Glacier National Park (1)

On the 28th of August....8 of us from the Midwest set out on a journey. We were going on a week long backpacking trip to Glacier National Park.

I knew one person going....everyone else were strangers. Strangers with one big common interest....the outdoors!!

Since everyone, but me, was from Des Moines, their journey started a little earlier than mine. A couple hours earlier to be exact. The car I was to be riding in arrived at my house at 6:00 am, and we were off.

We drove, and drove, and drove, and drove, and drove, and....well, you get the point. 15 hours later, we arrived in Great Falls, MT...at the house of Jared's grandmother.

What an awesome lady!!! She let the 8 of us crash in her comfy basement!!!


There she is in the middle!!
(picture courtesy of Jared)

We set off the next morning, with the park only being 3 hours away. None of us could wait to get there!!!!!!!!!!

It started raining on us the night before, and was still overcast that morning. Along the drive, we started to see the mountains peeking out from behind the cloud cover here and there.

There's just something about driving along a boring, flat, uninteresting road....and seeing mountains in the distance. Every time it happens I get goosebumps.


We stopped just inside the park to smell the mountain air, and take a few pictures. The mountains were hiding behind some clouds at the time. :-)




This woman was from Australia. She was traveling the country with her parrot, Echo.



The first car arrived a little ahead of us (we stopped at Jared's aunt's house to say hi along the way)....and they had our tents all set up.

Because we were hiking with such a large group, we had to bring bigger tents to hold more people. (one tent had 4, and two tents had 3) It was close quarters...but, as inconvenient as it may have been, it just lent to the spice of the trip!

After setting up camp, the other group of four took to some hiking trails. We went into town to get bear spray for one member, and then headed out onto a trail ourselves.

The trail was pretty short, but knowing we'd be doing day hikes the next day...we decided to take it easy and enjoy the short hike.




Running Eagle Falls. When the water level is higher, the falls flow over the top, and down through the bottom. It was only flowing through the bottom when we were there.




Train bridge in East Glacier, MT.


We'd seen this fellow on the road earlier....and he ended up camping in a site near ours. "RV? check! Kayaks? check! Helicopter? check!!"

Once back, we started a campfire, talked about the bears who wandered past our campsite earlier, and then made dinner when the other group got back.


Our site was along a creek.

This creek ended up being a route for two grizzlies. They were walking along in the water, and eating berries from the bushes on the other side. Hello Montana!!!!



Nachos and margaritas, and smores!!!!! Yum!!!

After quite a bit of giggling from my tent (the three of us gals were trying to figure out how to sit, lay, move, anything! in the tight tent...it ended up being quite entertaining!).....we finally settled down into our first night of camping under the stars!

(well, in our case, under the clouds)

(to be cont)