July 28, 2024. Day 21 of trip.
We spent the last several days traveling from Athol, Idaho to Columbia Falls, Montana near Glacier National Park. Heidi and I visited Glacier National Park three years ago for our 20th wedding anniversary and we wanted to bring Annalise and Dexter back to this beautiful location.
We spent a night near Thompson Falls, Montana where Annalise enjoyed feeding the two horses who lived in the pasture next door. She spent over an hour hand-feeding them and getting “horsey kisses.” The owner of the horses was pleased to have a young lady show so much affection to them.
When we arrived at Glacier Acres Guest Ranch HipCamp, we were pleasantly surprised to discover multiple outhouses, a bathhouse, and even an outdoor kitchen sink area for doing dishes. Given that we are going for 5 nights and 6 days without RV hookups, any resource we can access outside our RV is much appreciated.
Upon our arrival, I was able to obtain a vehicle permit to drive on the Going to the Sun road which was a relief. They require permits to keep the vehicle traffic down. Even with the permit system, there are still too many cars and not enough parking. If I hadn’t obtained the permit, we would need to arrive at the entrance gate prior to 6am which would mean leaving our campsite by 5:15AM.
Unfortunately, Ranger didn’t get the memo and when he woke up at 4:45AM this morning, he decided to start barking. Ranger had a little loose stool yesterday and he doesn’t usually wake up that early, so Heidi was concerned he might need to go to the bathroom urgently. As it turned out, Ranger just wanted to hang out. I started to fall back to sleep, and then was rudely awakened by Ranger licking my face. I don’t like it when Ranger licks me, but I especially don’t enjoy it when he licks my face when I’m half asleep.
We ate breakfast, got ready, and were headed to Glacier National Park by 8:30. We entered via the West Glacier entrance and started exploring the Going to the Sun road by 9:00. The Going to the Sun road is full of sharp turns, and is quite narrow, but has spectacular views.
We got to the Logan Pass parking area at 10 AM and discovered (as expected) that the lot was completely full. There were 20 or 30 other cars actively circling the parking lot looking for a space. We circled for about 20 minutes and finally claimed a spot from someone who was walking to their car. The rest of their group was in the gift shop, so we waited another 20 minutes to actually park. All told it was almost 45 minutes from the time we arrived until we parked. It seems to me that the biggest problem with National Parks is that everyone wants to visit and there isn’t enough space for everyone to park.
Once we parked, we put on our hiking boots, grabbed our trekking poles and headed the 1.5 miles to the Hidden Lake overlook. Along the way we spotted many beautiful wildflowers, multiple mountain goats, and of course, tons of tourists.
At our prior hike in North Cascade National Park, Dexter kept “accidentally” hitting Heidi with his trekking poles. Today, he did it again and I told him he needed to follow behind the rest of us with enough space to avoid hitting anyone. I stepped forward, and as soon as my back was turned, I got hit in the ankle with a trekking pole. I grabbed Dexter by the front of his shirt, yelled at him, and told him never to hit anyone with a trekking pole again. Dexter was taken aback by the degree of my reaction, but I was really irritated that I got stabbed less than 5 seconds after I told him not to do it. About 5 seconds later, Annalise piped in, “Actually Dada, I was the one who hit you.” I promptly apologized to Dexter for assuming that he was the one who hit me, but he grumbled about it for the next 15 or 20 minutes.
Shortly thereafter, we came upon a mountain goat less than 10 feet from the trail who was happily munching away at various greenery and Dexter was enthralled and took pictures and video.
When we got to Hidden Lake overlook, we got out the binoculars to look for bears but didn’t spot any.
The trip back to the parking lot was all downhill so it went faster than the trip uphill and we made it back to the parking lot about 12:45. We departed as quickly as possible as there were still multiple people circling the lot looking for parking.
We drove down the Going to the Sun road until we found a nice spot to park, take off our hiking boots, and eat lunch.
Annalise slept for most of the way up the road and promised that she’d enjoy the ride down. When we were driving down the road, she spent the entire time begging to play on her phone. I didn’t let her play on her phone, so she switched to singing annoying songs just for the purposed of irritating the rest of us.
After exiting the park, we stopped by a tourist trap called “The Huckleberry Patch (Since 1949)” where we waited in a long line for the privilege of paying $44.95 for a huckleberry pie. Northwestern Montana is completely obsessed with huckleberries, so our visit would not be complete without some huckleberry pie.
We watched a little bit of Olympics coverage on NBC before bed. I think this might be the first time in our kids’ lives that they have watched live-broadcast TV using an antenna.
Next, we are heading about 300 miles south east towards Bozeman, Montana where we will be dropping Annalise and Dexter off with their youth group (The Sunnyside Pathfinder Club). They are joining about 50,000 other Pathfinders from around the world in Gillette, Wyoming for a huge camping trip. The Pathfinder Camporee occurs every 5 years and is a huge logistical challenge.
While Annalise and Dexter are at the Camporee, Heidi, Ranger, and I will be enjoying exploring Montana and Wyoming.
SAOTD: Dexter who got scolded by me for whacking me with his trekking pole even though it was later determined to be Annalise who was the culprit