Summer Finale Roadtrip - Glacier National Park

Glacier National Park has been on the list all summer, it was a place everyone told us we had to experience if we were in montana in the summer. It's about 7 hours away, so friday night when we left we stopped in Missoula for the night. Stayed at the Bel Aire Motel, went out for drinks and left early sat AM for Glacier.

None of us had been there before, so everything we went off was things learned from reading things online and books. Our first night was at Avalanche campground. It was a little tight as far as campsites cramped together, but we only were there to sleep. This very old cedar tree was something of a sight coming from SW montana.

Avalanche Lake. This was about a 2 mile hike up to this basin with a lake in the middle. All along the wall you can see waterfalls coming down that feed into the lake: those are coming from glaciers of snow and ice above. During the daytime it was hot though, so seeing snow was surreal.

That's Justin swimming around in Kintla Lake. Kintla lake is located waaaay up in the nortwest corner of the park. We were literally 10 miles from the border of Canada when we were up here. I went swimming in Kintla (jenny did too) but i mostly just got my knees wet. It was amazing how frigid the water was only a little ways from shore. This location was roughly a 4 mile hike in. On the way out at dusk we had an encounter with a large black bear which was very cool, and we heard an ENORMOUS tree fall in the woods- the whole forest just shook and echoed for a minute after. That doesnt happen very often, hearing trees fall in the woods, just reminded us how much different of a pace time moves when people aren't involved.

Left: Boundary Mountains/ Canada. These mountains were amazing, we chilled here for awhile.

Going to the Sun Road. We had already been in the park a few days and hadn't made this trip yet. It's a staple thing that you have to do in the park, the most notable feature in Glacier. The engineering that went into building this road is ridiculous, and you'll never find a crazier public road in this country. The views are spectacular, as you would imagine.

Below is the north west corner of the park called Many Glacier. We didnt get to spend too much time up there, but it looked sweet when we cruised up there.

On the way out of the park we spent the afternoon at Macdonald Creek, which reminded me of a spot in NH off the Kangamangus Highway called Lower Falls. This was even more crazy though, the rocks looked all carved out like they were from another planet.

This water is cold! Justin was going to jump in right there- he saw a spot that was about 3 feet wide that looked deep enough. Crazy kid.

Jenny didn't swim here, but it was so cold she probably had the right idea. We completely stumbled upon this spot also, a little more planning we would have spent more time here.

So a lot of car camping went down! Next time we definetly want to plan a backcountry trip and get away from all the people there, but for a first time trip Glacier was incredible!

And that's all I got right now....