The journey to this park was fun. We got more dispersed camping in, stopped to visit friends along the way, and found free camping behind the 50,000 Silver Dollar Bar in Haugan, Montana. Glacier is a beautiful park, especially in the fall when we were there. Best of all, we finally saw our first bear!
We enjoyed some easy bike rides, and were happy to see that while smoke was still visible at Lake McDonald, firefighters had it control. In fact, we were told fires were almost completely out, with remaining hot spots being watched carefully by the tireless crew.
We were in awe of the beauty this park held around every turn. The water in McDonald creek was so clear, it didn’t look real.
Going to the sun road is perfectly named. This road has a vehicle length limit of 21 feet, so we had to remove our bikes and the bike rack to be able to drive it. The first part of our stay was under mostly cloudy skies, and a fair amount of rain. Once we broke through the cloud cover, we had to pull over to take it all in.
We stopped at every vista point along the road and just absorbed the sun and the incredible views. A couple of mountain goats didn’t even notice us as they were enjoying their morning munchies.
We also walked up to hidden lake, and were lucky the weather was clear up there, too. A frequent visitor said it was the first time in her many visits that it was actually clear enough to see anything, and that the day before, the trail was still closed due to snow and ice.
Our final campground was at St. Mary’s, and where we were able to watch a bear enjoy the buffet of berries. Almost half of the campsites were closed due to bear activity, which was so significant that they did not allow tents, as they were not considered safe enough.
Traveling Team Fischer 