Friday September 15th
I was back on the road again after a lovely, if short stay, looking forward to seeing my aunt Heather again for a longer time in a couple of months on my way back home. I drove out of town, before sunrise, heading for Montana.
There was a pretty sunrise, and I was driving into the sun for a while, then turned south through the fairly flat land characteristic of Alberta, with rolling hills, looking fairly dry. Mountains loomed very slowly in the distance, and in a bit under three hours I was at the US border. This was a very quiet crossing, as I had hoped it would be. There were no line ups at all, I was the only car around, and I had a nice chat with the man there. I think he may have asked me if I had any fresh fruit or veggies, which I didn’t, and the usual things about cannabis, weapons and cigarettes.
Off into the US I went, and stopped not far over the border at a general store in a very small town called Babb, to get some fresh fruit and veggies, bread and cheese. Just out of the town was a lovely view of Lower Saint Mary Lake, where I pulled over to have a look. Another half hour and I was in Glacier National Park, on the famous Going-to-the-Sun road. Before Saint Mary Lake was a pretty river, which joined it with the Lower Saint Mary Lake, where I stopped briefly, before going on to Saint Mary Lake itself, so beautiful in the sunshine, with large mountains behind it.
The road followed the lake for some time, and I stopped at Sun Point and other spots to take photos, then walked to Baring Falls, which was pretty. The walk to it along the lake was more impressive though! There were great views over the lake near the start of the trail, and I spent a while around there.
There had been relatively little traffic when I started on the Going-to-the-Sun road, but it got increasingly crowded as I went up the hill from the lake. I managed to get a spot to look at a view and waterfall, then further up, every spot where a car could fit was occupied, as we got close to the Logan Pass, which was the highest point.
I was treated to amazing views but couldn’t stop, which was disappointing. For about 2km either side of the pass, there was absolutely nowhere to stop, with cars jammed in everywhere, and a line up for parking at the visitor centre at the top. About 2km down from the summit I found somewhere I could pull off the road, which had a beautiful view of the other side, and I made lunch, and had it there. I contemplated hiking back up again, but it was a steep grade, quite a distance, and along the main road, and I think there was nowhere really to safely walk along the side of the road.
Parking wasn’t so bad as I got further from the summit again, but the road was very busy, lots of cars coming and going, and it was also very narrow, with a rock face on one side, and a rock wall on the other. I was rather nervous about scraping the side of the van! The lookouts were mostly on the other side of the road, so I had to pull across the traffic in and out each time. The views were amazing though, down through a huge valley, with some autumn foliage scattered around.
There were old-fashioned “charabanc” type open minibuses coming and going, with a number of doors on each side. These were apparently renovated versions of the buses that had been purchased in the 30s. They were beautifully polished and painted convertibles, providing a bus service for people who didn’t want to drive the road.
I stopped off at a couple of places on the way down to Red Rock point, which was a river which had glacier-coloured water, and red rocks, which made for a colourful combination!
There were roadworks for a long way after that, with the road unsealed, before I ended up at Lake McDonald, another beautiful lake with mountains in the background. A short drive from there deposited me in the town of West Glacier. After a while the road headed out into beautiful countryside, with lakes and forests. Montana, unlike some other states, had 70mph (112km/h) rural roads, and as I was to find out, 80mph (128km/h) interstate highways. This was nice!
It was about two and a half hours drive from West Glacier to my campground at Salmon Lake. I stopped for some photos at Swan Lake, then drove through more forest and by more lakes to Salmon Lake. There were roadworks along a decent stretch of road by the lake and campground which slowed things down, but I got there about 7ish and settled in.
The campground was right on the lake, which though small by the standards of what I had seen, was still pretty big, and a lovely spot. It was near sunset, and I got some nice photos of the reflections of the forest and hills on the still lake, and some cabins on the far shore. It would have been a great spot to have a cabin!
I had a nice chat with a couple camping nearby, then after making dinner, settled in for the night.
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