Glacier National Park, Animal Scares, and Long Drives

The Long Drive to Glacier National Park

This week our journey began bright and early as we woke up at 5AM to get on the road and get to our campground in Glacier National Park before dark. The drive from the North Cascades was a long 11 hours plus stops for groceries, lunch, bathrooms, etc. Needless to say, the day seemingly dragged on forever. However, we were dreading it a great deal and were pleasantly surprised to have suffered less than expected. We managed to make it to our campsite in the park before dark, then made dinner, and got our travel-weary bodies to bed ASAP.

First Couple Days in the Park

We attempted to set up our Starlink dish for internet at our campsite but quickly realized that the tree coverage was far too great for us to get any reception. The following day we found a pullout to set up shop at where we had clearer access to the satellites in the sky. The pullout seemed to be sparsely used upon arrival, but we would find out later that this pullout, along with every other place to park a vehicle, fills up rapidly. The whole park was extremely busy. We were surprised by the crowds since we were only there on weekdays.

When we finished our work for the day, we drove through the park and up to the Logan Pass Visitor Center. The drive was full of breathtaking views of the mountain peaks, glaciers, cascades, waterfalls, beautiful greenery, and flora. I had high expectations for the park, but this drive easily exceeded my expectations. We hiked a scenic 3-mile trail up to Hidden Lake. The view at the top was gorgeous, but the highlight was the mountain goats that we saw along the way, including a baby goat! 🐐 The goats did not seem to care much about us humans being in their space and weren’t afraid to get up and close to us.

We’re in Bear Country

The following day we found a larger parking lot near a restaurant and hotel where we felt better about setting up our mobile office. After work we did a longer hike that took us to three different waterfalls, Baring, St. Mary and Virginia Falls. On this trail, Kendra challenged us to come up with conversation starters and chat the entire hike. As is best practice in bear country, she wanted to be making noise to ensure the bears were aware of our existence and would not be spooked. We did pretty well in keeping conversation for the 6.3 miles – with a few quiet moments as we thought of a new subject for discussion.

During the hike, we debated how many grizzly bears might be in the park. I guessed there were not more than a dozen, while Kendra guessed there were about 100. We both thought the other was absurd. We couldn’t wait until we had service again and could find out who was right. Kendra was way off… I was even further off… According to Pursuit, there are an estimated 300 grizzlies living in Glacier National Park. As Kendra found this information, she proceeded to read a terrifying story of a man and his daughter that got attacked by a mother grizzly in Glacier. Both survived, but sustained life-threatening injuries and a truly traumatizing experience. If you are interested, you can read about that story here. We both agreed that it was a mistake to read that while we were still in the park though.

Unfortunately (or fortunately, depending on your perspective) we did not see any bears on our trip in Glacier National Park.

Our campground didn’t have a dump station, so we drove to the far end of the park to shower, fill, and dump before heading back to our campsite. We tried our best to keep things moving in a timely manner to avoid driving the narrow, winding roads in the dark, but we ended up doing about half the drive without much light. It was nice that the traffic had died down at that point though.

The Most Popular Hike in the Park

The next day was similar to the previous, with another long hike, this time uphill to Avalanche Lake. This hike is super popular and the parking for it fills up early in the morning, with people parking a ways from the trailhead throughout the day to get the chance to do the hike. Thankfully for us, the trailhead was a short walk from our campground so we didn’t have to bother with finding a place to park. The trail ended at a beautifully blue lake at the base of some mountain peaks.

Our Final Trail and a Bighorned Beast

Thursday, we wrapped up our busy week exploring Glacier National Park with a hike along the mountainside on the Highline Trail. The path was narrow, without much room for passing hikers and not much space to get out of other’s way since you had to either climb up the mountain or risk sliding down the edge. So you can imagine the scare that it brought us when we came upon a couple running toward us yelling about a bighorn sheep chasing them. We quickly turned around and started running ourselves. We found a place to climb up the mountain and out of the way of the sheep on a mission. It was neat to watch him walk right in front of us, if not a little intimidating. The couple that was with us seemed to be traumatized as they recalled turning the corner to face the sheep close enough that they could have touched it… yikes! 😬

The scenery was pretty, but we were tired from the busy week of hiking and decided to cut it short, turn around, and head down to the river near our campsite and find a place to set up for dinner, showers, and some relaxation.

Another Long Day of Travel

Once again we had a long drive ahead of us, so we woke up bright and early to get on the road as quickly as possible. The trip was 10 hours to Theodore Roosevelt National Park in North Dakota. I did most of the driving, with Kendra working for the first half of the journey. We switched later and I tried to get some work done on the road, but the service was getting more and more spotty as we drove through the barren countryside of eastern Montana. Again we managed to reach our campground before dark. We made ourselves at home at our free dispersed campsite near the park. I was feeling restless and immediately got out of the van, kicked my soccer ball around for a bit and went on a short walk. I thought I’d try going off-road to find a shortcut back to the van, but my plans were quickly foiled when I got too close to a rattle snake. That little devil scared me half to death! 🐍

Theodore Roosevelt National Park Scenic Drive and More

Saturday was our chance to explore Theodore Roosevelt National Park. We started with a walk through the museum in the Visitor Center to get our fix of “nerding out.” We then did the scenic drive through the park, stopping along the way for some short hikes and scenic overlooks. We both agreed that the park doesn’t exactly have the “wow” factor that a lot of national parks have, but it was very pretty, and was a pleasure to explore! The scenic drive was relatively short and had a lot of places to stop, so it was really easy to take it all in. The road is a loop that they say typically takes about 2 hours to complete with some stopping along the way, but, unfortunately about a quarter of the road was closed due to construction, which meant we drove one way and just came back that same way. I think it took us closer to 2 1/2 or 3 hours to complete.

It was a very hot day, so we were ready to spend some time in the air conditioning. The visitor center theater was the perfect place to do so! We both felt like we could just about fall asleep as we sat in that cool, dark room and watched the narrated nature film.

Kendra had her fill of adventure for the day and wasn’t excited about doing much else, but I was antsy to do the final hike on our list. We drove back into the main area of the park a little ways to the trailhead. I set out on my own, while Kendra stayed back and enjoyed some relaxation. About 10 minutes into the hike, I passed two different groups of hikers who, rather casually, warned me of a bison in the river up ahead. I kept an eye on my Alltrails tracking app, to make sure I was aware of how close I was to the river. A little ways out from the river I was keeping watch trying to look out for the bison, I turned a corner and to my surprise saw a couple on the other side of the river waving their hands in the air and motioning me to move backward. I was still a ways from the river, so I thought they were maybe just being overly cautious. I creeped up a little closer to see if I could see the bison, but they quickly threw their arms up in the air and waved me back again. I backed up a bit and stood still, getting on my tippy toes to see over the tall grasses, trying to get a glance at where that bison might be. After a couple of minutes I could just see a sliver of his back over the grass and realized just how close I was! It was directly on the trail, probably not more than 20 feet away from me. I backed away a bit more and stood there waiting for him to move out of the way. After about 10 minutes or so, he started to walk toward me, a little bit away from the trail, walking parallel to the trail. I just kept slowly backpedalling to keep a safe distance. It eventually veered off and gave me a route to get to the river and continue on my way. I talked to the couple and thanked them for warning me about the bison. Not sure how that would have gone if it weren’t for their help. I asked if they had done the full trail, and they replied saying that there is no way to complete the loop since there is a whole herd of bison up ahead right on the trail. They said I could see some more on the hike, but warned that I should take it slow and keep my eye out for the bison. I heeded their advice and continued on my way. To be honest though, it was tough to enjoy it, being so nervous about coming up on another bison. However when I got to the top of the plateau, it was beautiful, wide open space! I saw hundreds, if not thousands of prairie dogs as I walked the trail along the plateau. I even saw a couple of antelope in the distance! In the end, the hike was worth the fright that the bison had caused.

When I got back to the van, Kendra so kindly had dinner ready, so we ate and then headed into town to get some ice cream for dessert.

In Conclusion

Overall, we had a really great week! We definitely saw more animals in the wild this week than we had before, including: mountain goats, a bighorn sheep, bison, prairie dogs, a rattle snake, antelope, deer, and more. And we both agreed that Glacier was one of the most beautiful, breathtaking places we had ever been!

Thanks for reading!

Next up is our final week of this portion of our journey, including Minnesota and Indiana Dunes National Park.