The West Side of Glacier

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Our 18 nights on the east side of Glacier seemed to go by in a flash. We went for hikes on 13 of those days and came in at around 97 miles. Had I been paying attention, we probably could have squeezed in another 3 miles to make it an even hundred. Our next stop will be on the west side of the national park in Kalispell Montana. It won’t be quite as convenient to the western entrance. The campground we picked out is Rocky Mountain Hi Campground. It’s about 30 miles from the West Glacier entrance but since we have explored much of Glacier at this point, we don’t plan to head back there nearly every day so it should work out okay.

Having learned our lesson the tough way driving into Babb, we take the much easier drive into Browning along Montana 464. From there we follow US-2 up and over the continental divide. Route 2 was a piece of cake. I had visions of something similar to the curves and hills of Going-to-the-Sun Road but we barely noticed the change in elevation until we started the gradual descent toward West Glacier. About 2 miles prior to the West Glacier entrance, we ran into a traffic accident of sorts that was blocking one and a quarter of the two lane road. It wasn’t a pretty sight. Someone driving a new looking 45 foot motorhome towing a 30 foot enclosed trailer had tried to make a left hand turn onto US-2 west from a dirt side road. The problem was the side road didn’t intersect at a 90 degree angle but closer to 45 degrees. A right hand turn onto US-2 east would have been simple, but they wanted to make the extremely sharp left hand turn with a super long vehicle. It didn’t look like they even came close to making the turn. The driver side rear tires had fallen into the culvert causing much of the underside of the rig to bottom out with the dirt road. I hated to think how long it was going to take to get it out and worse, how much damage was done! The rest of our drive was fine and we found the campground to be fairly nice.

Our first full day had a slight risk for a shower, but we crossed our fingers and headed back to Glacier for an easy west side hike. Near the north end of Lake McDonald is the McDonald Creek trail. It is listed as an easy 5 mile out and back trail that goes along the north side of the creek. We drove into the park and lucked out by finding a parking spot along the road near the trailhead. North McDonald Road is closed to vehicles but open to pedestrians so it made for the crossing over the creek. We seem to have the first part of the trail to ourselves. About a mile into the hike, we come across a pedestrian bridge over to another parking area along Going-to-the-Sun Road. There are waterfalls just upstream from the bridge. We found quite a crowd of people near this crossing but not many of them ventured too far along the trail we are on.

McDonald Creek Flowing to Lake McDonald

Small Falls

Nice Backdrop

Bridge Over Creek

In another half mile or so, the trail diverts north into the woods and separates from the creek. By then we were getting very light sprinkles so having the additional tree cover helped to keep us dry somewhat. Admittedly, we were a bit more worried about the possibility of running into a bear on a lightly traveled trail in the woods but we didn’t see any along the way. The trail heads back to the creek near its end across the creek from the Avalanche Creek Overlook. There were loads of people at the overlook probably wondering how we got across the creek. We went a bit further but it wasn’t clear the trail really continued beyond this point so we turned around and headed back.

More Falls

Flowers Above Creek

When we got to the pedestrian bridge, we decided to take Johns Lake Trail back to the car instead of simply retracing our original route. This trail starts on the south side of Going-to-the-Sun Road and heads up into the woods eventually going to Johns Lake. It’s not a big lake but was a pretty setting. The route ended up being closer to a 7 mile hike but only had about 750 feet of elevation gained. After the hike we took a quick drive up to Red Rock Point - a nice spot with lots of red rock.

Johns Lake

Falls at Red Rock Point

Small Pond at Red Rock Point

Our Tracks

The next day we went back to Glacier for another hike. Apgar Lookout Trail starts close to the West Glacier entrance, so there isn’t a lot of driving in traffic thru the park. The dirt road back to the parking area for the trailhead wasn’t great but it doesn’t have a lot of traffic so picking a route thru the bumps isn’t too challenging. It’s a little over a 7 mile round trip hike, gaining about 2000 feet in elevation ending at just about one mile high. The first 2/3 mile of the trail only gains 100 feet or so. I guess you can think of it either as warming you up for what’s to come, or lulling you into a sense that this will be an easy hike. The thing is, you can see the mountain that we are going to be heading up, so we know it will need to go up sooner or later.

Along Trail Before Climbing Much

Some of the early sections of trail are a bit overgrown. I guess not that many people hike this trail. We came across one couple on their way down and they warned us that it’s really windy as you get closer to the peak. Not long after encountering them, the trail starts climbing. At no point would I consider it steep but it was a steady, unrelenting climb. There are switchbacks but only a few of them and with the relatively low vegetation, we can see the trail for long stretches. Fortunately the breeze helped keep us from overheating plus it was overcast for much of the hike. The views definitely got better as we climbed. Without lots of mature trees, the views are almost always present.

Starting to Get Views

Looking Back Down Trail

The One Major Switchback

Even Better Views

It was surprising to find a fire tower and large antenna array up top. They aren’t really visible until you’re just about on top of them. We tried to find a spot next to the building to eat our lunch out of the wind. By then, it was clear that there was a storm approaching so the winds were quite gusty. After lunch, we waited a bit to watch the storm come across the area. We mainly were trying to decide just which way it was heading and how wet we might get. The first storm stayed to our south so we decided to start the long trek downhill before another one got there. It turned out to be a nice hike coming down with the nearly constant grade and good footing conditions on the trail. We did come across a large bird on the trail heading towards us. It was about half the size of a turkey but bigger than most birds we had seen in the area. It didn’t seem to mind our presence and only moved off the trail into the brush as we kept approaching. We believe it to be a ptarmigan which are bigger than we thought. We had no more than gotten to the parking lot when we heard a loud clap of thunder and it started to pour. One group of hikers that had just arrived and barely made it to the trailhead to start their hike came scurrying back to their car after rethinking this hike in a downpour.

A View of Lake McDonald

Fire Tower and Antenna Array

 

Rain Storm Passes By

Heading Back Down

Ptarmigan Greets Us

Our Apgar Lookout Tracks

There is much more to see on the west side of Glacier beyond the national park. Herron Park was one of the locations we explored - twice actually. The first hike took us up to some nice view points of the surrounding area with the mountains of Glacier in the distance. It was strange going for a hike and not bringing our bear spray with us. We had plans to do more hiking during the first visit but an unexpected rain shower came in so we needed to make out way back to the car sooner than expected. A few days later we would come back and do more of the trails on the western side of the park and didn’t run into any sudden rain and found the park to be pretty nice. There are horse trails in the park as well and ran into a small group of people on horseback but these trails aren’t all rutted like many horse trails seem to be. We didn’t manage to find all the geocaches in the park but had a fun time exploring much of the park in our visits.

Foys Lake View from Trail in Herron Park

Looking Back Towards Mountains of Glacier NP

We headed to the Creston National Fish Hatchery as another day trip. It’s a little east of Kalispell. It wasn’t a very big facility but we enjoyed walking around to see the various holding pools. A solo worker was here on a Sunday to make sure the fish were fed. We found a few geocaches in the area and then headed to the town of Bigfork to feed ourselves. The Flathead Lake Brewing Pubhouse had decent reviews. While we didn’t get a table on the deck, we did have a view of Flathead Lake. This area looks to be another nice spot to explore but we only have so much time while we are here and have other things we want to do. Maybe a return trip will be needed to checkout the activities around this massive lake. As we headed back to Kalispell, we stopped to check out both the REI and Cabelas stores that are very close to one another.

Hatchery Building

Feeding the Fish

Overlooking Holding Tanks

Fish Looking for Food

Spillway Feeding Water to the Hatchery

Another highly regarded destination for this area is Whitefish Mountain. This is a very large ski resort just under 25 miles from our campground. Being late July, obviously skiing is not our objective. They do have lots of mountain biking and even have some of the chair lift spots setup to transport bikes to the top of the mountain for some downhill rides. I realized this was not something Chris would even consider but we were up for some good hiking. The parking lot was reasonably crowded for a Monday morning. We headed over to the chairlift to get tickets. We figured we could save some wear and tear on our bodies by taking the lift to the top and hiking back down. One way up tickets are only $10 per person. They have traditional open ski lift chairs or enclosed gondolas. At first Chris was concerned about taking the open option but after watching a few other people board them, she decided she could handle it and we got in line. I had reset my GPSr so I know the lift took us up 2000 feet in about 9 minutes. Definitely a timesaver and the views on the way up were nice too.

Heading Up on Ski Lift

Nearing Final Destination

Once up top at just over 6800 feet elevation, we checked out some of the great views. There were several buildings including a small room setup as a Forest Service education center. We check that out and then head off to find our trail. The Danny On Trail (named after a forest service ecologist) is the main trail down or up Big Mountain here at Whitefish Resort. We eventually spotted the trailhead sign and started down.  We weren’t on it long before we hit the East Rim Trail. It only adds about 1/3 mile more but took us to a great viewpoint. It also took us to a geocache, but after 10 minutes of searching, we came up empty and moved on.

Nice Views on Cloudy Day

Lots of Ski Trails

Owl at Education Center

View Back to Top of Big Mountain

Once back on the main trail, we went less than half a mile before hitting another fork in the trail. To the left is Flower Point Connector Trail while Danny On is a right. It sounded like the views from Flower Point were pretty good and we figured we were on a downhill trail so it wouldn’t matter that this detour adds nearly 1.5 miles to our route. We got to Flower Point which has another ski lift that only operates in the winter months. We took in the views and enjoyed our lunch from here before heading back. We continued on the Flower Point Trail rather than backtracking on the connector trail. Both options will get you to the main trail. We continue to get great views all along the route. We can see the city of Whitefish as well as Whitefish Lake. As the trail goes beneath the chairlift we were convinced we must be close to the end. But it turns out there is still 3/4 mile left to go. When we finally made it back to the car we had gone 7 miles with about 2700 feet descent and 700 feet ascent. So it wasn’t all downhill but we were glad we had decided to take the chairlift up!

View from Flower Point

Indian Paintbrush

View of Whitefish Lake

Trail Heading Along Valley Below

Whitefish Lake

Our Tracks including Chairlift

The next day we headed back to Glacier. The plan was to check out some of the more remote western portions of the park. The Flathead River is generally the western edge of Glacier National Park and North Fork Road goes along this river outside of the park. The Polebridge entrance to the park is about 35 miles from Columbia Falls Montana so we figured it was worth checking out. Initially the drive was fine. Nicely paved road and pretty surroundings. But after about 10 miles, the pavement ends and becomes a gravel road. There weren’t big ruts or anything too extreme but the road had severe washboard. We were not enjoying the drive anymore and don’t really want to endure 25 miles of it to just go to Polebridge and then likely need to turn around and drive the same road back.

There is another western entrance at Camas Road which is roughly 21 miles from Columbia Falls. So we took the opportunity to cross the river and head into the park. This entrance is unmanned with just a self service kiosk if you need to buy a park pass. I seriously doubt anyone comes in this way to avoid paying, but I guess it’s possible. Once inside the park, the road is nicely paved. It’s a pretty drive, but there aren’t many stops along the way. The trailhead for Huckleberry Mountain starts along Camas Road, but we weren’t up for an 11 mile hike with 2800 feet of elevation gain - maybe some other time. This road goes back into Apgar Village. If we ever decide to check out Polebridge on some future trip, we would drive thru the park and at least cut off 11 miles of washboard road.

With our plans dashed, we decided to drive up Going-to-the-Sun Road to take in some of the sights one last time. One of our stops was a pullout that provided a great view of the Highline Trail at the Garden Wall section. There were a few hikers up on the trail as a car was driving far below. This view possibly gives a better understanding of what I described in a previous blog post when we did a 7 mile hike on this trail.

Highline Trail Above Going-to-the-Sun Road at Garden Wall

It didn’t take long before we happened to be all the way back at Logan Pass. Being late afternoon by this point, we managed to find a parking spot without too much trouble. Since we had been fairly lazy so far this day, I talked Chris into repeating our hike to Hidden Lake. We normally don’t repeat hikes and we had done this hike less than two weeks earlier. But this time I had my good DSLR and multiple lenses along with me. I was hoping we might run into mountain goats again. All the snow that was on the trail the last time we were here had now melted and was much easier to get up to where we had seen the goats before. It didn’t take long to realize we were in luck. There was a big herd of them pretty much in the same location as before. I don’t know if we are just lucky or these goats “reside” here. Not all of them were down by the trail, we spotted three of them high up on a very narrow ledge heading to higher ground.

Checking Us Out

Another Beautiful Panorama From Hidden Lake Trail

Goats Circled for Clarity

Most of the goats were still in the process of shedding their thick winter coats and looked rather shabby. The one baby goat was just a bit bigger and still quite cute. There was one goat that had a nearly perfect coat. There weren’t clumps of old fur blowing in the wind. It almost looked like it had been groomed. I guess I don’t understand goats enough to know how it got this way. There was one goat that was laying in one of the snow drifts that was still present in the area. And another one was laying in a bare spot of dirt, kicking dirt onto itself. Maybe these are grooming tricks?

Hey Shaggy, Where's Scooby?

Well Groomed

Posing

Baby Goat Surrounded

So Cute

Chilling on the Snow

Dirt Bath?

 We stayed around the goats for quite awhile before we started to make our way back to the car. As we were further down along the boardwalk section of the trail, a woman in a wedding dress was heading up the trail with her husband. Since they were by themselves, I don’t think they were heading up to get married but were likely just recently married. Or maybe she just likes to hike in a wedding dress?!

Wedding Couple

We had one more hike we hoped to get in at Glacier before we head out. The hike out to Avalanche Lake is one of the most popular hikes. And based on how crowded the parking area is every time we have driven by in the past couple weeks, we realize that the likelihood of finding a parking spot is almost zero. We had reasonable luck with the shuttle the one time we tried it on the east side of the park so we planned to do the same for this hike. We drove to the Apgar Visitor Center and found a parking spot without issue. But when we got to the shuttle stop, there was a very long line of people. The volunteer that was tasked with maintaining order and informing people of the bus status was pleasant but did explain that those of us at the back of the line might be waiting over an hour before we will board a bus. We sat on a bench and chatted with the people in line behind us. Surprisingly, a larger shuttle bus pulled up only 20 minutes later and they were permitted to fill it to the brim. We were far enough back in the line that we didn’t get a seat, but at least we were on our way. It was a challenge to hang onto the handrail while holding our Camelbacks full of water. My hands went numb well before we got to our stop but we made it.

The first part of the trail to the lake goes along another 0.8 mile boardwalk loop called Trail of the Cedars. As the name implies, it loops thru some impressive cedar trees. We have seen bigger out west a couple years ago but these are still plenty big. About halfway thru the loop, the Avalanche Lake Trail starts up and is no longer a boardwalk. It was definitely a crowded trail with most of the people unfamiliar with hiking etiquette. I suspect a lot of people are checking out the cedar trees and see the sign for a lake and decide to go for it. Every now and then, we would get stuck behind a slow moving group and would take a while to get them to stay to one side of the trail so we might pass. It’s generally all uphill to the lake following Avalanche Creek most of the way. There is only about 750 feet of elevation gained in the 2.1 miles to reach the near (northern) end of the lake. We make a quick stop at the shore of the lake with the hundred or so other people that made it this far. It is quite the view with mountains in the background and several waterfalls dropping into the southern end of the lake.

Falls Along Avalanche Creek

Pretty View Along the Way Up

View at Northern End of Avalanche Lake

I realized that the trail continues up along the lake and accesses the other beach, so we head up the additional three quarter mile to check that end out. That was a good decision. There are probably less than two dozen people at this end so it was much more relaxing. Plus the view across the lake to the north is very pretty too. Especially with the blue-green water that is so common in the lakes in Glacier. We found a log to use as a bench and enjoyed our lunch while a few people tried their hand at fly fishing. They were not having much luck since there was a very stiff wind blowing in their face. Most of their attempts barely went 10 feet out. Hopefully they weren’t planning on having fresh fish for their lunch today!

View at Southern End of Avalanche Lake 

Waterfalls Feeding Lake

After lunch and relaxing a while, we headed out to make our way back to the bus stop. The full hike would have come in at just under six miles but we found the crowds had kind of ruined the hike for us so just before getting to the Trail of the Cedars boardwalk, we opted to head south along the Avalanche Campground Trail. We knew this trail would eventually lead us to Lake McDonald Lodge where we could catch the shuttle just as easily. This trail was much less crowded. We only came across 8 to 10 others along the way. It generally follows Going-to-the-Sun Road but is far enough away (500 feet or more) and with all the trees, we barely notice the car noise. At one point, we actually get to Johns Lake and follow part of a trail we were on just a few days earlier. The section of trail south of Johns Lake was also a horse trail but in reasonable shape. The only real obstacle was the occasional pile of horse poop. By the time we got to McDonald Lodge, our hike that was going to be about 6 miles had more than doubled to over 13 miles. We weren’t positive where the shuttle bus stop was in the lodge complex, but we happened to see one coming in, so we followed it until it stopped. Of course it was a standing room only ride, so we got to stand for another half hour or so until we got back to Apgar Visitor Center. It was an okay hike but doesn’t compare to most of the others we had done in Glacier.

The following day, we went for something completely different - The Event at Rebecca Farm. What’s that you ask? Well, it is a horse riding competition. We have gone to an event that occurs each summer back in the Rochester NY area where we used to live. We don’t really understand all the ins and outs of the different events but always found the grace and power of the horses to be fascinating. This event is five days long and is only about 10 miles from our campground. We had picked the middle day of the event hoping it wouldn’t be as crowded since that was a Friday. The event is free with a $10 parking fee being donated to some local charity. We weren’t sure what to expect but we quickly impressed with the scope of the facilities at Rebecca Farms. The grounds consists of 640 acres (one square mile) on gently rolling hills in the Flathead Valley region of Montana. This year brought in 586 riders competing in 25 divisions across 10 levels. There are three main events: dressage, cross-country and show jumping.

All three events were being run the day we went, so we figured we would explore the grounds, find a place in the shade if possible and just enjoy the day. We started out watching dressage. It’s hard to describe but is sort of like ballet for horses. The rider takes the horse through a series compulsory movements at different speeds. It was interesting to see the horses when they faced one direction but moved diagonally. It’s not the most exciting event for people like us to watch since we aren’t aware of just how much training and effort is required to complete some of the movements. What I hadn’t originally understood is that the rider and horse actually compete in all three of the events. I guess I had just assumed there were different riders and horses in each of the events. The fact that the the horse can do all the events is just that much more impressive.

Dressage Event

Next we turned our attention to the show jumping event. We found this one to be more to our liking. There is a lot more action and it definitely is more interesting to photograph. I found myself moving around outside the arena trying to find different angles for the various jumps. No one location allowed me to take pictures of every jump. The photographer inside the arena had a much better spot to see all the action. After a handful of riders completed the course, I got into a rhythm of what the order of the jumps were so I could get several of the jumps for each rider.

Rider Has Apprehensive Look!

Rider with Calm Look

Up, Up, and Away

After 45 minutes or so, we were getting hungry. They did have food booths setup but we had brought along a picnic lunch so we grabbed that from the car and headed over to the cross-country event. From one spot on a hill, we could see maybe half of the course including the start and the finish. Admittedly we weren’t close to any one of the jumps in fact some jumps were probably about a half mile from our spot. The jumps were all different and some were quite creative. Some were made to look like a train, a pickup truck, a moose and a dragon to name a few. Not all the jumps were being used for the event underway while we were watching.

Moose Jump

Dragon Jump at Pond

Apparently the rider is permitted to walk the course in advance of the event to make sure they know what to expect. However the horse is not allowed to see the course until it is their turn. We saw one woman walking the course probably for her cross-country event the next day. She seemed to be pacing off the distance between the obstacles and taking notes along the way. When she got to one of the water jumps, she walked around the jump, into the water and continued her pacing. Talk about dedication.

It wasn’t clear exactly how long today’s course was but probably between 3 to 4 miles. With so many riders, they had multiple horses and riders out at the same time, but spaced about 3 minutes apart. An announcer would constantly update us as to what horse number just crossed which jump, but with this many riders and jumps, it was tough to keep track of anything. One of the obstacles that was very far away actually had the horse drop into a low, wooded area so we could never see that particular jump. It was the second or third jump of the course. As one of the riders entered the woods, the announcer reported the horse had refused to jump that obstacle and had actually thrown the rider. Sure enough, the next thing we saw was a horse, sans rider, running out of the woods and heading back towards the stable area. Fortunately the rider ended up being okay.

Horse Returns Rideless After Tossing Rider

Once we were done with lunch, we started to move along the perimeter of the course and watch a few horses go over each of the jumps before moving on to the next area. There was one spot where we were close enough to the course and it seemed like most riders were talking to their horses after that jump - generally praising them for how well they were doing.

Splashing

The second pond area was where the dragon resided and it was surrounded by water. So the rider and horse would need to run thru the pond, jump the dragon and continue on out of the water and up the hill. The level of trust that must exist between horse and rider has to be remarkably high in order to complete a course like this. We spent nearly two hours watching the cross-country racing since it was so interesting

Over the Pickup Truck

Dragon Jumper

Pretty White Patches

We were starting to get tired from being out in the sun for so long so we dropped some gear off at the car and went back to the dressage and show jumping arenas for some more competition before realizing that we were exhausted from watching all these horses compete. This was definitely a very fun way to spend the better part of the day.

Our last day in Kalispell was spent doing chores. I needed to wash the rig and this campground actually permits you to do so. Our next destination will be West Yellowstone which is a bit more remote than Kalispell, so Chris headed out to restock the fridge and pantry before we move on down the road.