Titensor Adventures : Glacier National Park

This post title could also be something like "Pictures of us in front of a lot of lakes".

Since it about a ten hour drive to the West entrance of Glacier NP we decided to split the drive into two days. We left at 5 am Saturday morning and arrived in Missoula MT around 3. Missoula was surprisingly charming. They had a very historic downtown right next to a BIG river (don’t know the name of the river) and as far as I could tell, they have a very outdoor scene there. We stopped by a Celtic Festival that was going on, since we don’t get enough of that in the summers anyway, and enjoyed some music and ice cream. We finished the evening off with some swimming, TV, dinner, and were in bed by 8 (I was exhausted from the drive).

During the night Nora woke up so Denali woke up as well. Andrew told her to go back to bed but she must have gotten a little confused since about 20 minutes later we heard clanking in the bathroom. Andrew went to go check and found Denali curled up on the bathroom floor trying to sleep. We felt so bad but it was also quite hilarious.

Sunday we drove the rest of the way into Glacier which was only a 2 hour drive but the campsites are first come first serve and they go fast! We got a site in the campground we wanted, set up camp, and went exploring. I would definitely recommend staying at the Avalanche campground if you get the chance. There were to great trail heads near the campground and fun places to explore. We spent the day hiking to Avalanche Lake, sitting next to the river, napping (the girls), reading books (us), checked out a few different waterfalls, ate dinner, had a fire, and went to bed.

Both girls slept amazing every night! Nora actually slept better camping then at home, although I’m sure that’s because we wore her out so much.

Monday we spent checking out the Going-To-The-Sun-Road which is the main road that goes through the park. We did a beautiful hike at the top where we saw Big Horned Sheep, marmots, and lots of Mt Goats. The view was spectacular although a good portion of the trail was closed due to a lot of bear activity. After spending most of the day looking at various things along the drive we had dinner, s’mores, and bedtime.

Tuesday I went for a run (beautiful!!) and we packed up camp and headed for Canada. We took a stop along the way at Many Glacier and hiked to Lake Josephine. I seriously thought I had hiked to heaven. The pictures don’t even begin to portray the beauty of that lake. Gorgeous white tipped mt peaks, huge waterfalls, and crystal clear water. This was the highlight of the trip for me. Like I said, I thought I had accidentally stumbled upon heaven.

We made it to Waterton which is kind of weird because it’s a National Park but also a town. It’s a tiny town with one grocery store and one gas station. Our camp site was right next to Waterton Lake with spectacular views. We spent the day exploring the town, finding waterfalls, eating dinner, and relaxing.

Wednesday morning I did a little Yoga on the beach before we hike to Bertha Falls. This hike was difficult for me because I decided to give Andrew a break and hike with Denali on my back instead of Nora. The trail had quite a lot of elevation gain and I had 30 extra pounds of weight (Denali +Water+Food). It was fun though to make the hike a little more challenging since all of our hikes were only about 2 miles long. The hike was also very hot so after lunch we took the girls to the splash pad to cool off. All National Parks should have a splash pad by the way. We drove to Lake Cameron after and ate dinner at Wieners of Waterton. They had great gourmet hotdogs and yummy sweet potato fries! A rainstorm came in that evening which I actually loved! We sat inside a "pavilion", which is actually an all enclosed empty building with wood burning stoves and picnic tables, on the beach and watched the storm roll on through, complete with a rainbow at the end.

I ended up waking up to use the bathroom at 3 am the last night and saw that the starts were AMAZING! I woke Andrew up and he experimented with star photography while I just star gazed.

Thursday we just drove and drove and drove! It took us a total of 15 hours to get home. The amazing thing about the trip is that both girls did SO GOOD on the car rides. Neither of them cried and Denali hardly complained. We didn't even let Denali watch TV until the last couple of hours and she did great.

Needless to say, it was a great trip.