Glacier National Park

Park entrance



Marsha's passenger view of the shoulder of the road. Note the rear view mirror. I told you she refused to get out ot the car.



Marsha's passenger view of the road taken from the passenger seat.



Logan Pass



Mountain goats along the way. Sasha and I wanted to go say hi, but Larry just kept on driving.



A tour bus driving along a section of the highway known as the "Weeping Wall."



One of the views along the way with Larry taking a picture of something


Date: Friday, July 26th
Day: 63
RV Miles: 5,581
Location: West Glacier, Montana
Elevation: 3,718

Well Larry finally got us out of Spokane and on to Missoula, Montana. On Thursday, we drove up the West side of the Rockies to West Glacier, Montana. Today, I took Larry and Sasha on patrol about 6:30 (Sasha has reverted to waking Larry up at dawn every day – 5:30AM). At 7AM while on patrol Larry called Marsha on his cell phone to roll her sorry butt out of bed and get breakfast on. By 8:30, we had the car loaded up and set off for the park.

The primary attraction at the park is the “Going-to-the-sun Highway” up across Logan pass and the continental divide. Larry has never been on this highway but has spoken to others who have described it as one of the gnarliest mountain highways around. Based on this, Larry did not give Marsha the option of driving and he drove. He told me he did this because he figured it would freak Marsha out. Seems he was right.

The ascent up to Logan’s Pass was along a very narrow, steep and twisty road known as the “Going-to-the-sun Highway”. There was no shoulder and in places, there was no guardrail, but there was always a huge vertical drop off. Seemed like the mountains sides here were nothing more than near-vertical cliffs that someone managed to scratch a road into. The scenery was, as expected, incredible. Normally, this would have created a situation where Marsha would want to get out and take pictures every two minutes. Not on this trip: She refused to get out of the car – she wanted more room to walk around and less drop-off to worry about.

Larry was initially planning to go to Logan’s Pass, then turn around, and head back. To give you an idea how spooked Marsha was of the highway, she convinced him to keep going to the East side of the Park. She did not want to go back down that road. The eastbound descent to East Glacier was a lot easier than the ascent to Logan’s Pass.

Once Marsha decided to keep going, the only way home was to drive about 90 miles back to West Glacier along US Route 2 (it was 30 miles if they would have just gone back down the mountain the way they came).

Along the way, we went through, East Glacier, an old railroad town build around a grand lodge also built by the railroad for tourists about 1900. The engineering and structure of the lodge fascinated Larry; Marsha wanted to take pictures of the flowers out front. We stopped there for lunch. A chattering Magpie in the tree above the picnic table fascinated me and Sasha found a dead bird that she wanted to play with.

Tomorrow, we drive back to Missoula for the night and then it is on to Yellowstone. Larry discovered that all of the campgrounds in and around Yellowstone were booked solid, but he did find one spot in a campground in Gardiner, Montana just about 5 miles north of the north entrance to Yellowstone.