Year Three - Days Fifty-One thru Fifty-Six

Sam's View

Day 51 - 16 Jun

Today we traveled to Shelby, MT

Day 52 - 17 Jun

Today we traveled to Essex, MT which is very close to the border of Glacier National Park. We went to goat lick at sunset and we saw some mountain goats!!

Day 53 - 18 Jun

Today we went hiking. It was a 3 mile trail. On the way we saw lots of waterfalls! Also there were some horses in the campground!

Day 54 - 19 Jun

Today it rained all day. We went out to eat.

Day 55 - 20 Jun

Today was another rain day. We went to west glacier and got my stamp! Yay!

Day 56 - 21 Jun

Today we went through Logan pass. We saw and touched snow. We saw waterfalls. We went to the top of a mountain. And we saw some birds.


Summer's View

From Billings, we made it to the next overnight stop of Shelby, MT. Along the way, we spied some cool wind farms.

After leaving Shelby, MT, we drove over to stay at the Glacier Meadows RV Park, about halfway between East Glacier and West Glacier.  The mountains are beautiful, and the park has an open area for us to park, perfect for using our satellites, so Jim is happy!  :) Unfortunately, though, we get no phone service here, and the closest place is 20 miles away.

Best campground view we have had so far!

Around sunset of the night we arrived, we drove about 10 miles west to an area called Goat Lick, where the park managers said was the best place to see mountain goats.  She was right!  Not only did we get to see several goats settling down for the evening, but we saw two with babies!  Awesome!

The next day was beautiful, and it was calling for rain the next day, so we headed out to hike while we could.  We drove to St. Mary, and drove along St. Mary Lake to hike to St. Mary Falls and also Virginia Falls.  Overall hike was about three miles, with some ups and downs in elevation along the way.  What cool falls!  Definitely worth the hike!

It started raining that evening, and poured some of the time.  Then it rained all day the next day, so we stayed in. All the NEXT day it rained again, and we went out to East Glacier just to get out for a little while and had something to eat.  Huckleberry seems to be the special around here.

The next day it was still raining lightly, but we decided to drive up through West Glacier and along Going to the Sun Road, even though it wasn't open all the way through.  It was a good drive, and we saw some deer and ground squirrels along the way.  All of the streams and rivers were gushing with fast moving water from all the rain!  We were going to leave on Friday, but we heard the Going to the Sun Road was supposed to open, so we opted to stay another day and see.

Friday morning it was official - the road was open!  We drove the road, starting from West Glacier, and what a sight!  Now I see what all the fuss was about!  :)  It was lightly raining on the west side, but cleared up after we crossed the mountains, and what mountains! Wow!  The tops are all covered with fresh snow, and there was still plenty of snow at Logan's Pass for Sam to play in.  Lots of kids up there were having snowball fights!  Sam and Jim saw several ground squirrels there scurrying around looking for crumbs in the snow.

We were going to head north from here, crossing into Canada and heading to Calgary tomorrow, but we heard today that they are having the worst floods in years!  Over 100,000 people had to be evacuated in Calgary, roads are getting washed out, and they had over four inches of rain in one day!  We have now changed our plans, and are heading west tomorrow, intending on crossing into Canada en route from Seattle, WA.