We woke up to some nice blue skies...glad the rains are behind us! We headed off from our Tiny Home in Saint Mary's Village towards the Rising Sun boat dock.
Much anticipation for this boat ride! Lots of reports of bears in the area...so much so that they actually cancelled the hike portion of the boat trip because the bears have been frequenting the dock area. All the kids have their brand new binoculars at the ready.
On the right here is some of the oldest rock in Glacier, our boat guide said over 1 billion years old. Almost seems like it must be an exaggeration. But apparently this rock was so hard that the glacier that carved down and made the whole valley ended up going around the rock, this leaving the rock behind for us to see.
Baba enjoying the view.
They had a rule that only 4 people could be out on the bridge at a time -- so we had to take turns taking group photos. B made a deer spotting...but alas, no bears.
I thought it was still a nice excursion, would recommend - I don't think it really matters which specific boat ride you do (between Lake Mary or Many Glacier or Lake MacDonald), but it's nice to see the mountains from a different perspective.
After the boat ride, we grabbed a quick lunch and then packed up the car for our scenic drive down the main attraction at Glacier National Park: Going to the Sun Road.
Really impressive vistas the entire way. One can definitely see why it's a national park.
Snapped this pic of Siyeh creek from the car, I'm including it here because I was impressed with my action shot framing. 😊
But soon we made it to our action adventure stop - Logan Pass and the Hidden Lake Overlook hike. Armed with some hiking poles and raincoats (you'll see why soon enough), off we went. Three hour limit for parking at Logan Pass so we are on the clock for this hike! (As a side note, I can definitely see cars circling for hours in order to get a parking spot to do this hike. We got a little lucky with a family passing by our car while we were waiting...but we overheard someone else saying they'd been waiting for a spot for 45 minutes!)
It was categorized as an "easy-medium" hike but it was actually quite physically challenging because of all the snow. Many rests were taken on the way up.
New wildlife spotting: Marmot!
We were slipping quite a bit in the melting snow. I was very very glad I had the hiking poles with me! (Well, as you can see in the background here, Baba stole one). The children were slipping too but they seemed to take it in stride. (Haha?)
The effort was rewarded though. We got some out of this world views towards the top. Reminded me of Death Valley in that foreign planet-esque landscape way, though obviously here with snow and ice fields instead of burning hot sand dunes.
We eventually made it to the very top of the mountain - my attempt at a panorama.
This is where we embarked on the much anticipated snow sledding runs. See those groves in the snow? That's where we are supposed to sit down and slide away.
Video proof of me sliding will be uploaded tomorrow (not on my phone). I didn't have a rain coat to sit on, so I tried doing it with a plastic shopping bag. Didn't go so well. But it was so much fun! As the kids say, "low key tough." (That means unexpectedly cool btw).
After the slide, somehow slipping around a bit on each step seemed less problematic. Worst case, I just slide again!
This person went about the descent a different way -- they lugged skies all the up and took a run down!
It took us about an hour to get up to the top and down the slide. Getting back to the parking lot after that was probably only 30 min or so. But we still rested at times to enjoy the view.
Everyone told me they did NOT expect me to slide down. So they were very proud of MaMa!
We made it back to the car well within our 3 hour time limit and continued the drive west on Going to the Sun Road.
We didn't make any more stops because we were worried about getting to our dinner reservation. Turns out our anxieties were unnecessary -- there really wasn't much traffic to deal with -- I guess the new shuttle pass system must be working? We ended up at Belton Chalet over a hour earlier than our reservation. They were kind enough to still sear us immediately though! L enjoying her first Italian soda!
Belton Chalet had some very nice food. Definitely a culinary highlight of the trip. Here's B's trout:
YeYe's filet with asparagus and carrots:
My ribeye with broccolini:
And the huckleberry cheesecake (made with ricotta, very rich, almost a little salty because of the cheese, my preferred flavor profile for cheesecakes!).
The restaurant gave us the cheesecakes for free as a birthday gift for the kids - the waitress was so nice and helpful -- and turns out she is a West Virginia native! I would definitely recommend Belton Chalet's dining room if you're out in West Glacier. It was practically walkable from the West Glacier Park entrance so very convenient for anyone staying on the west side of the park.
After we finished dinner, we headed out to Meadow Lake Resort & Condos where we would be staying for the remainder of the Glacier trip. Three nights here...felt like such a luxury to be able to actually unpack clothes. 😆
I forgot to take photos of the condo before we called it a night -- but it is a world of difference from tiny homes and camping tents: three TVs (with world cup channels!), washer & dryer IN the unit, and even a swimming pool and hot tub on the grounds!
We tried not to stay up too late though -- tomorrow, our plan is to hike Trail of the Cedars and check out Lake McDonald Lodge, maybe with some condo pool time thrown in for good measure. Day 2 out!
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