Day 49 – Glacier Nat’l Park MT

It was a long day, 10 hours, spent on the east side of the park. We left the RV at 8, drove the Going to the Sun Road and arrived at Many Glacier Hotel (built in 1915) on Swiftcurrent Lake at 10:30. We signed up on the waiting list for the 11am boat trip which went across Swiftcurrent Lake, involved a short hike over to Josephine Lake, and then a return the same way. It was a pretty trip, but we didn’t see too much exciting. They have lots of grizzly bears in the area, but we didn’t see any.

We had lunch in the lovely dining room in the hotel where we had a table facing out to the lake. I had a very good Rueben sandwich. Then it was time to head on out down the east side of the park to the Two Medicine area. Many Glacier and Two Medicine areas have the only entrance roads on the east side of the park except for St Mary’s which is the end of Going to the Sun Road. The roads only go in about 12 miles. At Two Medicine we to took the Running Eagle Falls nature trail. It is a very short, level trail to a really neat waterfall. In the spring the water comes over the top of the falls. But now in the summer, it comes out of a large hole halfway down the falls. It was a pretty falls. We went a mile further into Two Medicine to the store there. This store used to be part of a chalet system that the railroad built to encourage tourists. Two Medicine chalet was built in 1914.

Then we started the last of the trip back to West Glacier. We drove on Hwy 2 around the south end of the park. We stopped at East Glacier to see Glacier Park Hotel, another early hotel. We just did a drive by. Continuing on Hwy 2, we were a little dismayed at the steep grades and hills on this highway as we have to take it in the RV when we head to Great Falls next week. But it is a beautiful drive. We stopped to look at the Isaak Walton Inn which was built in 1939 to house workers removing snow from the railroad tracks. It was an interesting little hotel.

We hit the grocery on the way home. We got some corn, zucchini, milk, pepsi, etc. We were so glad to be back at the RV. Bill had some leftovers, and I had an ear of corn and tomato and cottage cheese salad.

I added 16 photos to the Glacier 2 photo link on the left of this page.