A Day's Worth

The bellman told us to eat at The Park Cafe next to the Exxon station and skip the lodge food. Sure thing. It was delish. We are literally 3 minutes from the East Entrance and I couldn’t wait to hit the Visitor’s Center. My exact words to the Ranger were, “I have one day here with these little people. What can we do to feel like we’ve seen the park without too much driving?”

And we had a great day indeed.

Who knew we’d be climbing 6,000 feet in 20 minutes?

We got to Logan Pass and an enormous cloud was passing over the entire parking lot. We literally walked right through it, which didn’t feel anything like walking in fog. Following the other hikers, we started the climb in our absolutely ridiculous hiking attire. Now, you know we own the right stuff – we were very appropriate for Alaska. But I couldn’t justify lugging around that stuff for a month just to hike one day in Glacier National Park. Well, Niece wins for worst shoes! Doodle wins for most stylish! We got as far as I felt safe and Peanut was so mad that I made her turn around. She was on her way to check out a hole somewhere and says I never let her do anything dangerous. At the exact moment of insubordination, a huge man sank up to his knee in snow.

I learned that to qualify as a glacier you have to be 100 feet deep and 25 acres. We weren’t actually on a glacier, but it felt like it.

The most delightful part was our 360-degree view of the mountains, and all the critters. Ground squirrels ran around so happy in their winter meadow and a deer walked right past us only 5 feet away. We were dumbfounded (and silent for once).

Then we took a 1.5 hours boat ride in St. Mary Lake, 2nd largest in the park. The turquoise color of glacier lakes never gets old. But here, the rocks are truly an arresting sight. The canyon walls are pink (oxygen) and the slate is green (no oxygen). I think I mentioned that we’re collecting dirt from every state. Well, Montana dirt is pink! Doodle is delighted.