Glacier National Park: Day 1
6/25
It’s dark out, but between the headlights of my car and the full orange moon in the clear Montana Sky I have no issues navigating down the road and into Glacier National park. I should rephrase this. My GPS got me to the Glacier west entrance. Immediately lost my sense of direction as I left the RV park I had stayed at the night before. I’ve always had a pretty good internal compass, but I think the farther from the ocean I get the harder it is for me to find the west.
I rolled through the gates into the lush pines of West Glacier and headed toward Apgar campground. Apgar is the first Campground on the west side of the park nestled next to Lake MacDonald. I did the dick move of driving around the loops for awhile in the dark just to see if someone may have left in the night and eventually realized that the right move was to note the dates listed on the registration slips and pull over to wait. This is not an official rule in camp grounds, but in busy places where people are arriving in hopes of getting a first come spot I think it’s only appropriate to form lines and wait with some patients. Though this process I met Kim and Chuck, A retired couple from Florida who were on a trip similar to mine, but in the opposite direction. I also ran into a lot of asshats that felt the orderly nature of our waiting was beneath them and just pulled into the loops to try and get spaces before us. There were plenty of spots that were in theory going to become available so I just chilled with Kim and Chuck and waited it out. Eventually the campground host, a Volunteer by the name of Jim came by on his bike. He let us know that he would be going around to pull tickets soon and as people leave we can begin to register. He also remarked at how impressed he was by the organized system that we had setup for waiting. About 30 minutes later he came up to me as the first person waiting and said come with me. While he was pulling tickets a family was packing up and let him know they were in fact leaving and he had come directly to me to offer the spot. What a Guy! I went over to where Kimberly was waiting a few vehicles back in a line for another loop \and suggested that we share a site and she agreed it would be the kind thing to do. We pulled into spot B69 (hehe) and met the former inhabitants. A family of 4 visiting form Seattle. The mother, Caroline, did all the talking and when I say all the talking I mean it. We were just going to park and go for a drive around the park to give them time and space to pack up, but Caroline clearly needed some adult interaction and we politely enjoyed her stories of their journey thus far and suggestions. I love when people are nice.
After rearranging my incredibly over packed car a bit, Kimberly, here pup henry and I headed out on the main road through the park. The-go-to-the-sun road is a 45 mile road that connects the west and east entrances of Glacier National Park. I’m a big fan of park roads. The way that they were built, many of them over a 100 years old now, are incredible feats of engineering and hard work. This road runs up along the side of glacier mountains on a razer thin cliff outcropping and the sights are amazing. Waterfalls running down the side over and under the road. Vertigo inducing views across the valley to the piney peaks on the other side. After about an hour we finally reached the ¾ point of the route which is Logan Pass. The highest part of the drive and a section surrounded by snow fields. It was absolutely breathtaking.
When we returned to campground, Caroline’s little troop had moved on so we set up camp and hung out. It had been a really long couple driving days so Kimberly and I just sat around and read for the most part. It was absolutely blissful. We headed over to the host site to get a park map since the front both was closed when we arrived and met Patty, Jim’s wife. We had a great conversation about the park and learned the important fact that the large flowing body of water that fed the Lake we were next to was considered a creek and not a river as we thought. She also informed us that there were nightly talks and entertainment at the amphitheater at the campground if we were so inclined. Of course we were and we of course were going to invite our camp friend Kim and Chuck to join us. As we sat in the amphitheater backdropped by the gentle ripples of lake McDonald and the bright blue Montana sky we learned about the life of Jack Gladstone a half native man from the area via his own songs. It was weird, but I like weird. About 40 minutes into Mr. Gladstone presentation around the time that a song about the Hampton Bay company, which was apparently started by Jack’s great, great, great grandfathers father (also known as his great, great, great, great grandfather) proclaiming the virtues of consumerism, that Kimberly realized that we may not be receiving the cultural experience we had expected and had to not so gracefully take our leave in a fit of befuddled laughter. We felt so bad, because in our haste we left Kim and Chuck behind. We figured we had lost our new friends, but about 30minutes later they were right there at b69 sharing a drink and discussing the insane experience we had just shared.
One day down and two to go…
