Glacier National Park

Our next stop was Glacier National Park, and we camped at St. Mary's campground on the east side for two nights. This was the only place where it actually rained on us this year, and we were very glad to have our shelter over the picnic table. Glacier is also the only place we went that has grizzly bears so we were SUPER careful with our food at the campsite. We spent our one full day hiking around the St. Mary's visitor center and the afternoon hiking a trail in the Many Glacier area. We definitely made sure to bring bear spray with us as they were signs everywhere. Our hike took us past a couple of beautiful mountain lakes and some waterfalls that don't even look real in the pictures. We also managed to see a grizzly bear, black bear, and moose on the hike. They were pretty far away on the mountain across the valley. I was perfectly happy to see a grizzly bear at that distance, and it was pretty cool to watch him roam the mountainside basically eating a ton of berries. 

For their junior ranger badges, the girls had to attend a ranger program, and there was one starting just as we finished our hike in the Many Glacier Area so we sat down. It was fantastic. It was a woman, Daniele Antelope, from the Blackfeet Nation who spoke about Indigenous food systems and many of the plants that they use for medicines and still harvest in the park. She leads a non-profit in Montana called FAST Blackfeet that is working to make Indigenous foods more accessible for the Tribe. She was a great speaker and the girls also really enjoyed it. 

The next day we got up early to pack up camp and drive the Going to the Sun road across the park. We made it up to the highest part of the road, Logan's Pass, early enough to get a parking spot, and we spent the morning hiking the trails to Hidden Lake. It isn't a long hike, but it is pretty steep. It was ridiculously beautiful because all of the wildflowers were in bloom. The meadows were SO colorful. I took so many pictures that didn't come close to doing it justice. We saw a lot of very chill bighorn sheep, some mountain goats with their babies, and a very chill mountain goat just hanging out near the trail. We also saw pika and yellow bellied marmots. It was cloudy most of the morning and quite chilly at that altitude. The girls turned in their junior ranger books for their badges and Addi was very proud. She LOVES doing the activities in the books. We had a picnic lunch at the pass, and then headed west down the mountain. We headed to a Marriott in Spokane for the night for some beds and showers.