Glacier National Park, US or Canada should be on everyone’s bucket list, it’s AWE inspiring. That said, consider your dates of arrival carefully because if you come too early (and that means June) the roads at the higher elevations will still be snowed in.
After a very long day of driving from Grand rapids, I found myself driving towards the gradure of the Rocky Mountains, and arrived at my Youth Hostel which is right next door to the parks, but not in them. I had found the place a few days before via Airbnb, who said they had room, and I was able to find their phone number via Google — because Airbnb won’t give you that info before you’ve booked via them (they don’t want you going around their system). The woman who answered said there was a private room right next to the bathroom, but she couldn’t figure out how to log into the system to see availability, so they called me back the next day while I was already on road towards them to verify.
I had found it on Airbnb but called them to make sure I got the sort of room I wanted (private and across the hall from a bathroom), Brownies, and checked in. The ground floor has a restaurant coffee shop that serves up pizza, sandwiches, soup etc and the whole place looks very Berkeley amenable. Nothing on their menu really worked for me so…
Next I grabbed a meal next door at Luna’s cafe, a bison Brat — was tasty, and got to taste for the first time the joys of a Huckleberry Pie — (I was assured the Luna’s makes a very good one). In my attempt at maintaining my diet I ate the filling, but skipped the crust… it was more tart than sweet, but very good.
After that I headed north to see the park, since I was assured it would stay open till sunset which was not for a few more hours.
When I finally entered the park… no really, the pics above were all take on the way TO it… There is no WiFi in the park, for obvious reasons, but some notes. Firstly I saved $30 on my park entrance because I had the National Parks pass, and all told I think in about two months I’ve already earned back the price of its purchase (like $85?) for this year.
It’s been raining on and off the last couple of days, and even though Montana is usually dry by now that isn’t the case this year.
As a result of all the recent rains (or snow in the higher elevations) the “going to the Sun” Road which is supposed to be absolutely amazing was blocked most of the way through the center of the park (when you’re in the Rockies) so I could only enter a park-entrance go as far as I could till the roads were blocked, and then back out– go to different park entrance, rinse repeat, etc… so unless I was willing to hike (which I wasn’t) I wasn’t able to get up close and personal with the glaciers and had to just enjoy them from a distance.
It’s begun sleeting really badly, which is not particularly pleasant. I’ve reached Jackson glacier viewpoint, but the road is closed past here and the mist and fog and sleet are so thick that I wasn’t able to get any decent photos… I will have to come back some other year.
Rebecca Radnor's Personal Blog: Consider yourselves warned! 