Day 5, Going to the sun. ?!?
Glacier NP.
As far as budget hotels go, we were very pleased with our room at Motel 6 in Kalispell. We walked across the road to the Montana club for breakfast, where I had a very nice traditional Benedict and Lezli had pancake with egg and sausage patte. The food and atmosphere was good and the waitress was amazing, she was so energetic, smiley and bubbly [without being OTT] so I said I would have what ever it was she had had for breakfast and hope it worked on me !
It was a slow start today and by the time we had wandered back to the Motel, loaded the car and filled up the tank, it was already 11am before we left town. It wasn't much further up the road that the grey skies turned black and the heavens opened, the wipers were on full speed and could barely clear the screen and there was a lot of standing water on the road. It was then that our trip very nearly took a turn for the worse. We were in the centre lane with a truck to our right when an old SUV shot out of a gas station across the 3 lanes of traffic coming towards us. [He must have got impatient waiting as he had no right to go when he did with the oncoming traffic] The lane on my left was vacant so I thought he would filter into that, although I was now alert to him. I don't know what he was thinking but he drove straight into our lane right in front of us , which caused me to have to brake heavily and swerve to the outside lane as smoothly as I possibly could, missing him by fractions. I knew it was close when Lezli's silence was broken as she cursed [rare event] and removed her foot from the imaginary passenger brake peddle !
My original plan was to take North Fork road [486] up to small community of Polebridge MT and then into Glacier to McDonald Lake on Camas road. The weather was really heavy now, it was grey and everything was cloud covered so there was not much to see, plus it was later than planned, so we went straight to Apgar village next to Lake McDonald via West Glacier on US2.
Just when we thought it couldn't get much worse it rained even heavier, so we went into the gift shops in the village and spent longer than we normally would have done. My thoughts were turning to our drive over the Going to the Sun road today and looking at the mountains I didn't hold out much hope for the spectacular views I was hoping for. Right up until this point we had been spoilt with the weather with every moment we had ever spent in the States and I knew it, so it was a case of shaking off the dissapointment and hoping for the best.
The weather started to lighten a little and I managed a couple of shots of Lake McDonald before the weather moved in again and we moved on.
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We started on our way up the GTTSR and stopped at Lake McDonald Lodge where we bought a snack from the qauint little store located nearby. The clouds continued to cover the mountains but as the heavy rain had turned to a drizzle it seemed a good idea to walk in the woods and took to the Trail of the Cedars and Avalanche creek with a stop at McDonald Creek. One advantage of the rain is that the Creeks and rivers were flowing nicely. [Always look on the bright side of life !]
McDonald Creek.
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Trail of the Cedars.
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Avalanche Creek.
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All the time the cloud was hugging to the mountain tops, it would clear at times to show us some of the beauty along the GTTSR, the cloud made it quite spectacular at times and at others blanked our views completely. We stopped at 'The Loop' and it was clear enough for a while to see Heavens Peak and surrounding mountains.
Some shots along the GTTSR.
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We got a glimpse of Jackson Glacier on the way, but for 2 or 3 miles high up on the road we could barely see 20 yards in front of us.
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We were staying in a cabin at the Rising Sun motor Inn by St Marys Lake, and as we approached the lake in good time, we decided to walk to St Marys Falls before checking in for the night. It was early evening and the light was fading under the cloud cover as we made our way to the Falls. We passed a few people on the way but by the time we got to the Falls everyone had left and we had the place to ourselves.
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We spent close to an hour at the Falls and river. There was complete silence, other than the noise of flowing water, and as the mountains began to reveal themselves from the cloud cover, we 'breathed in' the moment. Back at our cabin we sat on the porch and reflected on what had turned out to be a great day. We went over to the 'Two Dogs Flat' dining room had a great meal, followed by a drink sitting on our cabins porch under the [now] clear starry night sky.
Todays mileage 88. Average speed =24mph. Return= 28mpg
Total mileage = 1480
Route