McBerkoBlog

Amazing day! This was our best animal sighting day yet, and once again wowed me with how unique and surprising each day in a national park can be. After so many days of parks in the Rockies, I wouldn't have been shocked to feel that a new place was more of the same, but that never happened on our trip. Our first long stop was the Hidden Lake Overlook hike at Logan's Pass. As soon as set off, we found a hoary marmot right next to the path, and two bighorn sheep lying in the grass nearby as if it was their job to pose for the perfect photo. Next we spotted some mountain goats far off high in the mountains, and were so excited to see them. We'd laugh at our distant goat pictures soon enough. People heading back kept telling us that there was a grizzly ahead, visible from the overlook. The trail was longer than Zadie was happy with but we wanted to push onward in hopes of seeing the grizzly. We walked through snow and Zadie even forded the little snow melt streams in her Crocs ...

Hotel weight room for me, breakfast and showers for everyone, and grocery restocking at Walmart before we hit the road once again. We had a 3.5-4 hour drive from Helena to Glacier, which was really flat until we got close to the park. We stopped in a small town in Montana to eat a picnic lunch at a city park near a rodeo. A cute little fawn and her mom entertained us. The park had the fanciest outhouse we'd seen - nice and bright, clean, multi-stall - though Bill's side wasn't quite as fancy, with its "pee gutter" urinal. Ew. We entered at St. Mary's Visitor Center to stop and look around, then backtracked the few miles outside the park to our nearby KOA. This was the one place where our luck ran out with reservations, the park campgrounds booking up immediately after being released. Being a KOA, sites were packed together like sardines, but at least each site had tons of plants so felt reasonably private. We set camp, made some pasta for dinner, then visited ...

Time to pack up yet again. Northwest quadrant of the park today then heading north toward Glacier. We stopped at Roaring Mountain and the Obsidian Cliff (Ruth: "1 star, underwhelming"; I agree) on the way to our big site for the day - Mammoth Hot Springs. I was excited to see this area since all the pictures I'd seen when researching looked otherworldly.  Zadie: Meh Zadie was Yellowstoned out by this point, over it, and not interested in walking around this area in the heat. Here's her take, written as we drove away: Mammoth Spring was horrible, hot, and long. I was very upset and it sucked. 1 star, 0 if possible. Sincerely, Zadie The rest of us enjoyed it! How could you not? Ruth said it looked like the moon. We had several hours to drive after leaving here, but made several stops along the way. First, we got some Thai food in a small town where we split two yummy meals and still had a ton of leftovers. Next, we drove through downtown Bozeman (cute!) where we popped ...