Arriving to the park on a Friday afternoon did not make us feel too hopeful in finding a campsite and we certainly didn't want to sleep in the woods with the bears! We drove about 20 miles to the Saint Mary's entrance only to find that campground full as well. However, we did pass a private camp across the street up on the hill that did have an opening with fabulous views of the park below.
Knowing we had a campsite, we went back to Many Glaciers Road to explore what hikes we would do in the morning. After talking with park rangers, we decided to do Iceberg Lake. It is a 10 mile hike to a mountain lake that has huge icebergs floating in it. We were also told it is one of the prettiest hikes although it is in the heart of grizzly territory and we were warned to bring our bear spray. Speaking of bears, on our return to the campsite, a 250-300lb adolescent girzzly crossed our path. He was just as scared as we were!
We made it back to camp in one piece just in time to watch the sun set below the mountains and illuminate the sky to a beautiful orange hue. We had a yummy home made dinner at the camp cafe and then did about 5 loads of laundry that had accumulated over the past few weeks in Canada. Settling in for the night and the sky growing darker, we layed on our picnic table, snuggled in blankets and watched the sky as the stars shot across the milkyway. Big Sky Montana certainly knows how to put on a show! We were up early and on our bikes with a full day planned. We decided to go to Logan's Pass which is the main road through the park and explore that area first.
Upon discovering that the summit was close to 7,000 feet, we decided there was no way in hell we were going to bike up it. So, we boarded the public transportation with bikes in tow to the summit.
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The 60 minute ride up deposited to the continental divide where we locked up our bikes and hiked up about 1.5 miles to the summit. Above treeline we viewed beautiful alpine flowers and lots of mountain goats meandering through the meadow.
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| Snow still adorned the mountain side in August --  |
We hiked about 5 miles or so around the summit and some of the ledges where the drop-offs were about 1000 feet. You can notice to the left of Guy there are ropes on which to steady yourself. A couple rocks fell from above me and I looked up to see a family of 5 mountain goats making their way on the path. Of course at this point I started singing "High on a hill is a lonely goat herd, yoodle, yoodle yoodle. which then led into "The hills are alive, with the Sound of Music!"
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Wanting to hike Iceberg Lake and the afternoon approaching, we decided to head back so we could make our way over to the East Entrance of the park. Since we had our bikes with us, we decided to bike the 25 miles down from the summit. Wow! This was the most exhilerating ride I have ever experienced! We clocked ourselves at 37 mph heading straight down the curved road. One little mishap and the potential to go flying over the ledge was a possibility.
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The scenery was beautiful passing mountains streams, waterfalls and glaciers. We rode for about 90 minutes until I needed a rest. We stopped at a road side cafe only to discover we had gone down the WRONG side of the mountain! We were on the west side and needed to be on the east side. A bit of panic set in at this point knowing there was no way I was going to bike up what we just came down. Luckily, we were able to catch the last shuttle back up the mountain....whew! We transferred buses on top and started to make the desent down until the battery on the bus died. Luckily, our bikes were on tow and we jumped out to continue the ride down, while the rest of the people on the bus waited for help. It was a bit of a grueling ride since we were already exhausted from our previous bike ride and hike earlier in the day. We arrived to the visitor center, hopped off our bikes and around the corner comes the bus of people we left behind. We couldn't believe we beat the bus down! We still had another couple of miles to ride back to our campsite which was uphill and it took all I had to keep pedaling. The pups were glad to see us and hungry for dinner.
This was our last night in Glacier and neither of us wanted to leave. We still didn't get to do Iceberg Lake....so we have an excuse to come back! We watched the sunset on our last night from our campsite. Tomorrow we begin our journey back East.
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