Glacier
National Park borders Alberta, Canada.
Glacier NP runs into Canada’s Waterton Lakes National Park. Together the two of them are called Waterton
Glacier International Peace Park.
We
spent three nights camped just outside the west side of Glacier NP in a town
called West Glacier. We stayed in the
KOA and this is an excellent RV park with great views of the mountains. It was very stormy the day of our arrival and
we were treated to a beautiful double rainbow on our first evening.
The
best part of Glacier National Park is traveling the winding “Going-to-the-Sun”
road to the the highest point of this park (6,646 feet). This is the only road that ventures deep into
the park, going over the Continental Divide and connects to St. Mary, the east
side of Glacier. However, this time of
the year that road is closed as well as most of the visitor centers and the lodges
inside the park. We are here early in
the season and snow is still being plowed on this pass. For us it is the best time to be here. There is no traffic and no crowds. We drove around the southern tip of the park
and up the east side into Canada and visited Alberta’s Waterton National
Park. Canada’s national parks have towns
and residents inside the park. We
saw big horn sheep and elk feeding and lying on lawns in front of resident
homes that are inside the park.
Obviously these people cannot enjoy any kind of gardens on their
property.
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| Big Horn Sheep |
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| Elk resting in a city park |
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| Prince of Wales Hotel |
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| Chief Mountain – International boundary of US and Canada. |
At the west entrance of Glacier NP, everything around Lake McDonald was
open, including the big lodge. We had a
very nice meal there and enjoyed the beautiful scenery. Despite it being very windy that first day,
parts of the lake was very calm. The reflections
of the mountains and clouds on that lake were beautiful and magical.
The
skies were clear and the sun was brilliant on our last day. Instead of being in the 50’s as the last two
days were, it was warm and in the high 60’s.
It was a gorgeous and peaceful day.
We drove north outside of the park to a town called Polebridge. This is a one building town with a few
scattered homes and a long, narrow, mostly dirt road leading to it. That one building is called Polebridge
Mercantile and it has the best bakery inside with lots of delicious sweets made
with Huckleberry. We enjoyed the
biggest, best tasting Huckleberry Bearclaw you will ever see and taste.
On our
way back to West Glacier we enjoyed a great view of the mountains while driving
the “Outside North Fork Road”.
Before
enjoying a delicious dinner at the Lake McDonald Lodge, we rented a motorboat
and circled one corner of Lake McDonald for an hour.
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Relaxing before dinner
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A
perfect ending to a wonderful day.
Tomorrow we head for Canada for a long day traveling 350
miles. We will spend the next several days in Banff and Jasper, Alberta.
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