Day 13 - Thursday : Choteau to Glacier (245 km) We leave early in the morning, not wanting to outstay our welcome. Maybe Sally was right to be concerned – I find what might be fresh bear tracks close to our camper (I admit I would be useless as a tracker, unless I was tracking something whose paw prints had BFGoodrich printed on them). Thankfully the water hasn’t risen during the night.
We continue north on US-89. Through small towns with run-down properties. 89 is being resurfaced though, so money is being spent. We wait 15 minutes to be lead through the road construction, but it isn’t a bad place to wait, in the plains, with the mountains to your left.
We cut through Browning, although don’t see the real town centre. Chet has enjoyed staying there in the past, but the outskirts of the town just look poor and run-down. People might own some land, but I guess there isn’t much paying work in that part of the country.
There is wildlife though:
We enter Glacier at the St. Mary end.
I can thoroughly recommend this side of Glacier National Park – the views are stunning. We show our badge at the entrance station (or rather the visitors centre because the entrance station area is being resurfaced and rebuilt) and ask about transport in the park. It turns out that nothing is crossing the “Going to the Sun road” and the free shuttle buses I had read about are only available from the other side. There are tour buses, but they are expensive and you would be herded about with other tourists for the day, which doesn’t sound like fun to a couple used to hiking in mountains on their own and enjoying the silence and flexibility of doing it our way.
We head in along the edge of the lake. The road affords great views not only of the lake but also the mountains behind.
During trip planning I had considered driving to West Glacier, basing ourselves there and using the shuttle buses. It was only while on the journey that I changed my mind, and I am so glad that I did.
It is lunch time and we decide to go to the Rising Sun campground first. Most of the campground is sloping and in the woods (which makes me think insects), but after exploring the whole thing we find a great drive-through site which is flat enough to easily level ourselves on, fairly open and has great views. It’s probably the best spot in the campground - just as well we arrived early. I complete the necessary paperwork and dump the tanks. Or more accurately I do the former and Sally does the latter. She gets annoyed with me tending to take over everything, so I decide this is a great opportunity for her to gets some practical hands-on experience. I don’t know, but somehow her excitement at this opportunity doesn’t seem to come across in this photo.
This side of Glacier is strangely quiet. I suspect most visitors come from the west and with the pass closed aren’t making it as far as the beautiful eastern side of the park.
I had noticed a sign as I entered the campground – something about 21ft vehicles. I don’t see it on the way out, but we are definitely larger than that. I suspect with the lack of traffic at this time of year our slight oversize doesn’t really matter.
We pull into the big car park at Sun Point and walk along the lake.
There are so many wild flowers to see – it is a lovely little walk.
On returning to the car park the herds of excited people pointing indicate the presence of bears. Sure enough there’s a mother with two cubs on the rise just above the car park.
We drive on up to where the road is closed, above St. Marys Falls. Parking is diagonal, but we still manage to get in with the tail of the camper clear of the road so we aren’t causing any kind of obstruction. We walk a couple of miles up the road towards Logan Pass. Sally wants to go further, but I point out that we would probably have to walk quite a lot further to get a better view, and we have parked on un-level ground, so there is a limit to how long I dare leave the fridge at that angle.
We want to do a bit of a hike tomorrow, and of course Sally wants another fridge magnet; so this means calling in to the visitor centre. They have bear spray for sale and I check the price – it is around $42 a can, which seemed reasonable. I assume it will be cheaper at the general store in St. Mary, and we were going there to pick up some shopping, but upon arrival I am surprised to find it more expensive than the visitor centre. So, back to the visitor centre to pick up the cheaper canister. Now I feel a lot happier to be hiking in the woods, although I sort of know that the mere possession of a can of bear spray will now mean we see no wildlife whatsoever – like deciding to bring your heavy rain coat will guarantee it doesn’t rain and means you have to haul it around all day.
Returning to the campground we find all the other reasonable sites taken – we are glad we selected one before exploring the park.
We had also paid for 2 nights. I was worried that someone might have tried to occupy our site while we were away, since we had left nothing there but the receipt from the payment envelope attached to the post. Someone has occupied our site and is strutting around as if she owns the place. I tell her to **** off as I suspect she hasn’t paid to be there.
I try the platcat heater again. I don’t know why I keep trying this; it is really just a ritual, now performed before shrugging and turning on the furnace.
