Day Five: Great Falls to Glacier National Park

Trying to plan our days in Glacier has been quite a chore!  At first, we weren’t sure if the east part of the park would be open (it was closed much of 2020). When they did announce it would be open for the summer 2021 I was able to decide on our route.  We wanted to enter the park from the east (at St. Mary) and travel across the Going to the Sun road to the west entrance.  We picked an Air B&B place in a neighboring city on the west side of the park so we could come back in for day two.  

But…..then GNP decided they would place limits on how many could enter the park and drive Going to the Sun road per day.  They would release the reservation tickets two days prior to the day you wanted to use it.  So we had our plan to get on the computer before they went live on Sunday morning to reserve our tickets.  Annessa was on her laptop to get a pass for their vehicle and I was on my laptop to get ours. Well, she was able to get one and I was not.  They sold out (over 700 passes) in less than 4 minutes.  So we had to make alternate plans.  

We decided to enter the park on the first day at the more northern entrance.  We would visit the Many Glacier area on the first day and do the hikes in that area.  Then drive back out of the park and down around the outer edge to get to West Glacier.  We knew it would take more time to drive but then on day two, we could all use one vehicle to drive Going to the Sun road, using Annessa’s pass. 

So now that we had our plans in place, we had to get there.  We were about 2.5 hours away and it was an amazing drive to keep getting closer and closer to the mountains.  Thankfully, although we weren’t on interstates, the roads were great. We passed through a lot of small towns that were literally out in the middle of nowhere.  I loved seeing those farming homesteads with the grain elevators.  I finally got to take a picture of one while we stopped to get gas. 

Our views of the mountains as we were getting close to the entrance at Many Glacier were enticing us as to what were to come!  Finally, we arrive at the road leading to the entrance, only to find ourselves going off pavement again and finally stopped by the road construction. We were definitely getting a lesson on having patience.  Once we did finally enter the park, we’re amazed at the sights!  The water, the mountains and all the evergreen around us was simply breathtaking.  We stopped at the Many Glacier Lodge to use the restrooms and prepare for our first hike.  We chose to take the Grinnell Glacier trail. After a quick PBJ lunch break, we headed out. Daniel was the hike leader and I was the caboose, maybe because I was the slowest but who knows!  We hiked almost 5 miles but unfortunately could not get to the Glacier due to bear activity.  But the views and sights were worth it all!  

We packed up and we’re happy to be back in the cars to let our bodies recover from the hike. And then we had the long drive through the mountains and valleys to get around the park and to Kalispell, where we were staying for the night. Once we got into the city, we ate dinner at Famous Dave’s. It was delicious as were were starving by then.  We arrived to out Air B&B and settled down for the night.  We have another big day tomorrow.