Blue waters gleaming like a tropical paradise. A warm, sunny day with just a hint of a breeze. Two campers who hadn’t had a proper shower in about 96 hours and several dozen miles of hiking in the interim. You put this all together and it makes sense why Elizabeth wanted to hike down to …
Tag Archives: Glacier National Park
Glacier National Park: The Grinnell Glacier Trail
The quintessential Glacier National Park experience: driving up the long valley of Lake Sherburne on a beautiful, perfectly clear July morning. Pulling over along the way to spot bears in the distance. Driving into a beautiful, craggy mountains with snow shining on their flanks. And then embarking on foot on a journey that takes you …
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Glacier National Park: St. Mary
There are two different types of campgrounds. The first type is the campground that exists for the purpose of camping. You stay there with friends or family, maybe in someone’s RV. You make campfires and roast marshmallows. During the day, you swim in the lake. You tell your friends about the time you went camping. …
Waterton Lakes National Park: The Prince of Wales Hotel
Situated at the foot of Upper Waterton Lake is a bluff. From this bluff, one can look basically down the length of the lake all the way back to Glacier Park. It was designed as a luxury hotel for tourists stopping along the Canadian transcontinental railway way back at the start of the 20th century. …
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Waterton Lakes National Park: Wieners of Waterton, Cameron Falls
Every vacation has a few meals that go down in the books. Not every vacation features a restaurant with a name like “Wieners of Waterton”. I mean… come on! Wieners of Waterton! You kind of have to eat at a place with a name that bold. The restaurant promises to get you eating – what …
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Waterton Lakes National Park: International Boat Tour
That is not a typo. International boat tour. I’m not sure how many places in the world let you take a boat tour on a freshwater lake between two different countries (Niagara Falls, I guess?). But the Waterton Shoreline Cruise Company has the unique ability to offer just that. They’re based out of the little …
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Waterton Lakes National Park: The Bear’s Hump
A cool visitor’s center can really elevate a park visit, especially a short one. I’ve seen some cool visitor’s centers in my day – the Canyon Visitor’s Center in Yellowstone, the Travertine Nature Center in Chickasaw NRA, and the Carlsbad Caverns Visitor’s Center all come to mind – but never before had I ever seen …
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Waterton Lakes National Park: Driving to Canada (eh)
Another early morning. July 16 at the St. Mary Campground dawned bright and sunny, with a near-full-moon setting back over the Lewis Range to the west. And I awoke in desperate need of more rest than we were allowing ourselves on this trip. Some context, if you’ve forgotten in the near-full-year that I’ve been writing …
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Glacier National Park: Virginia Falls
300 feet. 0.7 miles. Almost a year later, I refuse to believe either of those numbers. According to AllTrails, it’s only 0.7 miles from St. Mary Falls to Virginia Falls by trail. You only have to go up 300 feet to get there. Neither of those felt remotely true. 30000 steps. My Fitbit passed that …
Guest Post: Elizabeth and the Bear
Note: Elizabeth is my fiancee and my hiking companion on the route to Piegan Pass on 15 July 2022 when we saw a grizzly bear just off-trail. Elizabeth has generously written a blog post about her experience. Her account has been lightly edited. I always thought I had a “healthy” fear of bears. Nolan and …
