Montana, Day 5 - Lake McDonald

Our last planned event in Glacier was a boat tour on Lake McDonald. 

Ceiling lights in the main lobby

We’d heard horror stories about traffic backups and lack of parking (and seen the evidence on previous tours), so we decided to get there early,

 Main lobby

which gave us lots of time to admire the lobby and have second breakfast in the (also beautiful) dining room. (We were in the parking lot before 9 am and got the very last spot near the Lodge. Parking is nuts.)

 Dining room

The forecast was for cloudy skies, with rain in the early evening, 

 Tour boat is the blue one in back

but as soon as we sat down for breakfast it started drizzling 

 View behind the boat, looking toward Heavens Peak

which made for some very gray, gloomy photos. 

 Sprinkles on the water

Fortunately, the tour guide was interesting… 

Our tour boat was built in 1930... 

Temperature of the water is 65° on the surface and 37° lower down. 

Under water visibility is 50-100’ and the lake hasn’t frozen over in 30 years…

The lake’s Native name was “Sacred Dancing Waters.” “ McDonald” comes from Duncan McDonald, who carved his name in a tree around 1878 as he was passing through the area, never to return…  🙄

What we think of as the back (lake-facing side) of the lodge 

was originally the front since guests arrived via ferry across the lake…

And my favorite: there’s a forest of perfectly preserved trees deep in the lake from a landslide years ago. The park service used to allow diving there but it became too dangerous (and the nearest hyperbaric chamber is a 10+ hour ambulance ride away.)

We spent time after the tour wandering the grounds,

away from where most tourists were spending their time.

Really peaceful.

Had to stop for obligatory “I was there” photos

on our way to lunch at the Boat Club in Whitefish (we really like that town…)

where we got to hang out with Huck, short for Huckleberry, of course. 

We tried one more time to visit the Whitefish Depot Museum but it was closed again. Nice sculptures in the back made it almost worthwhile.

Our favorite new store - 

The Sapphire Shoppe in Columbia Falls has a very nice selection of everything from rocks to fine jewelry, including two kinds of Montana sapphires, some from the owner’s own sapphire mine claim.

We never missed the turn onto our rental house street with this on the corner. 😂