Trail of the Cedars and Avalanche Lake

We all had a solid nights sleep and didn’t wake up until 8:30am. It got chilly, but not too cold - we were glad we spent the money on the warmer sleeping bags though. We took our time getting ready and eating breakfast - finally a day where we didn’t have a whole lot of planned activities or even much driving to do!

One thing that was on the list was to hike the Trail of the Cedars and go to Avalanche Lake. The trailhead was right in our campground so we didn’t even have to drive anywhere. We packed up backpacks with snacks and water for everyone and hit the trail about 10:15am.

Sometimes the kids are excited about hiking and sometimes they are not. On this particular morning Mary was a reluctant hiker. But only a few minutes into the trail we came upon this stream and she sighed and said contentedly, “This is good water.”

This was a really great hike. There was a river, a gorge, boulders, trees, flowers, and mountains. No wonder it is so popular - even though it was a Monday morning there were lots and lots of hikers on the trail with us.

Katy insisted on taking this photo of me looking at her through this log

It took us about 2 hours to reach the lake - hiking a distance of about 2.3 miles at kid pace - which is often frustratingly slow, plus there are lots of stops for exploring and snacking and whatnot. When we reached the lake, the kids immediately wanted to take off their shoes and socks play in the water. Joe decided to take an adult-paced hike around to the other side of the lake while the kids were splashing around in the water. We also had lunch at the lake - and some squirrels tried to join us. We of course followed the rules about not feeding the wild animals - but that didn’t stop one squirrel from jumping right on Joey’s lap to try to eat his sandwich!

Joe's view from the other side of the lake

Joey and the squirrel who wants his lunch. They have squirrels here that are striped like chipmunks, but you can tell them apart because they are bigger and the chipmunk stripes go all the way through the eyes.

Katy and Lily were trying to get this squirrel to come closer

Katy was so proud of herself for making it all the way out on this log!

It was such a great spot and we felt unrushed so we spent about an hour and a half at Avalanche Lake before deciding to hike the 2.3 miles back to our campsite. It was a little faster to get home since it was downhill most of the way, and we got back in about 1.5 hours this time, about 3:15pm. We relaxed around the campsite. There was no cell phone or data service in the park, so none of us were distracted by emails or text messages or phone calls or Facebook. The kids played outside, drew pictures, we made friendship bracelets, and Joe took a nap.

I bought the kids each a new notebook before the trip. Good investment! I also got a couple of cute "How to Draw" books at the Dollar Tree and Katy absolutely loved them!

Hanging out at our campsite. Love this park!

I couldn’t help feeling a pull to at least check my emails for anything important, so at 5pm we drove over to the Apgar Visitor Center where I thought there would be a good Wifi connection. We arrived about 5:30pm, and while I was able to check my email, the signal was too weak to do much of anything else - so we couldn’t update the blog in real time. I was able to respond to a few important emails, and we also got an email from Glacier National Park saying that our reservation for the next night was in danger of being cancelled due to increased bear activity in that area. Yikes! They were permitting only hard-sided campers and vehicles only, no tents allowed. The email said we had to call the campground, but it was already closed and we didn’t have a good cell signal anyway. I guess we’ll wait and see what happens with that tomorrow.

We were running low on groceries so we decided to drive just outside the park to stock up. Joe said we should skip the store right on the other side of the park boundary because it would be too expensive and that we should drive another 15 minutes into the next town. I insisted on stopping anyway because I didn’t think it could be THAT bad. Well, turns out he was right - everything was priced about 4x higher than it would have been in a normal grocery store, and it was a very very limited selection of items - not really a “general store” as advertised. Mostly packaged and processed foods at crazy high prices. So we drove to the next town and found the local grocery store which had a much better variety of fresh food at lower prices and stocked up for the next few days. We got back to the campsite a little before 8 and built a fire. It was a little difficult because everything was so wet from yesterday, but we succeeded in the end. We roasted hot dogs and ate tortilla chips with salsa and cheese and queso dip, and fresh peaches.  Then it was time to head to bed - a great day at Glacier National Park. We were all in bed by 10pm.

Katy snuggled into her hammock in the van. She loves sleeping here!

Total miles traveled today: 55
Total miles traveled on this trip: 4594