Glacier Park

The trip from Gillette to the East gate to Glacier National Park took us through a lot of open country both in Wyoming and central to western Montana.  Since I had traveled this country on several other occasions it seemed obvious to us that this year had been a wetter than normal year for this area based on the color of the vegetation and the status of crops along the way.  We delayed our departure from Gillette until Dick had made some bank deposits and picked up a General Deliver package that we should have remembered to pick up before the three day Labor Day weekend.  Despite the late start Dick wanted to push on and we drove all the way to Great Falls, Montana where we found a campsite at Malstrom, Air Force Base Gateway FAMCAMP.  A FAMCAMP is a military sponsored RV campsite that may be used by active duty personnel when making permanent change of station relocations and is also available for general use by active duty and retired military personnel.  They normally have utility hook-ups and charge fees ranging around $20 per night. Malstrom was no exception and was conveniently located just outside the main gate to the base making access easier.

Wednesday September 3rd found us with only a few hours needed to drive from Great Falls to our next campsite just outside the East side of Glacier National Park so we drove it more leisurely and when we got to the town of Browning, MT in the Blackfeet Indian Reservation we stopped to have lunch at the casino there.  The food was excellent and Dick got a nice two pork chop dinner for only $8.00.  Dick stepped up to one slot machine while we were waiting for our meal and he proceeded to win $35 in a very short time.  Of course after dinner we played the slots and for a change very good luck was with us.  Dick got onto one “Lucky Ducky” nickel machine and pulled out $350 from it plus hit some on a couple of other machines while Pat ended up $50 ahead as well!  Not bad for an unscheduled stop!  We then drove about an hour to reach the Johnson’s RV Park in St. Mary.  We had received a strong recommendation for Johnson’s from our good friends Jim & Bonnie Larson who had spent time there and we were not disappointed.  Our spot was on a hill with our front windshield facing directly across toward a nice view of the entrance area for Glacier National Park. We booked it for two nights at a reasonably pricey $44 per night with full hook-ups.

WOW!  We have been to a lot of National Parks and certainly many of them are beautiful, BUT GLACIER IS AMAZINGLY BEAUTIFUL!  For practical purposes there is one main way to see Glacier and that is by driving the Going to the Sun highway that traverses the park on a more or less East West basis.  It is about 50 miles long with traffic restrictions that exclude most RV’s and towing due to very sharp turns and overhanging rocks.  At one point Pat had to fold in her passenger side mirror to be sure I didn't hit the rocks when we had to pull all the way to the right to avoid oncoming traffic! 

 

We had a glorious day to take our drive across Going to the Sun.  Hardly a cloud in the sky.  Of course our Golden Age Passports got us free admission to the park but the trip would be more than worth any entrance fee!  We had hopes to see the many forms of wildlife that the park is noted for, however we only saw on black bear soon after we got going on the road and then we did see numerous mountain goats up on the sides of some rocky slopes.  The goats were pretty far away and binoculars helped a lot.  What we did see however was the scenery!  There are not enough positive adjectives in my vocabulary to do it justice but let’s just suffice to say it was spectacular with views of the very rocky Rocky Mountains.  All I kept saying to Pat was that this is what the Rocky Mountains should look like in my mind.  The tops of most of them were raw bare rock above the tree line.  Our photos will try to give you a glimpse of what it is like but we really encourage anyone to come and see it for yourself!