Glacier National Park, MT

Wednesday, August 26, 2015

Even though it is smokey this morning, we decided we would drive up to Glacier National Park to see what we could see.  The weather prediction is for the smoke to continue with no clearing in sight.  We packed a lunch and took off.

Here we are at the entrance to the park.
 

Here is our dead tree picture.  This is taken on the edge of Lake McDonald.  The smoke is so thick you cannot even begin to see the other side of the lake.
 

This is Lake McDonald Lodge.  They also have these unique tour buses.  The buses have cloth tops that can be rolled back.
 

This is one of our stops on upper McDonald Creek.

Here is a short video of another stop along upper McDonald Creek. While we were close to the creek, the smoke seem much thinner.
 

At this stop, there was a walking bridge where you could cross the creek.  There was a man on the bridge that took our picture.
 

The road followed McDonald Creek a long ways.  We stopped many times for pictures.
 

Tic got some great pictures of the many mini water falls.

This is another short video of another beautiful water flow.  The water if such a pretty color and so clear.
 

Here is one of those unique tour buses full of people.
 

At this stop, the water appeared to be still.  See the pink tipped rock in the water?  There were lots of larger pink rocks on the shore.  Interesting how the dry part is pink.  You can also see how clear the water is.

This tunnel was at the start of our drive up to Logan Pass in the Glacier National Park. Can you see sunlight coming in on the left side of the tunnel.  There were arches cut through the mountain to let the light in.

This picture shows the arches.  It was a pretty tunnel. The smudges are bugs on the windshield.  Ha!
 

The road began to get narrow and curvy.  The speed limit was down to 25 mph.
 

 This was part of the Weeping Wall where the rock seemed to be weeping.  Water "weeped" slowly out of the rock.

You are looking at the McDonald Creek below.  As you can see, the smoke is thicker in the valley.  We still have smoke in the air, but it is thinner the higher in elevation you get.
 

This was an interesting view of the way the road was built along the mountain edge.  You can also see one of those red tour buses.
 

We are almost to Logan Pass when we saw a pullout near this small waterfall.
 

I did find a handsome man that agreed to travel with me! ☺

Here we are at the visitor's center at Logan Pass.

This sign was full of good info about the history of Logan Pass.  Also talked about hiking trails around.  There are over 700 miles of hiking trails in the park.  We will definitely have to return when the fires are out.  http://www.hikinginglacier.com/

 

These people are taking off on a trail to Hidden Lake.  The air still smelled smokey so Tic and I opted out of the hike. The trail goes to just the other side of this mountain. The picture below describes the trail. 

We headed back home.

The smoke was still thick.  We can imagine that the view would be absolutely gorgeous if it wasn't so smokey. 

On the way home, we saw this huge eagle and had to get a picture.  We noticed it was for sale.  Anyone want this little sculpture in their front yard?