Once again, we had an early start. We packed up, had breakfast at the SpringHill Suites Kalispell's complimentary breakfast buffet, and then got on the road by 7:30 AM. Our goal for the day was to visit Glacier National Park and then drive to Missoula so that Traci could participate in the running events leading up to the Missoula Half Marathon. This itinerary required a lot of driving.
Kalispell is located about 45 minutes from the west entrance (Apgar) of Glacier National Park. Our dilemma was that we wanted to drive the park's 50-mile Going-To-The-Sun Road which ends at St. Mary located at the east entrance of the park. This would require us to drive 2.5 hours back to Kalispell afterwards and then 2.5 hours south to Missoula. Conversely, we could do the 2.5-hour drive to St. Mary in the morning, drive the Going-To-The-Sun Road to the west entrance, and then make the 2.5-hour drive south to Missoula. Given the Apgar entrance requires a timed entry pass and the St. Mary entrance does not, I decided to make the 2.5-hour drive from Kalispell to the St. Mary entrance in the morning via the state routes and make our way to the park's west entrance via the Going-To-The-Sun Road. This turned out to be a good choice. I enjoyed the scenery in the eastern region of the park more than in the western region.
The drive to the east entrance of the park became more dramatic as we got closer. We were awestruck by the grand snow-capped mountains and the picturesque valleys. The best treat was seeing a rainbow stretching across one of the valleys. We stopped at several pull-offs to take picture along the way. We needed our jackets on this chilly morning.
approaching Glacier National Park
We made a stop at the St. Mary Visitor Center to use the restrooms, to watch a 15-minute film about the park, and to have a quick look around. On our way back to the car, Traci ran into a group of her running friends. They were from different parts of the country. They had done the Missoula Marathon the prior year but returned to Montana to run the very challenging Glacier Half Marathon in Browning. This marathon includes a 5-mile incline! Yikes! These women were not playing. We wished them luck and then set off to explore the park.
We did the Going-To-The-Sun Road. It is a 50-mile scenic drive through Glacier National Park. My online researched indicated the drive would take around two hours. A ranger at the visitor center gave the same estimate when I asked about the road. What I missed at the time was that the estimate was for driving the road without stopping. We definitely planned to make stops.
I had downloaded the National Park Service app to my phone. It gives you commentary of each area of interest along the road. Our problem was that the app assumes that you are traveling the Going-To-The-Sun Road from west to east. We were traveling in the opposite direction. Initially, I did not think that this would be a problem because I thought we could just click on each of the 26 points of interest in reverse order. The app did not like this approach. It kept starting over at the beginning. This was frustrating but we eventually found a workaround.
Glacier National Park is a true gem when it comes to majestic landscapes. We were in awe of each stop we made along the Going-To-The-Sun Road. The lakes, the snow-capped mountains, the glaciers, the waterfalls, and more were all mind-blowing. The app provided good commentary despite its quirks.
At the Sunrift Gorge Pullout, we did the 0.3-mile hike to see Baring Falls. There were signs reminding us that we were in bear country. Bear spray was recommended. Otherwise, hikers should stay in groups and make noise so that any bears in the area could avoid an unexpected encounter. Traci and I did not have any bear spray, so we giggled as we walked along doing terrible singing. Neither one of us has a good singing voice. Getting to the waterfall was easy. It was the uphill of the return that got our heart rates up a bit.
It was after this waterfall hike that we started to realize that we were running behind schedule. A few more stops later, we reached the Logan Pass Visitor Center which was quite busy. It took us a few laps around the parking lot to find a vacant parking spot. We hit the restrooms and then joined a crowd of tourists looking at mountain goats in the mountain across the street. Panic began to set in when I looked at the time. We had been driving through the park for over two hours and were only mid-way through the Going-To-The-Sun Road. We needed to be in Missoula that day in time enough for Traci to participate in the first running event that started at 6 PM. We had already burned through most of the cushion that I had allocated in our sightseeing itinerary for the day.
With that, we made very few stops along the rest of the Going-To-The-Sun Road. This was a shame because we were driving through some very beautiful scenery. As the driver, I could only afford a glimpse. I had to concentrate on the road. We still listened to the commentary of the app but were very selective in regard to the pull-offs along the road. In hindsight, I am glad that we started at the east side of the park because I found it much more scenic than the west which was mainly forest. I was less pressed about making stops along the western portion of the road.
By the time we exited the park at the Apgar Visitor Center on the west side of the park, our GPS navigation indicated we would arrive in Missoula with only 20 minutes to spare before Traci's first running event. We had spent approximately four hours driving the Going-To-The-Sun Road instead of the estimated two hours. Continue...
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