Glacier National Park

July 26 - August 2, 2015

When we are on the road we are often out of the loop with regard to the news of the day. We have 3 TV's in the RV: one in the bedroom, one in the living room, and another in an outside compartment. We are able to use a cable hookup if it is offered by the campgound and we have an antenna on the roof to pick up over-the-air channels. But many campgrounds have no cable hookup and we are often in locations where there are no over-the-air stations. Many RVers have satellite service in their RV, but our RV isn't so equipped. One day before we were to leave Salt Lake City for a week in Glacier National Park, our daughter-in-law, Cristin, called us and let us know that there was a large forest fire at Glacier National Park. We investigated and learned that the fire, while very large, was confined to the east side of the park. I had reserved a campground in the western part of the park, so we decided to go anyway. We figured we could always leave if it wasn't working out. 

After spending a night on the road, we arrived at the West Glacier KOA. We had tried a week or two previously to get a reservation at this very well reviewed campground. But we tried again on the day we left and found that they now had vacancies. It seems that news reports about the fire were causing cancellations throughout the area. It turned out to be a really nice place. We had a paved patio area with a gas grill, an attractive tile topped table and chairs with umbrella, and a fire pit surrounded with benches. We've found that the northern campgrounds are really expensive, but at least this one made us feel like we were getting something for our money.

We loved this park. Though it was certainly crowded, the fire reports kept the crowds to a manageable level. The fire closed the east to west highway within the park called the "Going to the Sun" road. You could drive the incredibly scenic road as far as the summit, or Logan Pass, but it was closed after that point. We had to drive all the way around the park in order to see the incredibly beautiful east side. The below shot is in the "Many Glacier" section of the park with the Many Glacier Hotel in the foregound.

We hadn't expected to go to Glacier NP when we were planning our trip so we neglected to bring our passports. If you ever get the chance to visit Glacier National Park be sure to bring your passport. Glacier is actually Waterton - Glacier International Peace Park. It's also a World Heritage Site. The park is really the combination of Glacier and a Canadian park called Waterton. The  parks are joined at the international border. I understand that the Canadian side is amazing. We were sorry to have to miss it. 

                   Both the US and Canadian flags fly over all sections of the park.

We were able to see smoke from the fire while we were exploring the east side. There were firefighters from all over the country who had come to help with the fires. They were all camped in a field. There was another field with a number of heliocopters and small planes that were being used to fight the fire.

We had some chilly weather on our day on the east side, but we mostly had nice weather while we were at Glacier.

Rick came down with Bronchitis while we were there, so we didn't get to do any hikes. We did travel many miles and explored as much of the park as we could without a passport.

One day we drove into the little ski town of Whitefish. We took the ski lift up to the top of the mountain and admired the view.