The Crown of the Continent

Let me start by saying that Montana is a VERY large state.

Our destination for the first night was Great Falls, Montana. It was a long, 7 hour day in the car, but we made it.

The boys thought much of the scenery in eastern Montana looked similar to Theodore Roosevelt National Park. They weren’t far off. It was flat at times with some neat rock formations mixed in.

The boys created a new travel game to keep themselves occupied. They have to fully open a state highway map and then figure out how to put it back together. Haha!

After arriving in Great Falls, we needed some time to stretch our legs. We decided to check out Giant Springs State Park, that was just on the edge of town. The spring is one of the largest freshwater springs in the country, producing over 150 million gallons of water every day.

A new day dawned with Glacier National Park in the forecast!!! We had a full day planned of exploring the eastern side of the park.

Our first stop was Many Glacier in the northeastern part of the park. The drive to Many Glacier was a little intense. The winds were pushing our van all over the road. Seeing the Rocky Mountains in the distance made the drive much more enjoyable.

The drive from Babb, Montana to the Many Glacier Hotel might be the most beautiful drive we’ve ever done. There truly are no words to describe how amazing it was!

We were compelled to stop at almost every pull off and admire the mountains all around us.

The wind was relentless and made getting pictures a challenge.

We ate lunch in the Many Glacier Hotel parking lot before walking down to the water for a few pictures. We also randomly saw a guy chasing two mountain goats through the parking lot. This sparked an interesting conversation about why a guy would be chasing mountain goats in the first place. Haha!!

Next up was the eastern part of the Going to the Sun Road that starts in St. Mary, Montana. The Going to the Sun Road doesn’t fully open until late June every year. We drove as far as they would let us and it was beautiful!

We also did our first hike at Glacier, which was to Baring Falls. I believe the hike was only about a mile long. With all the rain the area has seen recently, the falls were absolutely booming.

Our drive up the Going to the Sun Road finished at the Jackson Glacier overlook. The boys were super excited to see their first glacier, even if it was way off in the distance.

Our last adventure on the east side of the park was a drive to Two Medicine. Let’s just say, the east side of the park treated us really well!!!

The drive finishes at Two Medicine lake, which is just another beautiful lake surrounded by snow covered mountains. So amazing!!

The Two Medicine General Store was the perfect, cozy stop we needed to end the day.

The weather was not quite as cooperative for our second day at Glacier. We still made the best of it, but it was more challenging to see everything that the west part of Glacier NP had to offer.

The mountains weren’t really visible so we decided to drive the North Fork road to Polebridge. The North Fork road isn’t exactly paved the whole way.

We stopped at the Polebridge Mercantile for some baked goodies. They are famous for their Huckleberry Bear Claws. They were delicious!!

We turned this dreary, rainy day into a laundry day. This will be one of two laundry times for our five week trip.

The skies cleared some after dinner, so we decided to drive up the Going to the Sun Road since we didn’t get to earlier in the day. We were only able to go part of the way due to some flooding concerns.

Our last day in Glacier started with the clearest skies we had seen since our first day here. We headed straight back to the Going to the Sun road. It is currently open to the Avalanche campground. We stopped at almost every pull off area to take in as much of the park as we could.

Just passed the Avalanche campground is the Trail of the Cedars hike, which was about .8 miles. It was a beautiful hike through some amazingly large cedar trees. It afforded us some neat water views as well. All the rivers seem to be near flood stage at the moment.

We made our way back down the mountain and said goodbye to Glacier NP. We are determined to visit Glacier again when the Going to the Sun Road is fully opened so we can experience that part of the park. With that being said, we still had an amazing time and were truly blown away by the awesomeness of Glacier National Park.

Until next time!