Reminder: this diary was handwritten on the night of September 21 and has been lightly edited in the transcription.
8:20 am – We’ve just departed from the Lewistown, MT Super 8. It was definitely nicer than the [Minden, ND] Days Inn, though I would rate that comparative rather than superlative. Sunrise this morning was beautiful over the Judith Mountains, though nowhere near as amazing as the sunset last night. Looks like some wildfire smoke in the distance, especially to the north. Fires are in Washington right now so it will probably be in and out all week.
Feeling even more like an actual human being after 8 hours of sleep. We’ll be into Great Falls in a little over an hour. Going to run a few errands, meet up with Taylor/Kyle/Wyatt, and then head to Glacier!
7:15 pm – Writing this from the Glacier Ridge VRBO in Babb, Montana near the Many Glacier entrance to the park. It’s a little bit chilly and a lot a bit windy outside. Sunset is in 15 minutes, but there’s plenty of clouds along the continental divide to obscure it. In fact, the entire Rocky Mountain Front seems to be under a giant lenticular cloud.
We rolled into Great Falls at about 9:45 where a Wal-Mart was conveniently located in the easy side of the town. Sidenote: the drive from Lewistown to Great Falls was unexpectedly pretty – mountain valleys that reminded me of Laramie, Wyoming and a canyon that reminds me of the drive to Estes Park, Colorado.
My parents and I met up with Taylor, Kyle, and Wyatt at Wal-Mart. The three of them arrived just in time – my mom and I had been searching for nonperishable almond mile for close to 10 minutes without luck despite the “help” of no less than three Wal-Mart employees. It took Taylor no more than a minute to find it.
It was a little early to eat lunch, so we discussed options: drive an hour toward Glacier and get Subway, eat early, find an activity? Taylor suggested the Lewis and Clark Interpretive Center [an NPS unit in Great Falls] before lunch. I was kind of amused by the coincidence of going to the center, having been to the Omaha Lewis and Clark Interpretive Center earlier that year.
The Interpretive Center was on the north side of town just downstream of a dam on the Missouri. There was a fee to enter, so it’s a good thing my America the Beautiful pass hasn’t quite expired yet. The top floor of this center was this big, open room. Most of the exhibits were below-ground. It was certainly more detailed about the Lewis and Clark voyage than the Omaha center. But on the other hand, who could read the exhibits when Wyatt was wandering around like a little 18-month-old tycoon, wreaking extremely cute havoc along the way?
Someone suggested Jimmy John’s for lunch. That’s a suggestion that is right down my alley. Certain individuals (sorry for calling you out, Mom) had trouble with mobile ordering and had to order it on location, but my Ultimate Porker was ready and waiting. Watt had pretzels for lunch! (And provolone slices, Taylor is informing me.) The best part of Jimmy John’s from my point of view is that it was right up the road from Florence Coffee Company. For those who may not have read my last Glacier series, this is the stand where Elizabeth and I got huckleberry smoothies in 2022. I dream of those smoothies; they have to have ice cream in them. I convinced everyone to make a run there. The smoothie reviews were universally good, but none more than my own. There was no way it could be as good as memory held, right? Turns out that it was somehow better. Florence Coffee: you are producing smoothies from heaven.
I offered to drive from Great Falls to Two Medicine, our first stop inside Glacier, so that my dad could catch up on pictures [remember: this was the start of a 6-week mega-vacation for my parents]. I-15 was familiar from 3 years ago, yet different; instead of electric-green prairie, all of the grass was brown and crisped. The Rocky Mountain Front rose a hazy blue in the distance, promising my family an unforgettable week. MT-44 had some annoying construction on it, but soon I was back on US-2 and cruising past Browning into the town of East Glacier Park. The peaks of Glacier’s east end rose imposingly, wreathed in clouds near the summits. After 3 long years, I was on the verge of re-entering heaven on earth.
At some point on the road between Great Falls and here I had passed Kyle. He and Taylor needed a park pass to enter for free, so my parents and I waited at the Glacier National Park sign at Two Medicine for them for a few minutes. Very photogenic sign:
Turns out we didn’t need to spread the park passes around [or, more accurately, spread the people with park passes around; since my parents had one and I had one, I swapped cars with Taylor and rode into the park with Kyle and Wyatt], because the Two Medicine Entrance Station was closed. I directed Kyle to drive all the way down to the general store at the end of the Two Medicine Road, only to discover that the general store was closed too. AND the flush bathrooms had been closed down for the season. AND, as an ultimate shock, the Two Medicine Ranger Station had been shut down for the season. It turns out that Glacier really does start to shut down after Labor Day. Who’d have thought?
I’ve been tracking the weather for this trip since my mids back in Oklahoma. There’s an upper-level low sliding across the northwest that brought some wicked gap winds to the east side of the park (rough driving in) in addition to upslope clouds along the divide. Literally right as we got into the park, those spilled over into a driving, windy rain. It was just heavy enough to be miserable without being heavy enough to chalk the day. Everyone layered up (as much as they had available to them, at least) to try to stay warm.
Our first hike of the trip was a simple 1.2 mile out-and-back affair to Paradise Point on the South Shore of Two Med Lake.
Rich forgot to grab his bear spray and had to double back at the start, leaving the rest of us idling about in the marginal conditions. Wherever on the trail trees were large enough to shield you from the rain, the weather wasn’t just bearable; it was downright pleasant. Conversely, out in the open it was rather dismal. At least Wyatt had himself a pop-up cover in Taylor’s hiking backpack so that he stayed dry.
With that in mind, there wasn’t much lingering for any of us to do at Paradise Point. We came, we saw, we sang “Pink Grizzly Cub” to keep the bears away, and we returned to the parking lot.
So of course the rain stopped altogether the moment we reached the parking lot. The timing could not have been more impeccably ironic. But we could take advantage – it was around 4:00, and my mom’s calculation from earlier in the day said we needed to leave around 5:00 to make it to dinner and then the VRBO before dark. That hour wasn’t quite long enough for the Appistoki Falls trail, but back up the entrance road a little bit is the 0.6-mile round trip trail to Running Eagle Falls. It’s a waterfall through a natural bridge. In the spring, runoff flows over the bridge in addition to under it. By the summer, only the lower part of the falls remains and appears to emerge straight from the rock, giving it the nickname “Trick Falls”. I expected that to mean the flow would be near zero, but Rich said you could hear the waterfall in the distance. I was surprised to hear a distant roar as well. We made the relatively short walk – the main slowdown being Wyatt, who wanted people to lift him up by his arms and swing him forward. It was a worthwhile and adorable slowdown.
I have to say, I was pleasantly surprised by Trick Falls. The cascade was beautiful into a chilly but not quite frigid pool. I could even wade the creek a bit, though algae and deepening water kept me from getting too close.
I did find myself wishing Elizabeth was there. This is our favorite place in the world, and it felt weird not sharing this little corner of it with her.
Going to finish this up quickly since everyone has gone to bed. We got dinner at the Whistle Stop Restaurant in East Glacier Park. It was a sort of locally sourced Cava with Mediterranean bowls. My meal was a solid 6.5/10, which was good, because I was HUNGRY. Wyatt did not approve of his PB&J. In fact, Wyatt didn’t really approve of anything during dinnertime. He’d been extremely well-behaved all day prior, though.
We arrived at the cabin at 6:45 and have been setting up and hanging out tonight. I’m sleeping on the futon in the second-floor “family room”. It feels fine. Hopefully I get another good night’s sleep.
Please don’t let me write this much tomorrow.
