Saturday, June 2nd - Glacier National Park - East

We had wanted to make the huge driving loop from the West entrance to Glacier National Park, over the Logan Pass on the Going to the Sun Highway, to the East Entrance and returning via Essex, Montana. Unfortunately, the middle section of the Going to the Sun Highway is closed. It normally MIGHT open by June 1st but, due to the very bad floods of November 8, 2006, much of the roadway had been washed out. This is the same storm system that washed out so much of the east side of Mt. Rainier National Park and prevented us from exploring that park last month.

On Thursday, we drove as far as we could go entering on the West side. Today, we made the 330 mile trip to enter on the east side.

We got an early start...early for us, that is...up at 8am and on the road by 9am. Gassed up in Kalispell and drove Hwy US 2 thru the towns of West Glacier, Essex and East Glacier, Montana. This drive dipped in and out of the southern boundary of the Park and ran basically parallel to the Great Northern Railroad tracks. In January 1981, while working for Amtrak, I took a business trip from Chicago to Seattle on the Empire Builder that ran over these very rails. It was nostalgic to see the stations and lodges that I had seen on that trip.

We first entered the Park at the Two Medicine entrance in the southeast section. We drove to the end of that road, at Two Medicine Lake, stopping to see Running Eagle Falls. It was spectacular, as was the lake!

We exited the park, back to the north-south highway and drove to St. Mary, Montana. There we went to the Visitors Center and re-entered the Park on the east end of the Going to the Sun Highway. Again, we drove as far as they would let us go, about 14 miles, to the Jackson Glacier overlook. On this road, we passed a viewpoint of Goose Island in St. Mary Lake. This scene is one of the most breathtaking panoramas I have ever seen! It truly matches a scene in Jasper National Park, Alberta, Canada, of Spirit Island in Lake Maligne!

We met a fellow who lives about 100 miles away in Whitefish, Montana. He told me he comes here at least every two weeks to photograph this scene...it constantly changes. After a while, words begin to fail me in describing the beauty of this Park.

We, again, exited back to the main north-south road and stopped for lunch at Johnson's of St. Mary. At one of the many overlooks that we stopped, someone mentioned that the Grizzly Bears might be out and about on Many Glaciers Road, further north. So, after lunch, we re-enter the Park at the Many Glaciers entrance and drive the 12 miles in. Beautiful scenery, nice lodges (not open for the season, yet) but, no bears.

We returned to our Camp Kalispell, exhausted, around 7:30pm.