Montana, Day 6 - East Glacier, Part 1

When we planned this trip, Teena and I both wanted to see the east side of Glacier NP in addition to the west side, where we were staying. 

But driving the 32+ miles of the Going To The Sun Road was a bit too challenging - too winding, too narrow, too tiring, too “oh h*ll no” from our primary driver.

At the time, we didn’t know you could drive around the southern tip of the park. 

But that’s still 1.5 hours of road-time each way. 

Turns out, Amtrak’s east-bound Seattle to Chicago route stops at West Glacier station each morning, with a stop in East Glacier 1.5 hours later. 

And repeats the process with the Chicago-to-Seattle route in the evening. 

Things to remember for next time: Amtrak isn’t always on time (morning pickup was an hour late) but there’s an app for that - and they are verrrrrry thorough on texting updates says Teena, who forgot to put her phone on silent when she went to sleep the night before. 

Top left: W. Glacier side; bottom left: E. Glacier; from top right: west side, Teena’s train view, oncoming orange monster that startled me mid-picture, east side. 

Sitting upstairs in coach is fine, good view, comfy-ish seats. Sitting downstairs? Never, ever again. No AC , or any air at all, dirty, crowded… ick.

First fence is by the train depot building.

We weren’t sure what to expect services- and distances-wise in East Glacier. Some reviews recommended making advance reservations to get a ride between depot and hotel. 

 The ride from depot to hotel

Others said it was a loooooong way to the local town. 

 East Glacier Depot

Fortunately neither was true. For day trippers like us it was an easy 3-4 minute walk to the hotel. 

We didn’t go into town, but for that you walked around the corner, under the train tracks and across the main street. Easy peasy. 

East Glacier Lodge was built on the same scale as Yosemite Lodge. Big, over-the-top construction, with lots of wood and local rock.

 Porch had outdoor sofas and multi-person wooden rocking chairs

Slightly shabby, very expensive and fun for a night or two.

  Main lobby and registration 

Or to visit for a day.

 Side lobby

We had fun wandering around, admiring the 3-story individual trees used in construction (load-bearing, not just decorative),

 Probably my favorite place in the hotel.

the peaceful atrium 

 Support post/tree in the atrium. It was huge.

with chairs by the windows so you could admire the view,

and the stories of how and why things were built.

We had time for a quick lunch 

 Interesting decorations. The stone fireplace was amazing.

before heading out front to meet our van for the trip to Two Medicine Lake. 

And then there’s the landscaping.

 Rainy day flowers

So beautiful.

 View toward the depot

Part 2 tomorrow, along with editing/corrections to this one. Gotta go board our plane for home!

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. 😂

Montana, Day 4 - Lakeside, Lavender and Bigfork

(Note: trying to get caught up so be sure to see both posts for today.)

Since we didn’t have a park tour today, 

and weren’t able to get a timed entry pass, 

we decided to head south to Lakeside and environs. 

Teena had spotted a brochure for a boat tour, 

which just happened to be on the way to a lavender farm we wanted to see.

It was a nice, leisurely cruise around Lakeside Lake,

 According to Captain “Awesome”, the black house top left belongs to Johnny Depp, middle one is Jelly Roll’s, bottom is the Osprey House (so pretty!). Right is the longest vertical funicular in the world (and very expensive to build.)

viewing the vacation homes of a few celebrities 

seeing the lone bald eagle,

learning about the storms - winds to 40 mph and 5-7’ waves on a lake??!? -

and the wild horses in one of the 38 lake islands.

But mostly it was an excuse to hang out and take pictures together. 

Not a bad way to spend an afternoon (or at least an hour and a half of it.)

The lavender farm was just a few miles away in Somers. 

It’s outside the growing season but the yard still smelled strongly of lavender,

which made it very tempting to take home some of the tiny plants she had for sale. They’d survive a plane trip, right??

Fortunately, the gift shop was open so we could fight the plant temptation. 

 Our trusty steed, aka the rental car

And as long as we were over that way, we might as well stop by what we were told was a cute historical town with some interesting shops, right?

We jokingly asked if Bigfork had a big fork… of course they do! So funny.

They also had some vividly gorgeous flowers (with bonus moth and spider) that I loved. Gotta get some photography practice in!