Russ and Rob's Travels: Glacier National Park

Continuing on our Rocky mountain journey leaving Yellowstone National Park we find ourselves in Montana for a short distance before we arrived in Idaho. “The state of many lakes and rivers” although our first stop was at Atomic City in the Arco desert where we took a tour of the National historical Landmark EBR1 where in 1951 the world’s first usable amount of electricity was generated from a novel nuclear creator.

We then passed through Craters of the Moon National Park which encompasses the largest lava field in the US on through the heart of the famous “Idaho potato’s “area. It was then across Galena Pass at an elevation of 8701ft following the mighty Salmon River known as one of the best white water rafting rivers in the world until we found a great camp site in the National Forest Campground. Again we had snow overnight and it was snowing when we left the next morning. The snow plough had been through on our upward climb clearing the road through Challis forest but he stopped at the peak as that is where the boundary finished so our downward trip was a little scary but with everything white it made for a beautiful picture. En route we passed through Stanley, which is situated at the junction of three of Idaho’s best scenic byways, a great rustic and welcoming western town. Aptly named after my dad. Old bushy through and through with three of the best off spring from it. At a roadside stop we purchased an amazing home made cherry pie which became desert for us for two nights.

Along this section of our trek we reached the lowest altitude we had in 2 weeks of our trip and also crossed the 45^th Parallel which is half way between the Equator and the North Pole.

At Lolo summit we left Idaho behind and re-entered Montana. It was time to restock and fuel in readiness for our camps in Glacier National Park so Safeway and Walmart were visited. As we followed Flathead Lake through Flathead Indian reservation we came across this amazing Museum “Miracles of America”. An amazing display of memorabilia and by far the best museum we have ever visited.

Now that we have reached Glacier National Park we have visited 4 of the 5 top rated National Parks in the USA and even though we could not drive the full “going to the sun” road as clearing of the snow had not yet been completed the beauty of what we saw within the Park certainly did not disappoint us. We entered the park from three different entry points so we could experience as much of this 100 year old parks dramatic, rugged alpine terrain, the crystal clear lakes and rushing waterfalls as possible. Our camp areas within the park were very well equipped having drinking water, restrooms with flushing toilets but no hot Showers which did not matter to us as we made use of the RV and then the disposal stations supplied and all for a very reasonable fee of $20 for the site which held both our vehicles. The spotting of another bear within 300 metres of our campsite topped off our US National Park experiences.

Our next update will not be from the US but from Canada. Catch you on the other side of the border.....