Special thanks to my photographer for most of the day:  Joe “Don’t Care” Zurek

Is it Day 6 already?  We’ve been having a great time and the time has been flying by.  Everyone must have been tired from the hike yesterday.  We all slept in a bit, even Alex.  We must have needed the sleep for the days to come.

We started off the day with pancakes by Zerah.  She has her mom’s recipes and this pancake recipe was one of them.  They were delicious.  Thanks, Zerah, for sharing a little bit of your mom with us.  By the way, Zerah agreed to send the recipes to Rich and I’m going to input them into the Mom’s Recipes site so others can share in these wonderful foods.

We were headed to Apgar Village and Lake McDonald today.  First stop was at Marias Pass where we viewed the monuments to the explorers of the west and the train industry as they were trying to find a way to put in a line all the way to the west coast.  They finally found it here at the Marias Pass.  The pass is named for Meriweather Lewis’ cousin.  Yep, that’s Lewis of Lewis and Clark fame.  I thought the marker for the Continental Divide was here also.  But it turned out to be a little further west of here.

Next stop was at Goat Lick.  Here is a cliff that is almost straight up, but the goats use it like a sidewalk quite easily.  The cliff contains deposits of natural salt, which the goats use as part of their diets.  While we were visiting, we were able to see an adult and kid make their way down the side of the cliff to the salt lick.  Pretty fascinating to see how easily they walk up and down the face of the cliff.

There is also a train trestle at the overlook.  As we were walking back to the cars, a coal train went over.  The boys enjoyed watching the train cross the bridge.  Maybe a couple of adults enjoyed it also.

West Glacier is the more touristy side of the park.  You could see it today also.  There were three gates open and we were still backed up.  We drove down to Apgar Village and luckily found parking.  The village isn’t that big and it tends to fill up quickly.  James and Stevie were there and everyone met up for a quick hello.

The inn at the edge of the lake offers waterside rooms and great views of the surrounding mountains.  The water was very calm yesterday.  You can rent boats, sailboards, and just swim in the lake.  The water is pretty cold though.  You have to remember the source is up in the mountains and in the glacier formations.

Back on the road, we headed to Lake McDonald and McDonald Falls for our first hike.  Every time someone said the word McDonald, Alex would sing out E-I-E-I-O.  Now that’s all I can hear in my head when I even think McDonald!  We ended up on the horse trail going to the falls.  This just meant there was “debris” along the trail.  The river was full of water which meant the rapids were pretty rough.  The falls had enough volume to be very pretty and made quite a roar.

In the past, the right side of the bank had been exposed and you could walk on the rock shelves there.  I have a picture that Rich had taken of Rick and me there.  Not today.  The water was roaring up over that spot and you could only stand at the top and look over.

We crossed the bridge and went down to the beach along the left bank.  This was an opportunity to grab a snack and left everyone enjoy the cool breeze from the water.  It was another hot one today.  Owen, Zane, and Joe were skipping rocks as boys will do.  Then we packed up and headed up the trail.  The terrain is hilly, but not particularly rough.  It was taking a bit to get back to our starting point, but we made it.  Joe and Zane were tramping through the mud.  The cry of the day was, “Joe don’t care.”

We headed on down to Avalanche Creek to have lunch before going on the next hike.  After lunch, we enjoyed a walk along the bank of the McDonald River (There is goes again!) where Avalanche Creek flows in.  Here the river was running high also.  Alex was trying to get Joe to walk across a log.  I think it was a little slippery and getting too much wetter wouldn’t be good.

Owen was a little too tired to carry on.  Sean took him back to the car while the rest of the group walked the Trail of Cedars.  This is a wooden walkway and some paved sections there were very easy walking.  We went around to Avalanche Gorge to see where the stream came through the narrow opening in the rocks before continuing down to McDonald River (There it is again!).  The walk was a good stretch of the legs after eating.

Along the trail, it was cute to see Joe walking with Zane.  There were hand in hand for a while before Joe gave him a ride on his shoulders.  There were like little brother and big brother.  The photos were cute.

So the decision had been made to continue on Going to the Sun Road back to the other side of the park.  This usually takes a while with traffic since it is slow going and dodging the cars leaving and pulling onto the road.  The traffic wasn’t that bad though.  So we climbed up to the Crown of the Continent.

As we climbed, we could see the amount of snow still on the ground.  Many of the trails were closed due to the snow and ice.  The waterfalls and weeping walls were all going full blast with the amount of water that was pouring down from the mountain snows.  I’ve never seen it going this much.

The drive here is right along the edge of the mountains.  In some places, it is very narrow and you go slowly to make sure you don’t bump mirrors with the other cars.  I always like to drive this road.  It feels like a challenge even though it just appears that way.  We stopped off at a point where you could walk up to a snow field and a snow bridge.  Alex and Joe got their pictures taken with the bridge.  It seemed appropriate that there was a sign there telling you to stay off the bridge.  Alex carved his initials into the snow.  No, he didn’t do this by peeing either.

We continued around to Logan’s Point, where we decided to stop and see one of the points where avalanches in the snow had occurred.  It was pretty impressive how deep the snow still was.  A ranger arrived at the same time we did.  He was closing the area due to a wolverine that was in the area.  They wanted to make the wolverine was undisturbed and people didn’t get hurt.

Of course, he had to chase a couple of people off the cliff where the sign clearly tells you not to walk so you don’t damage the vegetation.  That’s because the plants only get 3 weeks of growing time up there.  They never recover from the boot prints!

We did see a couple of mountain goats making their way down the cliff face and onto a snow covered trail.  On this trip, we’ve seen quite a number of goats and rams.  I find that pretty amazing.  No bears or moose though.  Yet.

On we continued to Logan’s Pass.  Yes, the snow fields were still there and some of the areas were pretty thick.  As Rich thought, the Hidden Lake trail was pretty much closed.  The signs were definitely warning you of the dangers up there.  I understand there was a small snowball fight between the Zureks also.  I don’t know firsthand.  I stayed down at the cars with the kids.  They were both sacked out from the morning hikes.

Then it was on down the road to St. Mary’s Visitor’s Center and through the road destruction one more time.  Alex was complaining about being dehydrated.  I made the mistake of telling him that he needed to drink more.  He assured me that he would as soon as he got back to the house.  I realized then that he was talking about beer while I meant water.  Alex!

As we went by the St. Mary’s Falls parking lot, Rich looked back and found Virginia Falls up on the mountain.  He was amazed to see if so far up.  It was the first time we had realize why the hike was so hard that day.  That was a long way up!  Rich looked it up in the new book I had purchased at the shop in Apgar Village.  The gain and loss was pretty good on that one.  My legs hurt just thinking about it.

We stopped by the St. Mary’s Visitor Center to take a break.  It was a long way from the last stop we made.  I think they were looking for James’ camera.  He thought he had left it there.  No one at the desk knew about a camera.

We had a quick conference about the subject of dinner.  Rich and Alex were voting to try the Whistle Stop Restaurant in East Glacier Park.  The sign out front announced they had the best BBQ ribs and chicken.  We agreed that was the place and off we went yet again.  We got there to find the lot filling up fast and the tables even faster.  We were shown to a table on the outside deck.  The doorway was more through a window than a door.  We had entertainment out there as a guy with a guitar.  He was pretty good, too. We heard blues, soft rock, country, folk, and some of his own music.

I have to admit that the chicken and ribs were pretty good.  It tasted good when you were really hungry.  We ate up pretty well.  Service got really slow as the place filled up a lot.  We stuck around for dessert though.  The huckleberry pie was amazing.  We managed to get a bill and pay.  Or Alex did.  Thanks a bunch, Alex!

Alex and Joe wanted to golf before they left at the end of the week.  We swung by the lodge to see if there were tee times available.  Turned out, there was a scramble going on Friday and Saturday.  They could play on Thursday.  We had a plan for the next day then.  Alex and Joe would do 9 holes and then the adults would go do a long hike.  The boys and I would stay at the house and rest.  There was no way I could do one of the big hikes they were all trying to do.  They decided to go back to the Scenic Overlook trail that we had tried the first day in Two Medicine.  Zerah just wanted to hike something high.

That evening, we got cleaned up and hung out at the house.  Once again, we were tired and sore.  At least we were able to see some more of the park and enjoy a nice ride on Going to the Sun Road.

Tomorrow, it’s a home day for me with Zane and Owen.  I just hope they come back with a load of pictures and stories.

NOTE:  I just have to tell you that I’m actually writing this on Thursday since I was too tired to do it on Wednesday.  I have Owen and Zane standing over me firing questions and comments.  They are the toughest editors I think I’ve ever had.