For most of our travels we have been very lucky to have had good weather. There was one trip, however, when Mother Nature had the best of us. We had planned for several weeks to go up to Glacier National Park and stop to see our family near Seattle, Washington. The trip started out fine when we stopped in southern Oregon for the night, and then a weather front hit us. It rained in Washington, Idaho and Montana, where we encountered snow. It was the end of August, mind you.

The park is essentially a series of mountain ridges which are part of the Rocky Mountains going up into Canada. A road skirts the southern part where the Burlington Northern Railroad passes through. But the main attraction for us was the road that cuts through the middle of the park. The two pictures below show the route. Our hotel was at the south-eastern end, the Glacier Park Lodge, an old hotel intended for visitors arriving by train. It shown above. However, because of the rain we were not in the mood to take photos during the crossing.

The following morning we drove north to 'Many Glacier', a section of the park with two lakes and views of some glaciers. Again, because of the weather we never saw a glacier per sec.

The pyramid is Mount Wilburn, at 9321 feet is right at the edge of Swiftcurrent Lake. For mountain climbers it might look like a good climb to reach the top, however the sedimentary rock makes for poor anchoring points and that makes it more difficult. Much of the climbing routes are rated at class 4 to 5. For us, on that day, it was as close a view as we would get to the see the 'mountains'.

On hind sight we might have been better of to let someone else do the driving. We could have taken one of these old busses. They have been around for a hundred years or so taking train passengers into the park. However, now the Logan Pass was closed because of the snow. So, we took a book and snuggled up near a fire in the hotel lobby.
But wait there is more to the story. Go to page 2 to see what happened the next few days.