A trip to Glacier Nat’l Park

One thing we discovered while in Kalispell is that there are great places to eat.  We did just that on three of the nights we were there.  One stop was at Jagz.  Our nephew, Mike, recommended this place so we took him.  Their ribs were marvelous.  The next night we again went with Mike and met with the Dixons at the Back Door Restaurant in Hungry Horse.  This place had the best chicken I have ever tasted.  Our last night was at Scotty’s Bar for their steak.  It was another wonderful place to eat.  The problem was we ended up with leftovers from all three places.  We were glad our hotel room had a refrigerator but that didn’t mean much.  It was still too much to eat.

 --- Mike took us first to Lake McDonald --- Gorgeous !

I had mentioned on the previous blog that Mike had hooked us up with the Red Bus tour into Glacier.  He had hoped to also get the Dixons on the tour but there were two buses and they were both booked solid.  Since all but the Alpine Tour had closed down for the winter, the demand was pretty high.  It was such a great tour and now we’d love to do a few more of those tours at another time.

Xanterra operates the Red Bus tours for the park.  The tours are in these original 1930-ish red buses.  Not all of each bus is original though.  The engines have been completely updated as well as numerous other features of the bus.  Matter of fact, they run on propane and also on gas.  The driver can switch from one fuel to another. 

The day was sunny but once the top came off the bus, it was pretty chilly.  Thank goodness they provided blankets because they were certainly needed.  That didn’t really keep us warm enough.

Our first stop was at the lodge at Lake McDonald.  This lodge was built in 1913 and sits on the largest lake in the park.  The exterior and interior reminded us of a Swiss Chalet.  Rooms were available inside the lodge but they also had cabins.  We snuck a peak inside the dining rooms but didn’t have time to check out much else.

After picking up more passengers at the lodge we were on our way on the Going-To-The-Sun Road.  This tour went as far as Logan’s Pass which is at an elevation of 6646’.  It’s a pretty steep road with only one switchback  .

The views were awesome with a splatter of snow on the peaks and fall colors on the trees. 



















 I took hundreds of photos. 

Obviously, I won’t post them all here.

We did have a photo moment.  However, the person that took the picture got in the “backside” of another person.  It was cold, cold, cold.

We made several stops along the way. Gorgeous!

Then, we arrived at Logan Pass Visitor Center.  We were just a week from the center being closed down for the winter.

Lots of parking in the lot but don’t try to drive a large RV up the road.  There are height and width limits.

This picture shows the snow depth markers.  Can you imagine that much snow?

On the way back down the road we stopped at several places along the river. 

We ran into a couple individuals who were actually swimming in the ponds.  I’m sure the water temperature wasn’t much over 40 if even that high.

We loved the tour and so glad we had the opportunity to go on it.  Thank you, Mike!  We also loved Glacier and the little towns around it.   We would love to go back …. maybe next summer.

That  evening we met with Mike, Jim and Sandie for our “last supper” in Kalispell.  This was steak night.  Well, it was steak night for Terry, Sandie and I.  Mike had buffalo and Jim had elk.  There were no complaints from our table about the wonderful meal.

Saturday morning was departure time.  We had another 626 miles ahead of us so planned on an early start.  You can tell that by the shadow.  It was a fun trip and sure beats staying put in one place. 

Now that we’re back where we started from it’s time to start thinking about another trip.  This time it will be heading south for the winter.  We have some plans but no reservations in place.   We do have a little interruption in our travels though as we need to be close to an airport the middle of October for a short flight to Florida for Mike’s wedding.   Thus, instead of going through Utah and cutting our time short there, we may just opt for a route through Las Vegas.   Only time will tell when we go and where.

‘Tis life on the road.