Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates.
Where are Kevin and Ruth now? Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates.

Where are Kevin and Ruth going next? Kuwait City, Kuwait on March 31st.

Thursday, June 25, 2020

Our first visit to Glacier National Park

One of our favorite Canadian National Park is Waterton Lakes National Park in Alberta. It borders Montana and actually is part of the Waterton-Glacier International Peace Park which is the union of Waterton Lakes National Park in Canada and Glacier National Park in the United States.

So it stands to reason that we would like Glacier as much as Waterton.

But unfortunately the best parts of Glacier National Park are not that easy to see right now. The campgrounds in the park are all still closed, and the east entrances are closed as well. You can use the west entrance, but only drive 14 miles in. You cannot drive right through the park.

And, even with these closures it's still fairly busy with traffic, even late on a Wednesday afternoon. That means that the areas that are open are difficult to find parking, especially for a 28' motorhome. (Even more difficult when cars park in the RV marked parking spaces!!!)

Heading towards Glacier National Park.

Scenery along the way.

I can't imagine how busy this would be on a normal day in the summer.


Entering the park from West Glacier, the first stop is Lake McDonald.


An old car club was out for a drive.

Cool!



McDonald Creek is more like a river at this time of year!




There is lots of melting snow feeding the river.


Besides the old car club that was out for  drive, there was also a Porsche club. It must have been the Seniors Porsche club out for a drive because they all looked like they were over 70 years old. I think it's funny to see people that age driving expensive sports cars, but whatever turns your crank I guess!

Driving a Porsche would be fun, but when you need to go to the bathroom I would rather have a motorhome!


The forest.


Look how this tree grew out of the rocks.

Strange!

The water is really moving.



Ruth.


We were walking up this path and further on we saw a guy who looked like he was standing right beside a young male deer. As we got up there, the deer took off across the road, but we still got a glimpse of him...

He was obviously not too shy.

We didn't make it out of the park until about 4:30pm, and we still didn't know where we were going to spend the night. There were some clouds coming in and it sure looked like it was going to rain again.

Yep, those look like storm clouds!

Not much in the way of RV parking in the village of West Glacier, but we made our way to a nearby golf course parking lot to wait out the rain. We actually should have gone in and asked if we could overnight there, but for whatever reason we didn't. When the rain finished, we drove about 5 miles (8 kms) to a forest service site, but the road in was so wet and potholed that it would not have been a good idea to take Sherman in there. We might not have gotten out!

So we ended up on a roadside pullout on the gravel road leading in there. Not ideal, and certainly not one of our better spots, but they don't all work out. Still it was nice and quiet overnight.

Today, we plan on doing a big hike! 5 miles (8 kms) each way with a 3,000' elevation gain! Nice blue skies, so we better get going!

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A big selection of Calvin Klein Underwear is on deal of the day today only.

And, so is a big selection of Under Armour Clothing.

And in Canada...



6 comments:

  1. We were there about this same time 4 years ago and you couldn't park in any of the visitor centers. The lots were full. I didn't realize the park was still closed for the most part. I understood, I guess I was wrong, that the length restrictions were between the two campgrounds, but the rest of the park was open to vehicles under 21 feet. We did drive to Waterton while there, very nice also.

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    1. I believe it, it was almost too hard to find anywhere to park this year with most of the park still closed. We can't even begin to imagine what it would be like doing a busy normal season. There is hardly anywhere to to park to begin with! We certainly noticed that at least one of the campgrounds was only available to vehicles under 21' if they had been opened but we knew that even if the Going to the Sun Road had been fully opened we still wouldn't have been able to go beyond the pass because it too is restricted to vehicles under 21'. As it was though the two east entrances are closed to due the COVID-19 virus and the fact that the two east entrances are on Indian land which is closed to the public at least up until July 1st if not longer.

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  2. Mighty purdy in dem dar parts! On a motorcycle trip I took once I crossed into Canada via Glacier. It was so foggy/cloudy near the pass I had to ride/crawl 2 feet off the rear bumper of the car ahead just to see anything, near zero visibility. At the border crossing they gave me a paper and said go see the nurse! I thought oh no, not a cavity search! lol, but what they wanted to know was how much money I had. On another topic, have you ever thought of renting one of those Canal/RV boats in Europe? It looks like it would be a fun way to sight see.

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    1. It is very beautiful in these parts. We love the mountains! :-)

      It is a shame that the road was so foggy when you did your drive, I would imagine that the views would have been spectacular.

      No, we haven't thought of renting one of those Canal boats in Europe, it just doesn't peak our interest enough. I think we would feel limited in our travels that way plus it would very expensive.

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  3. It's all the rage in Mexico now, older upper middle class Mexicans taking to the roads in Porsche, Harley Davidson, Audi clubs and more. Doesn't look like any social distancing was going on at the look out or the sports car club.

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    1. We hadn't seen any Porsche or Audi clubs driving around when we were in Mexico but we certainly have seen quite a few motorcycle clubs driving around.

      For the most part people were social distancing at the lookouts but we saw that the rafting trips are operating again and we can't see how anyone can social distance doing that. It certainly seemed to be back to life as normal for the most part in the towns in that area though.

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