Calling all Shaman, Sorcerers, Healers, Wizards, and White Witches. I’m not sure what we’ve done, but for the second time our visit to the holy grail of all national parks, Glacier, has been a huge bust!
Our first attempt at visiting Glacier National Park occurred during the summer of 2020 (see post here). We knew that given the length of our RV (24.5 ft) that our best bet at seeing the park was to move toward the interior of it by entering from the west, the south and the east.
Sadly, but understandably, due to Covid in 2020, the only open entrance was the west entrance and Road to the Sun shuttles were not running. This led to severe overcrowding at the west entrance and to make matters worse, a recent bear sighting left the primary trail in the area closed to hiking. 2020’s trip was disappointing…like Milli Vanilli disappointing!
We had not expected to head back in 2021, but due to extensive fires in Idaho (post here) and western Montana, we ended up in the area. We decided to go in through the south entrance.
The night before our entrance, we stayed in a crowded campsite called Summit Campground only to hear loud trains at all hours of the night as they chugged their way up the Marias Pass.
Tired but excited for the day, we drove through the southeast entrance (Two Medicine entrance) and started by walking the Running Eagle Falls Nature Trail. This loop trail passes by Running Eagle Falls which has a wonderful story behind it and is one of the most unusual waterfalls we’ve seen as it pours through the surrounding rock.
The reader board says that near this falls Pitamakan, or Running Eagle, had a four day vision quest to learn her destiny. “She became the only famed female warrior of the Blackfeet tribe. She led many successful hunting and war parties, and was the only woman given a man’s name in the tribe.”
Now this is what I expected from Glacier!
Smoke from fires ravishing everything from California to Montana hung heavy in the air which dulled the views. This photo from Two Medicine Lake is a good example.
Despite the smoke we decided to hike Mt. Henry Trail to a scenic view.
Here’s me looking a little cranky.
The smoke wasn’t ideal but we hoped that maybe further into the interior of the park, maybe the views would improve. We jumped back into the RV, headed west and that’s when I saw it. Another dash-all-dreams road sign that vehicles over 21 feet were not allowed any further on this road.
Another partial day in Glacier still has me feeling like we haven’t even come close to checking this off our bucket list. Maybe it’s just not meant to be in the RV.
