Hiking in Glacier Ntnl Park

Back at home I had looked at the town of West Glacier on Google Earth but it looks so much different, and so much more remote from ground level. Tall spruce trees line the roads keeping any cabins or houses around us hidden. We drove into West Glacier after a big breakfast and found it to be a row of restaurants and shops all of which had "Closed for the Season" signs in the window. (I did find that the Glacier View Golf Course is open but I haven't played there…yet!) There was a wonderful deserted feeling to everything as we stood on the sidewalk and watched the wind blow golden aspen leaves across the road.

We drove into the park and found that the famed Going to the Sun Road was closed 16 miles ahead. A ranger told us that we can drive around the park and enter from the East, which is what we're planning to do tomorrow. We then walked down to MacDonald Lake and got our first look at Glacier National Park. It's difficult to describe but it was quite spectacular.

MacDonald Lake is about five miles wide and 30 miles long. It runs north-south and we were standing on the south shore looking north. I know from photographs that at the north end is a range of snowy mountains. Today they were partially hidden by dark clouds that swirled around the summits. And yet the view was still stunning. It seems as if we were looking through the crack in a gigantic door into a heavenly world of splendor. That's fancy language for me but it does capture a little of what the view did to me.

The wind coming off the lake was frigid so we eventually retreated to the car and we drove up along the lake. The way was lined with golden aspens and maples which were shedding their leaves that were blowing across the road. We stopped at MacDonald Lodge, on the Lake, which was constructed in the 1920s even before the road was built. The guests had to arrive by boat. It was shuttered and deserted now and when I looked through the window all the furniture was covered by ghostly sheets, making me think of "The Shining" by Stephen King.

We parked where the road was barricaded and hiked on a trail to Avalanche Lake. Signs everywhere warned of grizzly bears and they were daunting to Vivian and me. But then we saw a sign for a missing hiker who had disappeared. The sign asked us to look for scattered pieces of the missing hiker's backpack or any of his clothing or equipment, indicating they thought he had been torn apart by bears. However, the trail was packed with hikers so I felt if a bear came along he would have a wide variety to choose from so I concluded our odds for survival were pretty good. I did feel proud of Vivian for not being too scared to make the hike.
We climbed about 500 feet in elevation and two miles along a stream under a roof of thick spruce trees. Then, suddenly, we came to the lake and got an amazing view. It was as if we were at the base of an amphitheatre of mountains. Snowy walls of rock rose all around the shores of the lake. A faint white line ran down the wall at the far end of the lake indicating a waterfall that fell in stages from the ridge 2,000 feet above. It was one of the most stunning sights I have ever seen and we admired it as long as we could in the cold and windy afternoon.

Back at the car we were in desperate need of coffee and found a rustic gift shop and restaurant with a pine table in the front window. I got a piece of "rassleberry" pie (raspberry and huckleberry) and a big mug of coffee. Through the front window I could see across the road to the Amtrak Station and beyond to the mountains of Glacier National Park. I said to Vivian, "I can't tell you how happy I feel right now." I felt this way because of the combination of being out of the cold, having pie and coffee, and still having four days left to explore.

We drove down to Columbia Falls to get groceries and found a huge lumber mill looming above everything with a mountain of saw dust beside it. We located a huge supermarket with some strange name outside town and the biggest American flag flapping overhead I've ever seen. As we left the store and threaded our cart between rusted pickups and dirty beatmobiles, Vivian said, "Well, I could never live here." I asked why. "Because it's depressing as hell." It's always startling when someone as nice as Vivian is so blunt. But she was right. There was something dreary about the place. Montana towns tend to have an over abundance of casinos and bars. That must tell you how much there is to do during the long winters.

On our way back to our cabin I had to stop and take a picture of a closed attraction where a sign loudly proclaimed that you could drive your car among bears. The sign trumpeted, "Your car is your cage!" As if that was a good thing. The sign said the attraction was only available, "Weather and bears permitting." Who says bears don't wield a lot of power.


Back at our cabin we shook off the feeling of Columbia Falls and cooked a steak dinner. We're going over our maps and guide books and planning a big day exploring the east side of the park. Better set aside an extra hour to read that episode.