Sunday, September 4, 2011

Back from Glacier National Park

Back from Glacier National Park


Amy and I returned home late last night from a week long vacation to Glacier National Park, Montana and Waterton Lakes National Park, Canada.

It was a great trip and I have over 2,000 photos to go through. I will go through them a little at a time and break the posts up into about a months worth of Blog Posts!

Lets start at the beginning!

Saturday, August 27th, 2011

The early tracks of Hurricane Irene had it heading straight up through SC and GA right about the time that our flight would be leaving from Atlanta. Fortunately it turned east and we were able to drive to Atlanta Friday Night and fly out Saturday Morning without any delay.

In fact, since just about all the flights from Atlanta to anywhere on the East Coast were cancelled there was no wait for taking off and we arrived in Kalispell, MT about a half hour ahead of schedule.

We were very surprised to walk out of the plane into 95 degree temperatures!

For the first night we would be staying at the "Lake Five Resort" conveniently located about 15 minutes from the airport and about 5 minutes from the West Entrance to Glacier National Park.

Lake Five at the Lake Five Resort


The "Lake Five Resort" is basically a small privately owned campground on a nice little lake.  In addition to the campsites, they also have about a dozen cabins available for rent.  We booked a one room cabin which was very basic but nice and clean.

Our Cabin at the Lake Five Resort


After getting checking in, we drove a few miles down the road into Glacier National Park and purchased our week long admission to the park for a very reasonable $25.00.


The Trail of the Cedars
We started out with a short 0.7 mile loop hike on the Trail of the Cedars which is a tourist friendly nature trail through an old growth forest along Avalanche Creek.

Amy on the Trail of the Cedars


Jack and Amy by an impressive root system of a downed Cedar Tree


Cascades along Avalanche Creek


Jack and Amy by a very large Cedar Tree

After hiking the trail of the Cedars we checked out a few roadside waterfalls and cascades along McDonald Creek.

Waterfalls along McDonald Creek


I did another short hike to John's lake which was more of a pond than a like, but still a nice little spot

John's Lake

Butterfly at John's Lake

We made a quick stop to check out Lake McDonald and the Lake McDonald Lodge before leaving the park for the day and returning to our cabin at the Lake Five Resort.

Amy at the Lake McDonald Lodge


Lake McDonald


We returned to our cabin at the Lake Five Resort just in time to catch the sunset.

Lake Five Sunset


Without a cloud in the sky, I went out later that evening to capture the night sky over Lake Five.

Lake Five at Night

Starry Sky over Lake Five


The Full set of photos from Day 1 of our Glacier National Park Vacation is posted here:
http://outdoors.webshots.com/album/580819884YERqyh

Day 2 to start tomorrow!


3 comments:

James Robert Smith said...

Wow. Glacier! So many of my pals have been there. It's on my list, but we probably won't make it out for at least two years.

Where did you guys fly into?

Jack Thyen said...

Bob, We flew into Kalispell, Montana which is about 20 minutes away from the West Entrance to the park. We were able to get direct flights from Atlanta

Mark said...

Awesome pics and scenery. Looks like you had fun!

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