Exploring Glacier National Park: A Grand Adventure in Montana

Once in a blue moon, I’m able to blog about an epic adventure bucket list item. I’ve had a few over the years, like Sydney and Norway, that truly blew my socks off. Today was Glacier National Park. With so many natural wonders in California, I admit my pursuit of other national parks has waned in more recent years, and Glacier is so far up there, crossing the Canadian border (as Waterton Lakes Provincial Park).

An awesome colleague of mine and his wife live near the park. They invited me to spend some time up at their place to go explore this amazing and elusive national treasure on my bucket list. I booked a ticket faster than I could blink as this was an adventure I was stoked to experience!

The more mountains I go see, the more I understand each of them have their own muse. The Appalachians of my childhood emulate rolling carpeted flow with their deep, lush forests. The Rockies display their brawny power with huge size across vast parts of the country. The Cascades well much lower in altitude strut their glory with steep slopes. The Sierras have an envious pine forest with its gentle Western rise and sharp peaks contrasted with a Gestalt desert Eastern slope which drops thousands of feet over a few short miles.

The mountains here pull undertones from the Rockies with their sheer size but also inherit attributes of the Cascades, which have some of the wet climate for which the Pacific Northwest is known. I kept asking, “When do we see the snow-covered, sharp, jagged mountains?” They laughed and said, “Soon, young Jedi, soon.” With a short blink of an eye, it soon did come, and we were in the park!

Lake McDonald

Glacier National Park has two entrances, west and east. We chose the west side as we came from Missoula (another great town). As we traveled further into the park, Lake McDonald showed its splendor with the glacial rockies abutting right next to the water. I’m simply awed by this park’s grandeur. California’s parks are as pretty but don’t have near the scale that this park does.

The waters here are deep, much like alpine Lake Tahoe. Lake McDonald checks in at 472 feet and 42 degrees farenhight at the surface. That’s a lot of cold water. Kudos to that kayaker!

These two entrances are connected by the epic road within the park: Going to the Sun Road. Being so far north and the road design being tight, windy, and unforgiving, park visitors have to navigate three different options:

The road is fully closed – no dice. You can only stay on the side of the park you enter.
The road is only open to bicycles and hikers. It’s a 30 mile climb and decent to get to the top: Logan Pass.
The road is fully open to all vehicle types.

We came here on Friday as a Winter Storm Warning was on the radar for the weekend. Late Thursday evening, the park announced that the Going to the Sun Road was open to hikers and bicyclists. Once that announcement went out, bicycle rentals disappeared faster than water in the desert. When we got to the road closure, I expected some sort of giant snowpack or rocky mess. We just saw a simple gate with nothing apparently wrong with the road.

So, plan B.

The parts of the Going to the Sun Road we were able to see were incredible. The mountain flanks with a dusting of snow really showed off the character of the park! We chose to hike to Avalanche Lake which was incredible.

Avalanche Lake

Everything was so big and broad in this park that I had to stop to take it all in. I’ve seen alpine lakes all over California, and the scale of the mountains here doesn’t even compare. It’s a whole different level here.

I wanted to bring the SLR camera to get used to working with a traditional camera again. I clearly didn’t get the settings right on this one. Note to self: Use all the focus points rather than one!

As I looked behind me, I was in awe of the landscape at the other side of the lake. The snowy, sloped look of the mountains is classic Going to the Sun Road style. While we didn’t get to see the Going to the Sun Road in full resolution, I was glad to see this preview of what’s to come in a future visit. I’m definitely going to shoot for a second visit to the park. It’s that good.

As we were walking around the lake we saw another man with two kids doing the same thing we were. As we struck up conversation his wife was able to get a bike to climb the Going to the Sun Road, but he was not. Since the kids wouldn’t be able to make the climb at 5 & 3, he decided to take them here too.

I’ve learned to closely watch photographers with nice cameras. They almost always point them at things worth photographing. I could hear a level of disappointment in his voice not being able to get to the Going to the Sun Road. I offered to take a picture of him and his kids on the log below with his SLR camera he clearly didn’t know how to use.

He instantly lit up for the photograph!

As we headed out of the park we made one last stop by the river. I still can’t get over how clear the waters are here. Even through several feet of cold, rushing water, one can still pick out rocks deep underneath the river’s surface. Wow!