Montana

GLACIER NATIONAL PARK
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Glacier NP: Montana
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Glacier National Park, Montana:

	Glacier NP is one of the most beautiful places on earth, and a “well oiled machine” to boot.  You literally need to go to the top of America to get there but it is worth the drive.  (FYI, you can fly into “Glacier Park International Airport” if it strikes your fancy).  Just inside the West gate, which is where we entered, the Agpar visitor center, a general and camping store, gift shop, permit office, post office, and campsites are laid out in a grid and easy to find.  There are tons of visitors (this was even on a Tuesday), but there was neither foot nor car congestion.  

We arrived at about 3:30 pm, went right to the permit office, and were lucky enough to get one of the last remaining backcountry camping passes for the night.   Since we were in Grizzly country, we were given thorough instructions on what to do if we encountered a grizzly or black bear, a mountain lion, or other forms of wild life, even down to differentiating between a surprise/defensive attack, and a predatory/aggressive attack.  Anyone going into the backcountry also has to watch a 15 minute movie about these and other safety/survival precautions (e.g., where and how to hang your food, toiletries, etc. and clapping, singing, and talking loudly while hiking to avoid surprising a wild animal, particularly a bear), as well as the “leave no trace” principles.   

Glacier is a bit different from some of the other parks we have been to, in that they have their backcountry campsites set up almost like houses with a bunch of different rooms.  For instance, there is a sleeping area, a cooking preparation, cooking and fire pit area (where campfires are even allowed), a food hanging area, and a pit toilet area (they even tell you not to pee anywhere in the campsite, except in the pit toilet, or if you are on the trail, on a rock surface – away from water- to avoid wild animals coming into the campsite or on the trail to dig for the nutrients in your urine).   Actually, a lot of the parks that have growing grizzly populations follow these same guidelines, which make a ton of sense.

Rules and regs aside, we headed out of the permit office, to the “Going to the Sun Highway,” which is the only road through the park; it cuts right through the middle of it.  Even if you do nothing else in the park, but drive this drive, it is totally worth the trip.   As we ascended up and over Logan Pass (at the Continental Divide of the Rocky Mountains), we came across several fluffy white mountain goats, and three large big horn sheep grazing on the side of the mountain road.  Needless to say, we stopped to take some pictures, and also got some great shots of the valleys and streams below.

Early that evening, we got on the trail to our campsite.  After backpacking in for several hours up and down hills, through berry patches and over streams (clapping and talking loudly the entire the way), we arrived at our site – a beautiful spot near a running stream, in the middle of nowhere.  We pitched our tent, went to the food preparation area, built our fire and made dinner (dehydrated food tastes so good sometimes!), and concluded that Glacier NP is one of our new favorite spots!
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