Visiting the Crown of the Continent!

Spencer
2 days ago
4 min read

Updated: 23 hours ago

Have you ever wondered if it's all been worth it?

Has it been worth the troubles we faced pulling up our mooring lines, casting them into an uncharted sea, and watching our comfortable shoreline recede into the distance?

Were the sacrifices worth the benefits?

Well, here's the answer:

Imagine being able to gaze with wide-eyed wonderment upon such natural and pristine beauty. It's like stepping into a masterpiece, and it happens on a regular basis.

There is no belonging we owned, no article of clothing, no dwelling that could ever inspire such a sense of awe and oneness with the Creator. No earthly possessions could possibly make such a pure, lasting and vivid memory. We traded comfort for adventure and never once have we looked back. To do so might turn us into pillars of salt.

Onto Glacier National Park: "Crown of the Continent". It lives up to the hype..

After leaving Yellowstone N.P. five days ago, we arrived at our campground in Browning, Montana, Johnson's of St. Mary (I wrote about this park in my last post). It was an extremely mediocre park, but conveniently located just outside the park's entrance. I was just looking online and they currently charge about $85 a night!

As soon as we set-up camp, we decided to do a quick visit into the park. The view below, greeted us on our drive in. We knew that great things lie ahead.

Of course, you have to stop here for a picture (taken on June, 2019):

We had allocated four full-days to explore this 1,583 square mile area.

Day 1:

Because today was our arrival day, our time was limited. Our first stop as always is the visitor's center to get the lay of the land. Unfortunately, because of a 15' snow drift, the Road to the Sun was closed about midway into the park. We did a loop around beautiful St. Mary's Lake, the second largest lake in the park.

Whoa!

Day 2:

We returned the following day to hike the Three Falls trail. A six-mile, out and back, tail paralleling the lake taking us to three separate waterfalls: Baring Falls, St. Mary Falls, and Virginia Falls.

And this is the scenery:

The first two miles or so were kind of bleak as you hiked through scarred terrain, but the rest was incredible! Here are a few more pictures:

You'll notice many standing dead or dying trees in the above pictures. They are a haunting reminder of the Howe Ridge Fire which ravaged this area in 2018 destroying about 15,000 acres of forestry. I know that our national parks believe in letting nature renew itself, but to my untrained eye, it looks like they are leaving plenty of fuel for the next lightning strike.

Day 3:

We decided to do something different and drive into Canada to visit the upper end of the park. So we set out to visit the town of Waterton.

I have to say, the powers-to-be, do not make it easy or pleasant to do a border crossing. You are intentionally made to feel guilty, until proven a-little-less-guilty.

Waterton, is a cute touristy town right on the edge of Waterton Lake.

A fabulous lake with some fabulous scenery.

Day 4:

For our last day in the park we went to visit the Many Glacier Hotel and the trail to Bullhead Lake.

The rustic Many Glacier Hotel was built by the Great Northern Railway in 1914-15 and is only open June through September. Standard rooms range from approximately $258 to $374 per night and deluxe lakeside rooms costing between $488 and $754 per night.

Too pricey for us but their balcony does provide a million dollar view of Swiftcurrent Lake.

We enjoyed a hot cup of coffee overlooking breathtaking scenery. When we were done we headed out for our hike to Red Rock Falls and Bullhead Lake.

Not only did we transverse some stunning and pristine terrain, we also caught sight of some amazing wildlife.

We even got to see a moose!

WILDLIFE!:

There is a lot of wildlife throughout the park. Interesting story, on one of our hikes, we spotted a park ranger running in our direction. He stopped long enough to tell us someone spotted an angry grizzly bear coming up behind us. We were instructed to head to the nearest parking lot. The Ranger continued onward. We never saw the bear or the ranger again. Hopefully it ended well for both.

Another piece of advice for when you're driving through the park, if you see a driver pulled over to the side of the road, you know they've probably spotted something of interest, so join them.

We pulled over when we saw a line of cars on the side of the road. They were watching the lone grizzly bear, pictured above, rooting around an old fallen tree. Next thing we know, a Ranger pulls over and warns us to stay close to our cars. He pointed up on a hill where a black bear with its cub was descending. We learned that grizzlies hate black bears with a fierce intensity and target their cubs (to eliminate future competition). He said if the grizzly spots the black bear, trouble will ensue. Fortunately, for the black bear, it spotted the grizzly first and turned around and high tailed it for the hills.

Here are a few more wildlife pics from the park: