A Day in Glacier National Park

Wanna know what our roadtrip playlist is?

I will tell you! We’ve been doing a lot of driving (an accumulative 22-ish hours so far, and 5-ish more today), which is a lot of time to occupy your mind.

Eli West & Cahalen Morrison – Our Lady of the Tall Trees

Tim O’Brien & Darrell Scott – Memories & Moments

The Duhks – Beyond the Blue

Rainlanders – Another Shore

Gordon Lightfoot – Sundown

Paul Simon – Rhythm of the Saints

Chris Thile & Mike Marshall – Into the Cauldron

Yesterday’s drive took us from Missoula to Glacier, past the Mission Mountain Range, and Flathead Lake. I didn’t know that there were two Salish tribes – the Coastal Salish that you hear about in Seattle, and the other Salish, the Flathead, in Montana, etc. Anyway, that’s where flathead comes from.

Today we are leaving Glacier National Park. Our plan was to spend the day here and go to Yellowstone tomorrow, but we didn’t realize just how much of glacier would be closed this time of year. The road is closed up past Avalanche Creek, so most of the hikes we had thought of doing were inaccessible. We did a quick little one called Trail of the Cedars, which was very northwest-y — lots of moss!

We also walked around Lake McDonald, including the lodge (which is closed for the season) and McDonald Creek. There were some pretty neat fall colors. I want to go again sometime, just so I can huddle up in the “Creekside Reading Room,” which looked lovely, from the outside.

We had some crow friends, Larry and Curly, who came to visit us on our sandwich break. They were the biggest crows I have ever seen! Guess they’ve had a lot of sandwiches. Speaking of food, later that night Jim and I tested out a fancy-dancy freeze-dried meal we got at REI. It was not too bad, actually! Jim got to use his new pocket rocket stove, so he was happy.

After our freeze-dried pasta primavera, we packed back up and headed to McDonald Lake again for some nighttime photos. It was fairly cloudy, so we weren’t sure we would get anything good, but I think the clouds made for some neat effects. The one with the moon and scraggly branches is pretty spooky! Just in time for Halloween. All I need is to photoshop a witch on a broomstick in there…

We are headed to Yellowstone for 4-ish days, and I’m not going to seek out wifi, so we’ll talk to you later!

Let me know if you want a postcard. a.snook@outlook.com