We woke up to a brisk, windy Montana morning. We ate a good breakfast and loaded up into the Cranberry to head inside Glacier National Park. Sadly, it rained for most of the morning and early afternoon, but we didn’t let that stop us from exploring.
We first embarked on the Going-to-the-Sun Road. That is one of the most ridiculous road names I have ever heard in all my life, but it’s definitely a name I won’t soon forget. Because of recent snow (yes, it snows here in the summer-pretty hard to believe), only the first 13 miles of the road were open, but we took advantage of every mile. It was raining pretty consistently, so we didn’t spend all that much time outside of the car, but we always stopped for pictures. Because the sun was not out and shining, the water in St. Mary’s Lake did not have quite the blue tint that is usually shown in pictures, but the scenery was still breathtaking. |
At one point, the rain slowed and we decided to go exploring on foot for a while. We parked the car and began hiking down to Sunrift Gorge, not exactly knowing what we were hiking to. About 300 yards into the trail, we stumbled upon a young deer with developing antlers. It was not startled in the slightest by our presence, so we were able to get within 5 feet of him before it darted off into the woods.
We kept walking down the trail and eventually came to Baring Falls, an unexpected surprise. The waterfall was breathtaking and Zach and I were able to climb halfway up the falls.
A sign nearby stated that there was a boat dock 0.3 miles down the path, so we kept walking. The trail ended right on the banks of the lake, with a beautiful panoramic view of the lake and the surrounding mountains. The boat dock was not gated off, so we were able to walk out onto it. The water was crystal clear and you could see directly to the bottom even at the end of the boat dock.
After climbing back out of the Gorge, we loaded back up in the car and headed to another side of the park to find some glaciers. Let me preface the glacier search with this: I am apparently the only one on this trip that is uneducated on the types of glaciers there are in Montana. I thought that a glacier meant a large chunk of gorgeously hinted blue ice floating near the edge of the water or nestled in between mountains. I was terribly wrong; however, I was still not disappointed. The guard at the entrance to the Many Glaciers Road area of Glacier NP told us that just up the road was a view of the Salamander Glacier. My family drove around for awhile, thinking that the glacier was just around the corner, and eventually found ourselves at the end of the road and in the parking lot of the Glacier Park Hotel before we realized that we must have already passed the glacier.
It was so cold and rainy that we decided to head back to the campsite, which was luckily only 10 minutes away. When we got back to the RV, we googled what the Salamander Glacier looks like and apparently Glaciers this time of year are just patches of snow and ice near the peaks of mountains that are there year round. Nevertheless, it was still beautiful, but I felt incredibly inept when we couldn’t find a glacier that was supposed to very closely resemble a salamander.
For dinner, we decided to experiment in the Dutch oven some more, so we cooked what we call a stew-pack (a bunch of vegetables mixed together) over the fire. It was delicious, and let’s just say that there was not much left over.
For dinner, we decided to experiment in the Dutch oven some more, so we cooked what we call a stew-pack (a bunch of vegetables mixed together) over the fire. It was delicious, and let’s just say that there was not much left over.
After dinner we walked around the campground for a while, and a few of us took showers. At the campground office, the lady at the front counter told us that the bridge directly after the entrance to Glacier was featured in the Forrest Gump movie during his cross country running. We were quite curious, so we loaded back up into the Cranberry in search of the Forrest Gump bridge. Luckily, our bridge search was much more successful that our previous glacier endeavor.
I am never ashamed to share embarrassing stories about myself, so here is yet another one for the list. I decided that the only appropriate way to remember our time on the Forrest Gump bridge was to take, yes, a video of myself running across the bridge. As I was running, a car passed and the driver rolled down the window to shout “run, Forrest run!” as I ran passed and he even slowed down the car enough to see my response. Taken off guard, a startled expression ran across my face, to which he responded, “wait, that’s from Forrest Gump, right?”. By that time, I knew what he was referring to, and all I could do was smile and reply with “yes, indeed it is”. I have to say that was the highlight of my day.
The sun was just beginning to set behind the mountains, and the pictures were absolutely incredible.
The sun was just beginning to set behind the mountains, and the pictures were absolutely incredible.
After driving around for a while and enjoying the little bit of direct sunlight we had left, we headed back to the campground. The one thing about the sun out here is that it doesn’t set until around 10:30, so we always enjoy a beautiful sunset right about the time that everyone is ready to head to bed. The time change is only two hours earlier, but getting up early to head to the next destination and making the most of all the 19 hours of sunlight we have is quite exhausting, but absolutely worth it.