Glacier National Park

We went into Glacier National Park several times during the week we were camped in Columbia Fall, MT.  The first day was just to the Apgar Visitor Center area to try to figure out if we would be able to do the Going to the Sun Road tour in the Red Bus. It's called the Crown of the Continent Tour.  It came down to the fact that the tours would start on June 17th or when the road was opened by the park service.  Snow removal and guardrail replacement were what was keeping the road closed.  In fact we found out by driving the Going to the Sun road that it was closed at the Avalanche Creek area.

We did get some good pictures of the Lake McDonald Lodge and Lake McDonald and the creeks that fill the lake.  The good news is that the night after we made that trip, we saw that the park service had posted to their website that the road was going to be open on the 17th just in time for the first scheduled tour.  So we quickly got 2 tickets for Sunday, the 19th.  The weather was supposed to be good on Sunday and it turned out that it was.

Because we had some days with rain, even down in Columbia Falls, we found out we had a significant leak in the rear of the RV.  We got an mobile RV tech to reseal the roof seam and while it was drying we went to the east side of Glacier to see what we could see and check out the route as it was the likely path out of this area to our next destination.  When we got back we had a major rain storm and no leaks so that was great.

On Sunday, we got up early and dressed for multiple climates; low 60's at the RV and 35 degrees at the continental divide with 30 mph winds.

We met the Red bus at the Apgar Visitor Center.  The buses were made in the mid 1930's and were completely rebuilt to make the DOT happy about their safety in 1999.  Ford donated the rebuild after the old buses were donated to a non-profit organization to manage the buses.  It cost $7.5M to upgrade all 35 buses.  The were able to save the original carriage parts and figure out how to mount them on a Ford E-450 chassis, which is the chassis a lot of Class C RV are build on.  Ford even made them dual fuel; propane and gasoline.  Since these buses were made for 1930's sized people it was crowded to get 1 driver and 17 passengers into them.

I was more relaxed as a passenger than as a driver on other narrow mountain roads. Even though this road was better than the San Juan Skyway highway, I would not drive it.  The driver can't watch the scenery, so it was more enjoyable for me being a passenger this time.

We stopped periodically to stretch our legs and take pictures.  At the top we stopped at Logan's Pass and it's was covered with snow.  They had just finished plowing that parking lot on Thursday.  35 degrees and 30 mph wind as predicted. Luckily the canvas tops of the buses were still closed at this point.

We proceeded down the east side and out the East entrance of the park then drove 10 miles to the Many Glacier park entrance and stopped for lunch at the Many Glacier Lodge restaurant.  On the east side we saw more wildlife.  Saw 2 bears, and some mountain goats and sheep, bald eagle, and deer.

We went back to the east entrance and retraced our path back to the start.  We did open the canvas top about halfway back that really gave us a great view of the mountains as we drove down the west side.

We knew we were pushing the season for the tour, but a lot of the waterfalls we saw would not be here in mid summer.  I posted a lot of photos on Flickr.