Snow?!
With being north on the western edge of of the time zone, Mountain Time, sunrise suddenly came a lot later this morning. The air still smelled of smoke, although it wasn't extremely hazy. We decided to get a quick start on our trip to the eastern side of the park and delay breakfast until we got to Two Sisters, outside of St. Mary. We were on our way to Many Glacier, a part of the park we had only made a day trip to on our first visit to Glacier.
Last night, I entered Many Glacier into the GPS and it came back with a 60 mile trip. This seemed reasonable for a drive before breakfast. I forgot to look at the route. As we headed out of the campground it directed us left instead of right towards the West Glacier entrance. At that point I realized that the route it generated was via Going-to-the-Sun Road, directly though the park. It is normally a nice drive, but there were a couple of problems with this route. First, new Speedy is too long. The length limit is 21' and Speedy is 24' with the cargo box. I probably could have driven it, but there was an even bigger problem...the road was closed due to the fires.
We forced the routing to go via US 2 and it became a 120 mile drive. Oh well, we went anyway. We'd still have time for breakfast when we got there.
This was a very interesting drive. As we left the park and turned north on US 2, the smoke really thickened. We were going along just south of the fire and the smoke had settled in that direction overnight. This didn't last long and soon we were making good time. We climbed up and as we got higher we got to the snow line. It had snowed lightly overnight and, although the road was clear, it lay lightly on the ground around us. As we crossed the Continental Divide, we could see the mountains of the park off to the left. They had been coated with snow overnight and the sky was cloudy, but absolutely clear of smoke. As we traveled further, the sky cleared as well and the mountains stood out even more. The sun just lit up the snow.
When we arrived at East Glacier, we turned off onto Montana 49. This was another road with a length limit, but we didn't notice until we had started up it. We had driven the first part of it in old Speedy up to the Two Medicine campground, but had not taken it all the way to Route 89 and St. Mary. It is a narrow very winding road with no shoulders that climbs to some spectacular views (that only Ellen could look at). In addition, it climbed well above the snow line. We wound through a snow-covered pine forest and into the open before slowly making our way down to 89, the road to the park entrance. Fortunately, the roadway had been sanded and was clear and the temperature had gotten above freezing. Did I mention that the temperature was as low as 31 as we drove along?
Montana 89, in comparison, was a new wide road with sweeping curves that ran through a new forest. There were massive wildfires on this side of the park in 2015. It totally wiped out the existing forest, but it also freed an enormous amount of seed. The old forest is only a few standing charred trunks, but the ground is entirely covered in two to three foot high seedlings which seem as densely packed as a field of grass.
When we finally passed St. Mary and arrived at the Two Sisters restaurant, we found that it didn't open until 11am. They don't serve breakfast at this time of year. We figured not all was lost, it was only about ten miles to Many Glacier and there were restaurants at the inn by the campground and at the hotel on the lake.
What we didn't count on was the road into the park. The first part of the road is on the Blackfeet reservation and was in terrible shape with lots of bumps and potholes. It certainly wasn't like this the last time we were here. It took an inordinate amount of time to get to the park entrance. By the time we got to Nell's, the restaurant at the Switcurrent Inn, it was 10:05. They stop serving breakfast at 10 o'clock.
It was off to the Many Glacier. They too, stop serving breakfast at 10. At least they have a small snack bar where we were able to get coffee and muffins which we consumed while sitting in the hotel's newly restored lobby.
After our mini-brunch, it was off to the campground where we found a quiet site in the no generator section and finally stopped.
After lunch, which wasn't that long after the muffins and coffee, we were off on a short hike along the Swiftcurrent Trail, which is also a section of the border-to-border Continental Divide Trail, to Redrock Falls. This is a fairly short hike, about five miles from the campground, but it has some great views of the mountains and of Redrock Lake and, of course, the small Redrock Falls.
Unfortunately, there wasn't much of a view of the mountains. Although it was still a sunny day, the wind had shifted and the smoke was coming over from the west side of the park, totally obliterating some of the peaks to the west and south. It was still a nice hike. We even saw a nice collection of birds on the way, including another "friendly" Spruce Grouse. This one wasn't aggressive like the one who attacked Speedy in the spring, but it came right up to us, close enough for Ellen to take close-up photos with her wide-angle lens.
After the hike, we stopped at the ranger station for maps of the local trails, then back to Speedy for dinner and planning for tomorrow.
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