After school let out this year we met some friends in Yellowstone, and after that, drove north to Glacier National Park. North of Helena in particular, the scenery was pretty spectacular, and we had a very enjoyable drive between the two national parks. We visited the east side of the Glacier first, staying at the St. Mary Campground for four days, and then moved over to the west side of the park. There, we met Kirstis' sister Fiona, and camping at Fish Creek Campground.

On our first day we visited the Many Glacier area, on the north east side of the park. The next few days, dodging the weather, we visited the Going To The Sun Road and its various attractions. A highlight of this was stopping at Logans Pass, and hiking in to Lost Lake (a short hike). We also visited both St. Mary Falls and Viriginia Falls, a longer combined hike. We had intended to shorten the return trip with a ride on a shuttle, but the buses kept passing us by, already full. More walking for us.

On the west side of the park we met up with Fiona, and saw the sites in and near Apgar Village, saw the scenery and visited the The Mercantile at Polebridge (16 or so miles of gravel road), and a highlight for us, visited Avalanche Lake. The weather could have been a little better on this latter hike, but the scenery was still pretty spectacular, and it was a great hike.

To backup a bit, Polebridge is bloody awesome. There are two buildings in town basically, the Mercantile, and the Saloon. Both get excellent reviews, and the gluten free cookies at the Mercantile were excellent. Driving north of town it is just a short trip across the bridge to that entrance into Glacier National Park. There was one negative on this trip, and that was that we had found the mosquitos.