Monday, July 3rd, 2023

Starting mileage: 6023, distance travelled: 116

Miles hiked: 8 (5 miles in Glacier and 3 miles to dinner and back)

Despite setting our alarm to get up and out early, we still didn’t get out of Waterton until nearly 7:45am, with coffee in hand. With an hour drive to get to Glacier’s front door, we missed the window to find parking basically anywhere on the Going to the Sun Road, except for a brief pullout along the hairiest part. Check out this video to get the real gist.

The road was about as wild as it gets and we had to remove our rear trailer hitch storage rack to meet the 21’ length limit. It was a challenge to get pictures because Susan was monitoring the passenger side mirror so it didn’t scrape the cliff edge while David tried not to get distracted by the amazing vistas and crash into oncoming traffic.

On the far eastern side we lucked out and found a pull-out with a steep bank “trail” down to the bluest creek you’ve ever seen. It was filled with potholes and smoothed out rocks in every shade.

We finally secured longer term parking at Lake McDonald Lodge where we ate sandwiches in the van before heading out for a 5-mile hike along the Horse Loop. The trail was littered with horse manure but ended at the spectacular Sacred Dancing Cascades on the McDonald Creek. We all came back with a thick coating of dust, which we realized was likely comprised of dehydrated horse manure. Yuck!

We completed the Going to the Sun Road by stopping at the Apgar Visitor Center and getting another cancellation in our National Park passport. Our campground was only another 25 miles west of the park in Whitefish, MT, which had a surprisingly touristy but cute downtown. We found a terrific brewpub, the Blackstar Brewery, serving Jeremiah Johnson beer with yummy queso, pizza and mini beignets. Everyone had a laugh at dad’s expense when, after spilling queso on his shirt, he licked it off, forgetting that he was coated in horse poop dust!