Date: 9/11/2019
Miles: 169
Today we rode through Glacier National Park. I found it to be the most spectacular park I’ve been to yet! And, we barely broke the surface. We found out that there are a lot of hikes to see some of the beautiful places which Glacier is known for. I’ll definitely be back in the future for more!
On the ride in I had the GoPro’s all ready. We entered through the west entrance and the first place we stopped was Lake McDonald. This is the infamous lake that’s super clear. You can see the colorful rocks through the water.
From there we followed the main road through the park; Going-to-the-Sun Road. I’m not making that up, it’s really the name of the road! At this point you’re riding along the River in the valley of all of these spectacular mountains! We were in awe.
Then, we started climbing up along the mountain side! The views were unbelievable!! They kept getting better all the way up. You can see some of the peaks still have snow on them and some little waterfalls where the natural water runs off. It’s really amazing!
We followed Going-to-the-Sun Road until we reached the top pass, Logan’s Pass and there was a shorter hike to Hidden Lake. On the way up we saw what seemed to be a grizzly bear off in the distance. Although it was far and hard to see, it was cool. We continued walking but stopped often to take photos of the mountains and the scenery! Pictures truly don’t do justice!!
Once we got to the overlook we walked back and headed to Highline Overlook. This is a rock ledge trail. It’s a really interesting trail about 2-3ft wide where it’s on a ledge about 60-100ft above the roadway. We didn’t go too far on this trail as we wanted to make it to the other end of the park within a reasonable time.
From there we headed towards St Mary’s which is a little town on the eastern side of the park. On the way we stopped to take some photos of Jackson Glacier. It was cool to see the the wavy lines in its formation. In 1910, there were 110 glaciers and now there’s only 25 or so left in the park. The others you need to hike to see. After taking some photos, we rode straight to town. We were all really hungry. We grabbed some lunch at this cute old place formerly called Johnson’s.
Once done, we headed back through the park on our way back to the hotel. Up ahead I thought it was snowing. Gabe thought it was raining. It looked like heavy fog in the distance. As we got closer is cleared up and we got hit with some rain drops. So, Gabe was right, I was wrong….again! Haha. We didn’t have to suit up. That was a big win!
On the way back we stopped on the river. The water pools are so incredibly blue. I figured the water was super clean, so I drank from the river. Now if you’ve ever seen Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, I’m like Augustus Gloop drinking chocolate from the chocolate river. Hahahaha.
We grabbed some photos and headed to the hotel. I had stopped for gas at this gas station and there was an ice cream spot. Gabe had to go there. He was craving a huckleberry shake. He asked for something similar at lunch but they ran out. He was pretty upset. Actually, I think I saw him shed a tear hahahahaha. Gabe and Christian got shakes and I got the huckleberry pie along with a scoop of ice cream. It was quite delicious. We were all pretty full afterwards so we called it a night when we arrived at the hotel.
Adventures of Matty Q 