Happy Birthday Jaclyn! Today is Jaclyn’s birthday and we get to go on a boat ride in Many Glacier which was one of the things she was looking forward to the most.
Jaclyn started her day off by going for a run while I gave the kids breakfast and got them ready for the day.
Then, we all left together and entered Glacier National Park and drove down Going to the Sun Road (aka GTTSR). Jaclyn and I had muted expectations for Glacier because we weren’t sure what else could compete with Banff. The road starts fairly normally and we pulled over to stop at Wild Goose Island Lookout. Then, we hiked a short and steep path along the Sun Point Nature Trail which was windy and had a lot of loose rocks on the path and some areas of burned trees which gave it a rugged feel.
As we continued down GTTSR we were absolutely blown away by the sheer size of the mountains and the vastness of the park. Glacier is very different from Banff because you’re driving on the side of the mountain (as Brooke kept saying) vs. driving the valleys between the mountains. It was an exciting drive for all of us!
The road is very narrow and tight. On one side you have the rock from the mountain and then on the other side you have sheer cliffs. As it was a rainy day there were tons of little waterfalls coming down the rocks into the road. We kept opening Beckett’s windows and driving really close to get him wet 🙂
We stopped at a scenic point where Jaclyn and Brooke did a small hike to a waterfall while Beckett and I looked for “funny cars”. These are the cars that are from the Red Bus company that does tours in the area.
We went down roughly 1/2 of the GTTSR and then had to turn around as we ran out of time. This was fine since we plan to drive this road again tomorrow anyway. We headed back to St. Mary (where we were staying) and tried to find some lunch. Turned out that there was pretty much only one place that was nearby and actually open so we ate there.
I tried to order a beer at lunch and we were told that there was no alcohol for the next 3 days because we were on an Indian reservation and they’re having their annual pow-wow. We couldn’t believe our ears because Jaclyn and I had been searching for pow-wows along our route and neither of us found anything. We tried to scramble and make it work but it was just a little too far away and it would put us at risk of missing our boat tour later in the day. So, we skipped it and just shopped at the gift shop (for quite a while!)
Around 2:30pm we headed to Many Glacier which is another part of Glacier National park. We arrived and were able to easily find parking at the Many Glacier Hotel and went inside to hang out and wait for our boat. At this point, it was raining pretty hard and there was pretty heavy cloud cover. I did manage to snap a few photos while the clouds parted:
As we were waiting in the hotel we saw what looked like members of a wedding party…which seemed a bit strange in this weather. We eventually went outside to wait in line for the boat and of course it absolutely downpoured on us for the 5 minutes before the boat left (Jaclyn was right, I should’ve put all my rain gear on like the rest of them did…)
We boarded the boat and had a fairly short ride across Swiftwater Lake. The boat captain told us that moose frequent the area and that moose will actually completely submerge themselves and swim underwater for up to 1 minute (foreshadowing…) to find food on the bottom of the water.
We got off the boat to do the short hike over to Lake Josephine and to our surprise…we were hiking behind the wedding! They had hiked from the hotel in the rain!
We then got on the second boat across Lake Josephine (shout out to Grammy’s lake!) where we stayed on the boat for the tour and back to the dock. Unfortunately, it was very overcast with low clouds and pretty significant rain so the views weren’t great and we didn’t get the chance to get off the boat at the other side of Lake Josephine.
As we departed the boat, everyone else on our boat did the short hike back to the boat that would cross Swiftwater Lake. We decided to roll the dice on the weather and hike back the mile to the hotel. When I confirmed the right path with the boat captain she was pretty shocked that the family with the 7 and 3 year old were the ones hiking back in the 49 degree rain…😂
About halfway into our hike, after we had been asked for snacks about 1,000 times and we told that Brooke’s feet were now wet 100 times, Jaclyn spotted a moose and calf. Then, Brooke quietly said “I see a bear”. She was so calm (as we told her to be) that I thought she was kidding. But she wasn’t…it was safely across the water from us but was walking on the trail we’d be on in about 3 minutes…
Jaclyn continued to be carefree and watch the moose and calf through her binoculars while I tried to figure out how to handle this bear. Back-tracking wasn’t a realistic option and the bear kept walking down the path we were on and getting closer and closer. We weren’t in any danger at the moment but I worried that it was going to keep walking up the path towards us.
Eventually, the bear seemed to get scared off by something and ran into the woods off the path. Unfortunately, that meant we lost sight of the bear and now had now idea where it was…so we waited for a few more minutes and a hiker heading the opposite direction showed up right where the bear just was. We yelled over to him (across the water) that we’d just seen a bear there and he didn’t seem to care at all. He proceeded to walk exactly where the bear was and eventually towards us. So, we figured if he was fine we would be fine. Eventually we crossed paths with him only to see that he was alone, with no bear spray or supplies…I guess he just doesn’t care lol.
As we walked back the rest of the way there were no more complaints about tired legs, wet feet etc. Instead, it was Brooke looking around 360 degrees to see if the bear was still around. We continued to see the moose in the water and it was diving underwater to get food for the calf time and time again. It seemed to follow us as we walked up the right. Eventually, we arrived back to see that a few miles down the trail we were on was closed due to bear (or snow/ice) activity. It was unclear because one sign said bear and one said snow/ice.
Brooke was proud of herself for being brave and when we were in the car we bribed the kids with candy so they wouldn’t report us to Child Services. Brooke said it was the most exciting and scary day of the trip!
We were glad that the best story of the trip happened on Jaclyn’s birthday and we will always remember that!
-Jay
Leave a Reply