As for our recent trip up to Glacier...there are a few things that the guide books forget to mention:
WYOMING-Rolling, sagebrush filled highways (boring) with truckers and gas pipe lines if you go I-80 and many, many, many flat, squashed, dead rabbits if you go I-25.
UTAH-N.E. Utah NOT like the the rest of Utah (no rock formations)
IDAHO-Roads surrounded by fields of potato plants or black, chunky lava rock.
MONTANA-
--Record heat for the 2 weeks we were in the area (98*).
--Record heat driving us to swim in the snow melt river feeding Lake McDonald (36* or so?)
--Free range cattle/horses/dogs in the Blackfeet Indian Reservation. This in an area where the
the speed limit is 70mph and the road is twisty. 2 free range horses wandered around camp
on the reservation just outside the East entrance to Glacier. The cows act like they own the
road and take their sweet time getting off to graze. I guess maybe the grass IS greener on
the other side!
--The last minute repairs on Going-To-The-Sun road in Glacier were scary...a substantial
bridge that seemed to be stuck to the side of the mountain...well, we aren't quite sure how.
--Light until 11pm! Hard to get the kids to believe you that it's way past bedtime.
--Hiking in trails with snow fields with Bighorn sheep and Mt. Goats on the trail with you (this
a NICE surprise).
--Casino's. They were EVERYWHERE. The gas station, the restaurants, the reservations.
Seedy looking places with seedy clientele.
--Grama spending time taking the boys fishing at least 6 times, in 6 different places and the
only person who caught a fish was me (with Ben's abandoned pole). To top it off it ended
up being a fish on the endangered species list.
With all that said we had a GREAT trip. It ended up being a very different trip then what I imagined. I didn't think it would be almost 100* everyday. I never dreamed we would spend hours on the shore of the lake swimming (it was a chilly lake). While we saw Bighorn sheep and Mt. Goats all over the top of the pass, we hardly saw any other animals due to the heat. They did close all trail in a major section of the east park due to grizzly activity. I quickly decided that I didn't want to camp in that area. We went into Canada to Waterton Lakes National Park which is connected to Glacier in the north. There was a few nice places we found but not terribly impressed by the scenery. Digging for fossils was dirty hard work but interesting. We had hoped to find more fish fossils but found a few anyway. The boys got the hang of breaking the rock open the right way. The dogs spent a week at a kennel outside Glacier. They had as much fun swimming in the lake as the boys did.
WYOMING-Rolling, sagebrush filled highways (boring) with truckers and gas pipe lines if you go I-80 and many, many, many flat, squashed, dead rabbits if you go I-25.
UTAH-N.E. Utah NOT like the the rest of Utah (no rock formations)
IDAHO-Roads surrounded by fields of potato plants or black, chunky lava rock.
MONTANA-
--Record heat for the 2 weeks we were in the area (98*).
--Record heat driving us to swim in the snow melt river feeding Lake McDonald (36* or so?)
--Free range cattle/horses/dogs in the Blackfeet Indian Reservation. This in an area where the
the speed limit is 70mph and the road is twisty. 2 free range horses wandered around camp
on the reservation just outside the East entrance to Glacier. The cows act like they own the
road and take their sweet time getting off to graze. I guess maybe the grass IS greener on
the other side!
--The last minute repairs on Going-To-The-Sun road in Glacier were scary...a substantial
bridge that seemed to be stuck to the side of the mountain...well, we aren't quite sure how.
--Light until 11pm! Hard to get the kids to believe you that it's way past bedtime.
--Hiking in trails with snow fields with Bighorn sheep and Mt. Goats on the trail with you (this
a NICE surprise).
--Casino's. They were EVERYWHERE. The gas station, the restaurants, the reservations.
Seedy looking places with seedy clientele.
--Grama spending time taking the boys fishing at least 6 times, in 6 different places and the
only person who caught a fish was me (with Ben's abandoned pole). To top it off it ended
up being a fish on the endangered species list.
With all that said we had a GREAT trip. It ended up being a very different trip then what I imagined. I didn't think it would be almost 100* everyday. I never dreamed we would spend hours on the shore of the lake swimming (it was a chilly lake). While we saw Bighorn sheep and Mt. Goats all over the top of the pass, we hardly saw any other animals due to the heat. They did close all trail in a major section of the east park due to grizzly activity. I quickly decided that I didn't want to camp in that area. We went into Canada to Waterton Lakes National Park which is connected to Glacier in the north. There was a few nice places we found but not terribly impressed by the scenery. Digging for fossils was dirty hard work but interesting. We had hoped to find more fish fossils but found a few anyway. The boys got the hang of breaking the rock open the right way. The dogs spent a week at a kennel outside Glacier. They had as much fun swimming in the lake as the boys did.
