Flora Hiker: Glacier National Park

Sad...our last day in Glacier!

Hiked down to St. Mary Falls. The water was a beautiful blue color (like Mexico) that comes from glacial lakes.

Then we headed to Virginia Falls.

We weren't expecting a falls this impressive. We were glad that we made the trip!

One of my favorite pictures:

Hike: St. Mary and Virginia Falls

Trails Used: St. Mary Falls to Virginia Falls and back

Distance: 4.04 miles

Difficulty: Moderate
Overall average: 1.9 mph
Overall Time: 2 hrs, 07 mins
Total Ascent: 1111 ft.

Finished up our Junior Ranger sheets:

Checked out Running Eagle Falls on the Two Medicine entrance:

Hike: Running Eagle Falls

Trails Used: Running Eagle Falls Trail at Two Medicine

Distance: .7 miles

Difficulty: Easy
Overall average: 1.6 mph
Overall Time: 0 hrs, 27 mins
Total Ascent: 211 ft.

Pretty area but I'm not sure the 2 hour (the more direct route happened to be closed that day-it would have taken off at least 1/2 an hour) drive there was worth it. The East Glacier Park entrance was very cute. It's one of the better entryways into the park.

That night the clouds and moon were setting up interesting photo opportunities for me:

After all the talk of bears in campsites this ended up being the only wildlife we saw at Rising Sun:

Leaving the park the next morning:

Views of Saint Mary Lake:

Good bye Glacier, we will be back!

Seven Mile Hike to Grinnell Lake

Drove to Many Glacier today to do the Grinnell Lake hike. You leave the park at one point and this is the view of Glacier National Park from there.

This was a flat hike with lots to see. We went past Swiftcurrent Lake, Lake Josephine,

and part of Cataract Creek before making it to Grinnell Lake. If you want, there is a boat shuttle service across the first two lakes but we are glad we didn't use it. It would have been $75 for the four of us and the kids ended up making the whole seven mile hike without a problem.

The wildflowers were abundant and unique:

At times the vegetation was taller than the kids. I was wondering what they could possibly be looking at. The kids made it through the hike by playing the 'would you rather' game. For example, would you rather eat a juicy hamburger or eat a bowl of fruit. It was amazing how long this kept them going and how creative we had to be to keep this going.

We made it to the gorgeous lake and had lunch.

This was only the second time on this trip I got them to both nap! I need to keep making them do seven mile hikes I guess!

Hike: Grinnell Lake

Trails Used: Grinnell Lake

Distance: 7.49 miles

Difficulty: Easy (for adults anyhow)
Overall average: 2.1 mph
Overall Time: 3 hrs, 35 mins
Total Ascent: 1723 ft. (I don't know if this was right, it seemed very flat)

My garbage man:

View from our campground:

We headed over to Saint Mary Lake after dinner:

The kids messed around on some driftwood and had fun finding unique looking rocks:

Look at those crazy hiking socks!

New campground, laundry, and huckleberry margaritas at Many Glacier

Left Avalanche Campground around 8 this morning (C told us we got him up too early and Q was her usual sunny self) and made it to Rising Sun Campground on the east side by 9:15. I was hoping for some good morning light pictures of the mountains going up but it was gray and overcast. I did get a couple of nice shots though.

It's a good thing we made it to the campground when we did. Rising Sun filled quickly after we arrived.

Making cairns while waiting for us to finish setting up camp:

We headed out of Glacier this morning to Johnson Campground to do some laundry. We headed up to Many Glacier afterwards to get a feel for the place. We spent some time in the lodge (one of the lookout rooms) drinking beer and huckleberry margaritas,

eating ice cream, writing post cards, and filling out junior ranger forms. It was a great way to spend a cloudy, windy day. The hotel had a nice ambiance. There was a fireplace centrally located in the lobby with huge windows to look out on Swiftcurrent Lake and subtle music in the background. It seemed like many people were taking advantage of the coziness.

On the way out of Glacier we saw a bear. People were saying that it was a grizzly but we couldn't confirm or deny that.