Glacier National Park: West Glacier Area

After a several-hour trip around the south boundary of the park, we arrived in West Glacier. Our accommodations for the next two nights would be the Great Bear Inn, a bed-and-breakfast just outside the park. This was a beautiful and comfortable spot, which we all enjoyed. The chef created fabulous dinners and the help-yourself breakfasts had fresh pastries and fruit. Yum. We also got to do laundry here and that was quite a welcome perk at this stage of the trip!

Heading into the park, we checked out several places. One was a boat trip on Lake MacDonald. I was able to spend most of the trip on the upper deck, which provided good sunshine and great views. There was not much wind so the reflections were again stunning.

One of the pictures shows a double reflection. It’s the one with the trees angled to a point on the left-hand side. You can see the reflection of the trees and also the reflection of the mountains in the background. Cool.

Several of the pictures show gray trunks of trees that burned in a major file in 2003–a really bad fire season. The places where the fire burned hot enough to sear and seal the ground are taking some time to come back. The surface is so slick and tough that other vegetaion is having a hard time getting established. Right next to those gray areas are green areas that did not get so hot and so are growing again.

Fire is necessary for the health of the forest, but it’s hard to look at and not feel bad for what looks like utter devastation. Yet, new growth happens.

After the lake we headed for another park entrance, this time from the inside. Just inside the Camas Creek Entrance is the Huckleberry Nature Trail (actually renamed the Fire and Nature Trail). In this area it’s good to see new growth in progress. Kind of looks like a Christmas Tree farm! Got a couple of nice pictures of yellow Aspen leaves, too.

The next morning, Kay, Matt, and I headed back into the park to do the Avalanche Lake trail. This was a two-mile hike to the lake, and then we hiked to the far side of the lake, which was the end of the trail. The trail was great; the sights were beautiful. We even saw a couple of ducks or loons or some kind of bird. You’ll see them swimming and then taking flight.

On the way back, we spotted a bear. In the forest-meadow shot, look for a black speck in the middle. That’s a bear! We watched as he made his way up the mountainside.

These pictures wrap up with some info about the 2003 fires and another look at the area still trying to regenerate.

That afternoon we headed back to Great Falls and after a good night’s sleep at the Hilton Garden Inn and a bit of sightseeing at the museum at Malestrom AFB, Matt and Kay dropped me at the airport for the flights home.

All in all, it was a great week. The company was great, accommodations were great, weather was great, and everything went smoothly. Thanks, Kay and Matt, for all the planning. I was happy to be along.

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