Day 3: Glacier National Park
Boat trips on two lakes with small hike
Red Jammers on “ Going to the Sun” ( GTTS)
After admiring these incredible views and finally getting some of the names straight, we took a double boat trip across two small lakes, connected by about a half mile trail.
The first, Swift Current Lake—the one our hotel is on as well as Mt. Grinell from all the pictures yesterday, is not very deep or wide but plays an important part in the development of Many Glaciers Hotel.
Our vivacious guide showed us where the only person to stay on the property over the winter, the caretaker, lives by himself, sometimes making his way over up to 40 feet of snow to get to the lodge to work on maintenance.
After this short 15 minute ride, we disembarked to walk over a path between the two lakes, another 10-15 minutes or so.
The second lake, Lake Josephine. had gorgeous views of Salamander Glacier, one of the larger ones on the eastern side of the park.
All the glaciers are receding, and many have been downgraded to “ snow pack” since they no longer meet the requirements of a glacier which include size (>25 acres , persistence, and movement).
After getting off from the second boat, we hiked back along the Swift Current trail back to the lodge. We ate lunch at the pub restaurant hoping it would be quicker and better. It was a bit quicker.
Now to our afternoon big adventure—the Red Jammers trip along the GTTS Road.
This spectacular road, spanning 50 miles from the east to the west side of Glacier and crossing the Continental Divide, was named for Going to the Sun Mountain, a sacred place for the Blackfeet people (who mysteriously become pluralized when crossing the Canada-US border). The Jammers are old amber/ reddish cars that hold about 16 people. These specific vehicles date to the 1930’s but were extensively refurbished and modernized by Ford in the 1990’s. Seats are Naugahide (I.e., vinyl), covered with blankets to reduce the heat, with the top open to the sky. Our group was in two separate vehicles.
Our driver, Marv (aka Marvelous Marv) loves his job and knows every single mountain name as well as all the glaciers, waterfalls, etc. and entertained us with so much history and stories of the area. We occasionally got out to see specific spots, stopping at Logan’s Pass near the top of the Continental Divide. ( Going up is east of the divide, going down, west). Although it was crowded, they control the number of cars they allow and stagger the times.
He was truly passionate about giving us a complete overview of the area. This road took over 6 years to build (completed in 1932) and was the source of much research which ultimately lead to the long road style up and down the mountains instead of the more common “ switchback” approach used in a lot of other places. Although longer and more expensive, this way allows for much more viewing of the scenery. Unfortunately, with the exception of two very far away mountain goats, we saw no wildlife on this trip. Wildlife viewing is purely by chance. According to Marv, the previous day was plentiful, with bears, big horn sheep, and mountain goats. Oh well. maybe over the next few days.
Our last stop was at a beautiful vibrant falls, McDonald Falls, which leads right into Lake McDonald where, 10 minutes down the road we finished our GTTS fantastic journey and settled into our room at the Lake McDonald Lodge. Prior to the construction of the road this Lodge was only accessible by boat.
This lodge seems much better run than Many Glacier Hotel (although managed by the same company), but the views of this lake were not as spectacular. We all had Steelhead Trout for dinner which was delicious. Unfortunately, we don’t get to really see more of this area as we leave very early tomorrow morning.