Glacier National Park

After driving north from Gardiner, we approached Kalispell, MT, where we planned to stay for 3 days, taking a "day off". Just south of our destination, we drove by beautiful Flathead Lake. The lake is huge, and colored a vivid blue. Looks like a great place to vacation.

Unfortunately, the best laid plans.... we awoke our first morning, planning to play golf, but the day was overcast and was soon raining. We decided to go up to Glacier National Park and see if we could do some sightseeing. The cloud level was so low, it obscured everything above ground level, so we returned to Kalispell, hoping for better weather the next day. The main highlight of the day was spotting a large moose with a huge rack of antlers. A quick photo was blurred, but we were happy to have seen him.

Again, the next morning was overcast but not raining, so we tried again. We drove up the Going to the Sun highway, which basically bisects the park. The park is beautiful, with lots of glacier lakes and waterfalls. At higher elevations, the clouds again obscured the view. At the summit, it was foggy, misty, windy, and 42 degrees. After listening to a ranger talk about glaciers, we had our picnic lunch in the car- tempted to turn on the heater! We gave it up, and returned to town, where the sun finally came out.

To say the least, our visit was disappointing. I had been reading about Glacier and was looking forward to seeing the high peaks along with the beautiful turquoise blue glacier lakes. Not to be.

We headed out the next (sunny) morning for Canada and Lake Louise.