Tuesday, August 13 was the last day of our vacation. We woke up, ate breakfast of poptarts & flavored milk, and got to work cleaning up our camping spot. We rolled up the sleeping bags, took down the tents, and repacked the car. After the terrible night's rest that we all got, we were very desirous to get going as quickly as possible! We drove back to the St. Mary Entrance of Glacier National Park, and began our drive on the Going-to-the-Sun road to the west side of the park.
My, how I love this road! You can reach out and practically touch waterfalls that are right next to the car as you drive!
And the views are spectacular! This part of the road was right before Logan Pass--you can see a waterfall to the left and a driving tunnel to the right.
We stopped at Logan Pass, because we were contemplating doing the Hidden Lake hike again so this time Ammon & Kanyon could join us {we did it last year, but Ammon & Kanyon stayed in the car instead because it was really bad weather and Kanyon wouldn't have been able to hike it all}. But after walking around and looking at the trailhead, we realized that the snow part of the hike was already melted, and it wouldn't have been as fun to hike the distance without the snow. So, we just walked back to the car and continued west on the road. It was still pretty early in the morning, and the fog was very dense. It was a totally different sight than what we saw last year on the Going-to-the-Sun Road!
The gray sky and the thick fog really altered what we were able to see below from the height at the top of the mountain pass.
When we reached the Lake McDonald Valley at the southwest end of the park, we hit heavy construction delays. Thankfully, we didn't have to wait as long as some--the waiting line was miles long and we reached it just as they opened it up to our lane. We parked the car as soon as we made it through the one-lane construction zone, and began our hike into Avalanche Lake. The hiking trail starts on the Trail of the Cedars, and we passed this super awesome tree that looked like it had a nose, so of course the boys had to pick it!
We walked on the Cedars Trail until we reached the trailhead for Avalanche Lake at Avalanche Gorge. The air felt cool and moist, and the views of the Gorge were amazing from any angle!
This was my favorite hike this year. It's a 2-mile hike that's almost completely uphill the entire way to reach the lake. The hike is in the middle of the dense forest, so it wasn't hot, and there were so many cool things to see--old trees, neat formations, and big rocks. And after what happened the previous day, the boys didn't run ahead of us, so we spent more time with them along the way, which made me happy, too!
We stopped and rested several times on our uphill hike, taking advantage of any rock or tree to sit on!
I'd been walking almost every day for 2 months prior to this trip, and I felt like I was preparing myself for all the hiking we'd do while at Glacier, but I was still wiped from this hike!
I loved this hike because it kept my boys entertained, so they played more and I was able to keep up with them as a result! Josh really enjoyed it, too! Can you see his face in this pic?
The day before, we'd walked 7 miles. And this day we walked nearly 5 miles. Surprisingly, Kanyon did so well both days, and he was able to walk more this year with us than he did last year. Josh only had to carry him twice--once the day before on the return walk back from Red Rock Falls and once at a steeper part of this trail:
Not only was the hike into the lake amazing, but the lake itself was incredible! It's really shallow on the end we were at, and the water was crystal clear. You can also see 3 tributary waterfalls from high peaks on mountains across the lake. It was truly stunning. I believe it's called Avalanche Lake for a reason--these fallen trees were all at the side of the lake we entered from--mostly likely from an Avalanche!
The boys tried to skip rocks & then threw rocks to see who could throw the greater distance. Josh and I sat on a log and enjoyed watching them entertain themselves while we partook of the gorgeous views around us!
After we were at the lake for about a half hour, we decided to head back--mostly out of hunger! We'd only brought granola bars and water with us on the hike, and it was lunch time, and we were fatigued from the long uphill hiking! Because the return trek was mostly downhill, we all decided to run back. I only ran on the downhill sections, so I was still a few minutes behind the rest of them. The hike up took us 2 hours, but the downhill return was only about 40 minutes! When the trail met back up with the Cedars Trail, we crossed the Avalanche Gorge. I still cannot get over just how blue the glacier water is!
The final section of the Trail of the Cedars was on boardwalk through the trees. There were signs along the way naming the different kinds of trees that were growing near the trail.
We were walking along together when one of the boys noticed my wet shirt and said "EWWW! Is that SWEAT?!". I was dripping wet from running down the mountain, and the boys had never seen me sweat like this before. They were all disgusted, and so they ran ahead of Josh & I (again!). So I made Josh take a picture of my back so that I could see what it looked like--it truly looked as wet as I felt it was! My hair was soaking, my chest and neck glistened, and the entire back of my shirt was damp...
So, as Josh and I were peacefully strolling along the boardwalk--I noticed another cool tree and pointed out this heart to him, which he didn't think looked a heart at all. Can you see it?
At the end of the boardwalk, we crossed the construction zone, and walked to our car. There were several picnic tables around and we were all famished! We sat down at one and ate turkey ranch deli wraps for lunch. They were sooo good! While we were at Glacier, we ate food out of coolers that I had prepared at home, which made it so convenient and cheap!
After we were all full, we repacked the car again and climbed in for our last section of the drive before exiting the park. By the time we had returned from our hike, the air was clear of fog and completely blue and beautiful! I was wishing to rent a boat on Lake McDonald again like we did last year, but Josh was in the mood to just drive home!
We made it home by 9:00 that night, and we were all tired, but happy. It had been a great vacation, and a successful one for the boys who played the License Plate game again this year (and they did SO much better than last year!):
It was a pretty short vacation--just 2 nights, but we had accomplished a lot! We never saw any grizzlies (Josh & the boys' fear), nobody got hurt (my fear), and we saw some beautiful natural sights! The boys watched several movies in the car during driving time, and their favorite one (which they saw twice on our vacation) was the classic "Short Circuit"! It was a favorite of Josh's when he was a kid--and we were glad that we'd gotten the additional speaker for the car CD player the day before (even though it was a hassle and stressful), because it was funny for Josh & I to hear the movie (playing from the backseat), too!
I absolutely LOOOOOVE Glacier National Park, and I want to go back again--but not in the near future, nor with our young kids. I'd love to go back to the Waterton side in Canada with Josh sometime, and I'd also like to go on some of the longer hikes in Glacier that we were unable to do with small kids. It was a good family vacation, and I'm glad we took the time to go!
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