bit about reservation life and hiking in the park. They had many great stories about moose encounters, bear encounters and even mountain lion encounters. It was a great experience and we also were treated to his home made elk jerky which we really enjoyed over several days when hiking.

We camped at Rising Sun which worked out really well. There is a store, a restaurant and showers there and the location near the town of St Mary is great we went to town a couple of times to refresh our supplies.We are off to Banff National Park next for more camping and hiking. Each park so far has been so lovely it is hard to imagine the next stop being as great but it if things keep going the way they have I know I will love it.