In which we spend the day at Glacier NP and then stuff ourselves at a buffet

We intended to wake up early to get a parking spot at Logan Pass since the rangers had warned us that it would fill up pretty early in the morning. But it’s so hard to get out of a warm sleeping bag on a chilly morning! We ended up getting up (reluctantly) at about 7:30am. We packed up our tent and everything into the van pretty quickly and left by 8:10am. The drive to Logan Pass was once again breathtaking, and it was cool to see everything in the morning sunlight this time instead of the evening sunlight.

We arrived at the Logan Pass Visitor Center about 8:45 am, but it turns out that was too late, and the parking lot was completely full. Oh no! We drove a little bit back down the hill to Oberlin Bend boardwalk and found one spot left there, which we snatched up. It turned out this was for the best, because it was at this spot that we caught our only glimpse of mountain goats!

There was also a squirrel party happening on this rock

Once we had a parking spot, we took our time eating breakfast and getting dressed for the chilly morning air high up in the mountains. It was only a short walk to the visitor center and we got there and found the Hidden Lake Overlook trailhead and embarked on that hike at about 9:30am. This was a shorter hike than yesterday, so only Joe and I carried backpacks with a few snacks and water bottles, not a full lunch or anything. The total distance to the Overlook was 1.5 miles. There is a further hike you can do all the way down to Hidden Lake, but it is currently closed due to increased bear activity in the area. I thought 1.5 miles would be short and easy, but it was actually a lot of uphill climbing and ended up taking us about an hour and a half. All the climbing helped warm us up though! The high temperature in the forecast for the day at Logan Pass was 58 degrees - and it was still pretty early in the day. It was a perfectly clear and sunny day though, so that helped with both feeling warmer and having amazing views of the mountains all around us. Plus we saw lots of squirrels - the speckled Columbian Ground Squirrel and the striped Golden Mantled Ground Squirrel, plus the smaller chipmunks, and even a few hoary marmots. We didn’t see any more mountain goats though - so I’m glad we saw that pair earlier at our unplanned parking spot!

I underestimated how much climbing up this hike involved. Lots and lots of big steps up on the boardwalk! Plus it is very popular, so there were lots of folks on the trail with us.

Much of the hike was through alpine meadows with babbling streams

Video of one of the hoary marmots we saw. The sound effects are provided by the Yatzeck children.

We sat down at the overlook and had a snack before heading back down. Here is a quote I saw in the visitor center from the park’s first ranger naturalist, and I think it is spot on: “Here is the place where clouds are made...a fairy land, where dreams of fantastic things come true, and where interest and wonder never cease.”

It was a little bit faster going downhill on the way back, and we were back in the van by 12:30pm. We continued driving along the Going-to-the-Sun Road towards St. Mary and our maybe-canceled-reservation. I had wanted to hike to St. Mary Falls and Virginia Falls, but when we got there the kids were protesting that they were hiked out. We HAD been hiking a lot recently, and Mary offered to watch all the kids if just Joe and I wanted to do this one, so we took her up on it. The kids had plenty of food and water, the temperatures were in the high 60s/low 70s, and we told them they could either stay in the van or play around the trailhead. We also had walkie talkies so we could stay in touch even though our cell phones weren’t working inside the park. I highly recommend bringing a good pair of walkie talkies - they came in handy several times when our cell phones weren't working. Joe and I got to do a kid-free 4 mile hike to the falls and back, and it was really great, and all the kids were alive when we got back!

Photo of the trailhead sign showing our route to the falls.

Here's a video of St. Mary Falls.

And a video of Virginia Falls.

And a bunch of photos from our hike.

From there it was a fairly short drive to the St. Mary campground. The ranger there confirmed that no tents were permitted and said that we could still camp there if we all slept in the van. It was only about 4pm, and while the showers available at St. Mary were very tempting (none of us have been able to shower since leaving Seattle), in the end we decided that our reserved campsite wasn’t very appealing - mostly out in the open, and that it would be better to knock out a big chunk of driving today towards our next destination. The ranger said that they were offering everyone a full refund due to the bear issue, so we decided to take them up on it and headed out of Glacier National Park at 4:30pm. After a quick pit stop in the town of St. Mary for a potty break, we were on our way to Theodore Roosevelt National Park.

On this drive we had much discussion over what we should do with our unexpected free night. It was about a 9.5 hour drive from Glacier to Teddy Roosevelt and we had originally planned to do it all on the next day. We were all in favor of doing some of that driving today instead. We were driving in and out of cell coverage and cell data, so I was able to do some searching as we drove, looking for different campground and hotel options.

I found a KOA campground that was about $75/night - pretty pricey for camping, but it included a pancake breakfast, waterpark, and live music. We ALMOST decided to go there, but when I asked about the waterpark hours, it was so limited that we could have only spent an hour there at the most, plus the "tent campsites" were just an open field you parked in. I also found some hotels that were about $75/night, where we could all shower, but there was no breakfast included and no pool. Then someone - not sure who - said they were hungry and wanted to go to a buffet. I did a search for “buffet” in the next big city and Golden Corrall popped up. We figured that would also cost about the same price as the KOA or a hotel. So we all weighed in our opinions and the kids overwhelmingly wanted to eat at the buffet instead of getting a hotel or campground or shower, so that’s what we did. We usually go to buffets during the cheaper lunch hours, but the timing of this stop was during peak dinner hours so our bill was just as much as getting a hotel for the night for sure. But we did get steak and shrimp! It was nice to have lots and lots and lots of great hot food to eat, because we have mostly been eating sandwiches. Plus of course the kids love the ice cream and cotton candy. We spent about 1.5 hours there filling up our plates, staying almost until they closed and we were all very full. We got gas and hit the road again. About 10pm we pulled over at a rest stop near Sluice Boxes State Park - we are hoping to visit there tomorrow and hopefully at least get a swim in the river to rinse off since we haven’t had real showers. There were lots of family jokes cracked about eating Golden Corrall being better than sleeping in beds or taking showers - haha!

Total miles traveled today: 222
Total miles traveled on this trip: 4816