Saturday, June 14, 2008

Day 1-West Glacier and St. Mary

We awoke on Saturday morning only to find out that the "Going to the Sun Road" through Glacier was closed part way. We started out the morning by taking a one hour scenic boat ride across Lake McDonald. I always seem to forget how windy and cold it is out on the water so we Allie and I only lasted outside for a very short time. After we enjoyed a yummy pizza at a place called Jammer Joes. Pizza ended up being our food of choice for the trip.

Since the road through the park was closed we ended up going to the East side of the park the long way. It was such a beautiful drive; well worth the extra hour that it took us. We got over to St. Mary's which was on the East side and ended up going on a couple of hikes later in the afternoon. Our first hike was into St. Mary's Waterfall and we continued for another mile until we got to Virginia Falls. Allie just loves hiking; she calls them "wee rides." She will sit in the backpack and say "wee daddy" and hence came the name "wee ride." We were also able to check out a cool slot canyon called Sunrift Gorge.

After dinner we had our first evening drive. These ended up being one of my favorite parts of the trip. We would bring Allie her binks and she would always fall quickly asleep. Blake and I would drive through the park checking out the wildlife, being that this is one of their more active times during the day. We had a great time and got to see our first elk and her baby this night.

Trying to brave the wind and cold. It is pretty sad that we didn't make it near as long as all the elderly you see around us

Beatiful Lake McDonald and one of the many awesome mountains

More view of the mountains

These red cars are part of the originality of the park. The roofs are open and you are exposed to the elements of nature. The tour guides take you through the park for a narrated tour. This is one thing that we left on our "to do" list for next time

On our drive to East Glacier.....some more spectacular mountains

Our hike to St. Mary Falls. My favorite hikes to go on are ones where we end up at water so I can cool off

Allie enjoying her "wee ride"

Another waterfall at Sunrift Gorge

We had a great campsite at East Glacier KOA. We were right by a little creak and we were the only tenter's in site

Great view of St. Mary's Lake from our evening drive

Our first elk that we spotted. She had a baby that is not visible in the picture

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