Glacier National Park or Bust!

Glacier National Park and riding the Going to the Sun Road was another thing on my bucket list.  Unfortunately the whole trip we had been hearing from other riders who had just come from Glacier that the road was closed and we had to make the difficult decision to cut our visit short here a month just isn’t enough time to see and do all that we wanted.  We had to give Cece’s Uncle a date to expect us and once we decided a week in advance we were committed.

They say that all of the glaciers in Glacier national park will be gone very soon at their current rate of melting and this is something I want to see before they are all gone.  We were already expecting the road to be closed but if we hurried at least we could see the southern side of the park for a few hours on our way through if we raced fast enough.

The water is so clear.  The bottom of these lakes are lined with bright multicolored smooth rocks, reds, blacks, oranges. Very beautiful, I want to go back.   We are definitely staying here longer next time when we go to Alaska.

You know Cece and her snakes, we had to drive a ways off the beaten path on the way to visit Anaconda and get a picture for her boss at the Rattlesnake Museum.

And later had to go visit Rattlesnake National Rec area.

Starting to feel more like the NorthWest.. Coffee shops everywhere

Had to pass through the Rez on the way up. Feels like back home, not quite as much poverty but similar aspects like 5 hitchhikers in the back of a pickup going down the road.  I’m not sure how everyone seemed to pick up on that we were other NDNs under all our gear and helmets without seeing our medicine wheel on the back first.  Natives communicate a lot through unspoken gestures and body language that most people dont pick up on but they normally dont do that to outsiders.

All the signs in the reservation were bilingual with whatever the heck that is.

It was a long haul but we made it!  Just barely!  All of these pictures look like they were taken early in the afternoon but this far north its actually very late and the sun doesnt set till 10PM.   We just barely made it into the visitors center further into the park as they were closing. One ranger was actually locking the door as we ran up and stopped him, he agreed to let us in just to get the stamp for our book as long as we were in and out in under 30 seconds and didn’t try to buy anything.

Canadian T-Rex to go with the ones from yesterday, I like the tiny flag its holding heh.   This was inside the Canadian Visitors center outside the park.

Mountie!

Fresh Pavement!!!  The going to the sun road was just spectacular!  It had just reopened this morning, it had been shut down for construction not snow like we had thought.   We kept hearing the whole trip from other visitors that the road was closed and you couldn’t get through so we weren’t planning on going the whole way and didn’t schedule enough time.  I’m upset that we rode all that way and didn’t have time to go all the way to the top.  From these pictures its hard to believe its actually like 8PM heh.  We still had an hr back into town to try and find a room.