Visiting Glacier National Park

Dateline: July 6, 2014

Heidi and I went to Glacier National Park to celebrate our 40^th anniversary. We spent four days there, dividing our time between Many Glacier Lodge on the east and Lake McDonald Lodge on the west. Both are beautiful log structures built a century ago to promote Rocky Mountain tourism.

Many Glacier Lodge, Glacier National Park

The drive up from Great Falls, Montana is a great road trip. Sparsely settled and nearly treeless, you can see for many miles across the rolling high plains and mesas. Glacier’s mountain range, still snow-covered on its peaks, rises in the distance. One marvels at the history of the 19^th century pioneers encountering this vastness. Our route crossed the Blackfeet Indian Reservation, the tribe known as “lords of the plains”, calling to mind all that great Native American history, both triumphant and tragic, over the course of one thousand years.



Blackfeet Reservation near Browning, Montana

Glacier National Park is majestic and remote, with its towering rocky peaks and far fewer visitors than Yellowstone receives. Water is everywhere from snowmelt runoff, ice melt-blue surging in streams, waterfalls and seeps. A big late season storm on June 19^th had dumped two feet of snow atop Logan Pass at the Continental Divide. Trails were closed there, the drifts astonishing for early July. Kids were snowboarding and skiing on the Fourth of July.

The Going to the Sun Road is every bit as majestic as we had heard. Our simple cameras were incapable of capturing the expanse, shapes, and colors.

Snowdrifts at Logan Pass, July 4th

It is a hiker’s mecca, and we enjoyed two good day hikes. Unlike Yellowstone, where you almost don’t have to get out of your car to see the park’s highlights (both a good and bad thing), Glacier is best experienced on its trails. There are trails of every length and difficulty. Most hikers are day hikers like us, but it’s obvious from gear and outfits that many people are there for serious hikes and climbs.

Lake McDonald, Glacier National Park

You must have blinders on if you come away from Glacier National Park still not believing about climate change, and that it’s manmade. Then-and-now photography of the same glaciers from the same locations graphically depicts their dramatic loss. Interpretive information clearly shows the steep rise in temperature patterns over the course of the same few decades. I resolve to be more aware of my energy usage; and purchase carbon credits to offset our driving and plane trips each year.