Time for another National Park
Trip Start
Sep 18, 2005
1
6
15
Trip End
Oct 02, 2005
Glacier National Park,
Montana,
United States
Friday, September 23, 2005
I finally got off of I-90 and headed north on 93 towards the park. It started to rain a bit as I drove through small towns and up big hills. (Go transmission go!!) My cell phone reception was in and out as I drove and Sarah and I played phone tag a few times. By the time I got to Whitefish at 3PM I was half-starved. I found Sarah's car pretty easily (very hard to miss with the zebra print seats within the blue beetle) and Sarah was contained inside. Michal wasn't far away and I led them into a little bar/restaurant and downed a burger, fries, and some moose drool :) It was getting late by the time we were done there and we headed into the park. We were told that St. Mary's was probably a better bet for camping- closer to several of the good trails. However, it was on the other side of the park. I was a little sketched out about driving to the other side. It would take over an hour to get there and by the time we arrived, it would be getting dark. I like setting up camp in the light.... We picked up some things in the camp store on the Western side and began to drive East.
I had a wonderful time on the drive. Going to the Sun Road is the park that cuts across the center of the park- over the continental divide. The road started out passing blue lakes and yellow-leaved aspen trees. The sun had emerged and it made the ride gorgeous. Then the road started to wind up into the mountains. Suddenly, we were surrounded by huge snow-capped peaks, waterfalls, and gigantic drops. Logan pass, at over 6,000 feet, had evidently received some snow in the recent past- you could see that the road was wet and that snow lightly covered either side. Good thing the snow wasn't on the road- with that winding, curving, cliff-drop road, it would have been terrifying. We didn't stop much- we were trying to get to the camp as soon as possible. We wound our way down to St. Mary lake and the campground wasn't too far. We searched for an appropriate site, dropped off the cash, and set up our gear. Michal got to work on the fire (fire paste rules!) and also piled on some more clothes. We cooked up a bit of dinner over our camp stoves and the temperature dropped even more. I finally dug out my thermometer because we started to see frost developing. According to the thermometer, it was just over 20 degrees. YOUCH! Freezing! But the fire was warm and the camp was comfortable. I dragged my primaloft comforter into my tent, along with my 2 sleeping bags and down jacket. Needless to say, I was warm enough. We went to bed, hearing wolves and coyotes howling and yipping in the cold dark.
