Big Sky Country

Well the next leg of the journey took us from Butte, MT to just below the Canadian border to Glacier National Park. We passed a ton of Cherry Orchards along Flathead Lake, a beautiful area.

After much deliberation we chose the best campsite C126 at Fish Creek CG and after a little McGuyver-ing, we settled in for the night.

The campground was beautiful, really right in the woods but not designed for RV life so much, which is actually okay, keeps it pretty quiet. After a smoky fire (man the wood has to be really dry) and some dinner we went for a walk around the camp by the lake enjoying our first night in the woods woods.

The first full day of Glacier we drove the Going to the Sun road, listed as one of the most scenic drives in the country and I have to agree. Our first real experience of the park was just breath taking. I can't count the number of times Liz or I said "Wow" only to turn a bend and say it again.

We stopped for lunch by the Weeping Wall, which is aptly named as the Glacier water run off seems to just seep through the rock wall and makes the mountain look like it is crying. The park is a series of mountains and lakes all carved by giant glaciers. You can see the difference in the forces that created these mountains versus some place like Teton.

Teton was formed by plates crashing together which forced the Tetons up and the valley floor down to create these really sharp peaks. Glacier you can see the sweeping path that carved out the landscape by the huge force of ice, pushing the dirt and rocks to form the smaller hills around the area and the pieces that fell off to form the lakes.

It looks and feels different. We hiked up to the lookout for "Hidden Lake", elevation something like 7,000 ft.

The Road brings access to a landscape many people would not get to see because it would take a week to hike up to these view points. For better or worse it is a different way of experiencing nature, and still a pretty scary road to drive...

We drove the rest of the length of the park and made it to Many Glaciers where we had been informed were more bears. At the visitor area there were rangers with scopes and a bunch of people all gathered around. The ranger had 2 focused on grizzlies up on the mountain, we got to see our first grizzly! From a very safe distance, perfect!

Very exciting day 1, totally pooped we ended up eating at Two Sisters Cafe (address, near Babb, MT) and making a slightly scary evening drive back to camp.

And that was all just Day 1! Will write some more later...

Cheers!

Kelly