Enjoying Glacier Park

Hiking in Glacier Park is part luck.  The luck involves being able to find a parking spot at the trail head or reasonably close. Armed with that knowledge, our goal for the day was to take two short hikes on the east side of Glacier Park – St Mary’s Falls and Virginia Falls. The trail head is accessed by going from West Glacier and up the Going-to-the-Sun road and down the other side or by coming in from St Mary’s, which is way around the east side. We chose the later. 

The road around the south end of Glacier is quite pretty with the mountains and trees.  It also takes time – about 2.5 hours – to get to the east side entrance. This is not a quick trip.

At Marias Pass there is a monument to John Stevens, the person that found a way through the mountains to the south of Glacier Park that allowed the Great Northern Railroad to punch a rail line through from east to west. This was in the 1889. (As a bit of trivia, he is also the engineer that discovered through route through Stevens Pass in the Cascades and for whom the pass is named.)

The Great Northern Railroad was instrumental in the development of the grand lodges within the park, as Glacier became the playground of choice. The construction of the snow sheds across the tracks attests to the wild nature of the rail line in the winter. Until the 1910’s, the railroad was used to ferry cars from one side of Glacier to the other, as the road we were traveling did not exist. Pretty impressive when you see the railroad is still in use today. 

Once at St. Mary, we entered the park thinking we were not that far away from our hike.  That is where luck, or lack of luck, came into play.  On a good day, parking is limited at the trail head.  Today, not only was the parking full, with the road construction, parking was more limited than normal. Hiking the two trails was not an option today, darn.  

Heading toward Logan Pass, we thought we would stop at the visitors center and walk up to the Hidden Lake overlook.  That wasn’t an option either.  The parking lot was full, as was every other pullout or lookout.  To say that the park was crazy busy is an understatement! I will seriously consider taking the shuttle through the park on any future visits to get to the various sites.   

Since we could not hike to any destination, we did the next best thing.  We found a pull off along McDonald Creek and spent some time wander up and down the creek. The Creek is incredibly clear and cold. It took me back to the days that we wadded the creek outside of the cabin in NW Montana as a kid. Great fun!Back at camp, the sunset at Flathead Lake provides a wonderful cap to the day.