Trailer Trip 2014: Glacier National Park

We left Wisdom Tuesday morning heading west to the Nez Perce National Historic Park in Idaho. That would mark our turn to the southwest and be our furthest point north. We went north on highway 43 then connected with highway 93 on our way to Lolo, Mt and Lolo Pass. We had decided the night before that we would cut Glacier National Park out of our trip for this time. At Lolo, we stopped at a McDonald’s for coffee and a snack. The weather was warm and sunny.

There was a newspaper on our table and so I decided that I might check the weather forecast for the rest of the week. We have pretty much been out of contact for such information for at least a week.

The forecast for Lolo and northern Montana was sunny and warm into the weekend. So we came to Glacier afterall. We got here Tuesday evening about 6:30 and found a campsite in the park at Apgar Campground on the west side of the park;.

There aren’t very many people here, we almost feel like we have the entire National Park to ourselves. Campground space? No problem. Traffic? There isn’t any. The downside is that there aren’t many services either. We haven’t seen a Park Ranger since we got here. Most of the stores and vendor services are closed, too. And road construction has some of the roads closed including part of the famous Going-To-The-Sun Road across the park. It is closed now east of Logan Pass.

So far, we haven’t seen the animals that we saw at Yellowstone. There have been a few deer in the campground. I would say the scenery is the attraction here and there’s plenty of that.

So yesterday, Wednesday, we drove the Going to the Sun Road as far as we could to Logan Pass. We saw the glaciers and the glacier-formed valleys and lakes. The road itself is a thing to behold. It was constructed in the early 1930s, blasted and built into the side of the mountains that takes you along shear dropoffs and outcropping rocks. Along with the incredible views, they intentionally made the drive an adventure in itself. Instant death is but a foot away from your outside wheels.

Once we got to Logan Pass, there were quite a few people and a lot of them were hiking the trail to Hidden Lake or the Hidden Lake Overlook. The lake is 3 miles and the overlook 1-1/2 miles. At the overlook there’s an informational sign about what the scene of Hidden Lake and Bear Hat Mountain looked like from the overlook in 1930 and also the recent picture on the sign, date unknown. Notice the difference in the size of the glaciers. And compare those with our picture taken today of the same scene. The glaciers are receding. Scientists think there will be no more glaciers in Glacier National Park by 2030.