Glacier National Park 2020

[BlackBart]

Apologies to Sir Abscate for hijacking his New England Road Trip thread. Here's another Volvo travelogue to make amends!

We decided to get reservations at one of the classic chalets in Glacier the last weekend they were open. It can be snowing in mid-sept, but we wanted to go regardless. Turned out to be a spectacular fall weekend.

Head north through the dry hills... This is much greener in the spring.

Your first glimpse of the Mission Range as you top this hill. When it's snow-covered it's unbelievable.

Geologic sidenote - these knife-edged ridges change, only 20 miles to the north or so, to rounded off tops. The last glacier coming down the Flathead and Mission valleys was many thousands of feet above these ridges, carving down the sharp ridges left by previous glaciers. When it stopped, and melted back, it left this distinct line in the geography.


We took Bis ("beese") the Bison along to help guard the car.

[kallekula]

Yay nice! More pictures!

[BlackBart]

First view of the south end of Flathead Lake at Polson MT. In the spring run-off, the water is turquoise color from the glacial minerals in the water. Flathead is 30 miles long,15 miles wide, 400 feet deep, cold, crystal clear. The south shore is the glacial moraine, pushed along in front of the ice. The ice block that became Flathead Lake melted slowly, so the deep lake didn't fill in over a thousand years or however long it took. This is us driving down the moraine to the lake.

Wild Horse Island in about the center, maybe 10 miles away. Yes, there are wild horses on it (only a few). It's a state park - you can hike and picnic, but no overnight, no fires.

We like this drive up the east shore, right on the water. Lined with Flathead cherry orchards, because of the tempering effect of the water mass in the winter. It's also only 2500 feet here. You pass by the Yellow Bay Research Center, part of the University of Montana. They study and monitor the water quality of the entire watershed, up into Canada. Then there's a neat tribal marina, swimming beach, and campground at Blue Bay. Next is a goofy little California beach hamlet full of bars at Woods Bay, just before you hit the resort town of Bigfork at the NE corner of the lake.

The North Flathead Valley is all lush river delta, board flat, black soil, and almost arboreal-looking forest. I have never taken pics out a windshield before so my coverage is not complete!


Getting close to the gap in this small range, at Hungry Horse, which leads you to the Park.

[June]

I'm envious! I did Glacier National Park summer 09. Do they still have the antique busses? They were neat when I was there. You have to love the colorful river rocks!!! Please more photos, June

[BlackBart]

We stayed at the Belton Chalet, on the railroad tracks at West Glacier. Built 1910-1913 by the Great Northern Railroad to entice tourists to come west and see the Park, stay in their hotels, and to increase ridership after building a rail line over the mountains. There were a series of beautiful chalets, in various styles, built about one packhorse day trip apart. Tourists got off the train from the east at The grand East Glacier Hotel, were wined and dined, then hit the trail to these remote chalets. They were extremely expensive to staff and maintain, on top of mountains. Some of them were crushed by snow. A couple burned down. Most of them were abandoned and torn down by the railroad after the pass over Going-to-the-Sun-Road was completed in the 30s. By the 50s, people were all driving to the park and no one stopped at the lower chalets.

There are four left in spite of the railroad and the weather - Belton Chalet is right on the highway at the West Glacier entrance, with its own Amtrak station. The Two Medicine campground store on the east side is actually one of the chalets. The Granite Park Chalet is a stone lodge and separate kitchen building in a high remote area on the west side. accessed by the Highline Trail. Its heavy construction saved it. You can pack in with your own food and use the communal commercial kitchen there. The famous "Night of the Grizzlies" deaths occurred near here in 1967, which changed the relationship between rangers and tourists and bears, and changed bears from entertainment to wildlife. The Sperry Chalet is a 6 1/2 mile, straight-up hike from Lake McDonald on the west side. Spectacular, rugged stone lodge and dining buildings on a rock shelf. An out of control fire burned the dorm building to the ground about 3 years ago. It was thought ruined, but the wooden structure was completely rebuilt within the stone walls and just reopened this year in time for Covid. Materials, tools, and crews were all brought in by helicopter, and the kitchen staff remained up there to feed them all. Short building season up there! From the chalet, it's a steep but mind-boggling switchback hike up to the Sperry Glacier, where it feels like you're on the moon. Otherworldly.

Belton - this is the only one you can drive to.

The smaller building and dining room are closed for the season.

[BlackBart]

I'm envious! I did Glacier National Park summer 09. Do they still have the antique busses? They were neat when I was there. You have to love the colorful river rocks!!! Please more photos, June

Yes, the old red buses still run. They're all done for the season, as well as all the shuttle buses. Roads were fairly quiet, compared to mid-summer.

They are called jammers, because the drivers in the old days had to double clutch and "jamb" the gears to get them up and down the mountain. Many years ago after frame cracks were discovered, the Ford Motor Co helped restore the coaches with modern drivetrains and smaller wheels. Those coaches are now due for another restoration, and talk is of a modern hybrid drivetrain.

This is along the "Weeping Wall" on the west side of the pass. Snowmelt from above runs down these rocks all summer. It used to pour across the road until they rebuilt it with better drains. A few loose rocks fall as well.

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Here's the original look with skinny fenders and tall wheels...

[BlackBart]

Near the west entrance is a village called Apgar, on the south shore of Lake McDonald. It's a tourist village with ice cream shops and kayak rentals and a small motel. There's a boat ramp, a ranger station, a backcountry permits office, a natural history museum (one room), and a campground. One of the things I loved about National Parks growing up was the ranger talk at sunset at the campground amphitheater, with a big fire going. They still do that, and we've learned many things. Many of the rangers now are biologists and wildlife specialists.

We weren't going to tackle any major hikes in a weekend, and I had a cold, so we just relaxed. We found an empty gravel beach along the lakeshore, and spent the late afternoon until sunset, taking a nap and throwing rocks. Then we went to hunt for food as everything in the park and nearby is closed due to Covid.

Pulling in the docks for the winter at Apgar..... I've sailed and crashed in a small boat on this lake - it is very very cold.

There was a wedding happening across the bay in a clearing above the beach. Cellos playing, photos looking up the lake. Very nice. They lucked out - it could have been raining or snowing!


Those mountains are 20 to 30 miles away.

The water is so completely clear.

This is an old fire along the west shore. Burned around a big campground and right down to the water. Now it's beautiful silver trees and lush undergrowth ...and berries....and bears. You have to be careful. And fall is when they need to get fat and they're hungry.

I've never seen it so glassy and smooth.


Next morning - Going to the Sun Road! My favorite!

I didn't take any pics on this climb as my wife wouldn't have it! It's steep and narrow and you have to pay attention.

[BlackBart]

You could use The Google for photos of Going to the Sun Road. Its so cool. Logan Pass is the top.

Here's one not mine..... It snakes along the side of the slope below the "Garden Wall" until it curves under a cliff, then up onto a shelf to a switchback, and on up to the visitors center at the pass (just visible in the center). I rode my bike up this pass once with my son on one of the informal full moon rides. It hurt!! Midnight on top of the mountain, though, wow.

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New paint job since I was there last! All closed - no museum, no shop, no posters, no rangers, no toilets. The poles are all over the roads and sidewalks, so they can find it all again in the spring with loaders and plows. This building gets mostly buried in snow. The "Big Drift" just on the downwind side of the pass gets 60 to 80 feet deep. They survey it to find the road again.

In the summer, this is full by 7:30 AM. It's a problem. Backpackers and hikers leaving their cars, competing with tourists stopping for an hour. Do we go to reservations and permit parking? No cars, shuttle bases only? That's what they're starting to do in Yosemite.

Mt Reynolds, 9200'

We headed up the Hidden Lake Trail from the top - one of the most popular, pretty, and accessible for most people. It's 6600 to 7200' in elevation, and much of it is boardwalk to keep you off the tundra. Many many steps. The trail on down to the lake is very steep and beautiful, but closed for the season for bear traffic and habitat.

Fall color!

The views are just nuts up here.

Even in late fall, there is water everywhere.

A couple of years ago, we saw a bear on these stone terraces about a mile and a half away. Rangers were on the trail with big scopes watching him. If he should move closer, they start closing the trail. Bears have right of way!

[BlackBart]

Hidden Lake Overlook!

That's Bear Hat Mountain to the right foreground, and in the distance on the left is Gunsight Mountain with the snowfield. On the shaded side of that peak (not where the sun is shining on the snow), is Sperry Glacier down in the shade. Most of the glaciers have shrunk way back in the last 30 years.

Hidden Lake sits down in a hole, in a shelf valley. A small side glacier runs into the side of the main glacier, which carves the valley way deeper, so the upper valley just stops and drops off a cliff. This water dumps down waterfalls to above Avalanche Lake, which then dumps off cliffs down to the Avalanche Creek drainage and into the main McDonald Creek drainage. They lose an off-trail backpacker in there every so many years, usually from a fall.

The climate up here is kind of nuts. You're not all that high - the pass is 6600, the big peaks are 9000 to 10,000. But you're above timberline at 6-7000', and it makes its own microclimate. Three-month summer season, then massive snowfall. Snowstorms in the summer. Tiny twisted trees at the pass. Thick ice fields. And then a grove of big cedars in a temperate rain forest along Avalanche Creek!

[BlackBart]

Then we headed down the east side to St Mary's Lake. It's always windy down there - whitecaps. The prevailing weather from the SW squeezes through the pass, then the chilled air dumps down the valley across St Mary's. There's a ramp, but they don't recommend boating. In the old chalet days, these beautiful wooden launches would travel up and down the lakes carrying tourists - that would have been so cool.

This road was a WPA project in the Depression. The stonework and the arches and the cliffs and the workmanship are stunning. I believe it was paved in the 50s. They've had to close it to rebuild sections, which was a huge hit to the park as it's the only road, and then the towns and restaurants on the east side were cut off from most of the tourist traffic.

We went out to Sun Point, which sticks out into the lake, and looks west at Going to the Sun Mountain (duh). One of the chalets was built on the cliff above the water, with stairways going down to docks where the launches unloaded. You can root around and find foundations in the rock. From here, you took a packhorse train up the lake and up a valley to Gunsight Chalet (which was crushed by an avalanche the first year it was open). From there, you'd travel over Gunsight Pass to Sperry Chalet (the one they just rebuilt).

Geology!

This is a maybe 5 year old fire that blew east down the valley, burning the trees from the lakeshore to the cliff bottoms. It was fast and hot and they had to just let it burn out - snow usually fixes that. We visited while it was almost still cooling down and every surface was scorched black. The ground was burned black. Now the dead trees are silver and the groundcover and undergrowth are lush. Soon little trees will start to appear again. One odd benefit is that you could never see the lake from the road through the trees, and now you look right at the water through the trunks.

We've been on hikes through burned areas where everything is black, and you're very exposed, then, as if someone drew a line on the ground, you step into lush thick forest. Like flipping a switch. Fire is very fickle.