Glacier National Park

Day 31 (August 24, 2021)

Today was spent driving around 8.5 hours back to the US. We drove the Icefield Parkway in the opposite direction, this time not stopping at all, but still enjoying the many beautiful sights outside the windows of Blue. While on the parkway, our odometer crossed 111,111 miles! We started at 108,258 so we've already driven almost 3,000 miles.

We re-entered the US without any issues. There was only one other car at the border when we crossed. The border agent asked us a few questions, told us to tell all our Californian friends that Montana is an ugly barren wasteland, and sent us on our way. 

We found a great spot to do some dispersed camping in the National Forest near Glacier. We're really enjoying being self sufficient enough that we can camp for free!

Day 32, (August 25, 2021)

We woke up, had a quick yogurt and granola breakfast, and headed into the Glacier National Park. They've set up a reservation system for driving on Going to the Sun Road, which is the main road through the park. Thankfully, we had planned ahead and gotten our reservation around three months ago, so we drove in without any worries. 

The road was just as incredible as Nolan remembered, and even more incredible than Monisha expected. It winds up through these amazing granite cliffs, and has fantastic views of the valley below. We didn't stop to take any pictures though, because Nolan was very excited to go on his favorite hike in the entire world: Siyeh Pass (pronounced Sigh-Yee as we learned from a local volunteer). 

The hike starts in by a nice stream in the woods, and winds it's way slowly upwards towards the eponymous pass. 

After a few miles, the trail crosses a larger stream and opens up into alpine meadows. The smaller trees allow for a full view of the beautiful area.  

From there, we hiked up towards the pass visible in the photo above. This is definitely the most difficult part of the hike, but at this point we're both getting in much better hiking shape and felt like we could have continued to climb for a ways more.

Past the pass, we entered Nolan's favorite part of the hike, and the reason he thinks this is one of the most beautiful places in the world. The trail travels down a green hillside covered with small streams, waterfalls, and wildflowers. Throughout the descent, you still have a full view of the epic granite cliffs, mountains, glaciers, and a turquoise mountain lake in the distance. 

While Nolan was enjoying the streams and mountain foliage, Monisha was thoroughly excited by the various colors of rocks along the trail. The unusually colored rocks came in several varieties, including red, yellow, purple, and light green.

As we walked, we enjoyed listing all the ways we were interacting with streams. Nolan humored Monisha as she tried to come up with sentences using every preposition (EVERY preposition) and the word stream. A little later we came to an area that had burned a few years earlier. The bleached trees looked like a field of bones.

Near the end of the trail we came to one of Monisha's favorite parts of the hike. The trail finishes along Sunrift Gorge which contains a beautiful winding river cascading over red rock.

The ~10 mile trail ends 4.8 miles down the road from where it starts, so we decided to hitchhike back to our car rather than walk along the road. Luckily, a friendly driver picked us up quite soon after we finished and dropped us off right by our car.

In the evening, we connected with Caroline's parents Patti and Doug! The two of them are working for a few weeks in the Two Medicine General Store, which is on the east side of the park. We had a lovely evening chatting with them in their trailer, and they gave us great recommendations for how to fill our remaining days in the park.

Day 33, (August 26, 2021)

We took one of Patti and Doug's recommendations and headed out on what is considered one of the top 5 hikes in the national park. It's an 11.8 mile hike to Grenell Glacier, with 1600 feet of elevation gain. That was everything we knew about it ahead of time, and it was kind of cool going in without having any idea what kind of landscapes we'd be seeing. It started out with a couple of miles walking right along two huge lakes. 

After a brief climb through the trees, we had clear views the entire rest of the way. 

We saw a blue lake and the green valley down below, mountains on all sides, sheer cliffs, a group of sheep, and meadows of pretty plants and flowers. 

We could see the glaciers we were hiking towards for most of the trail, but at the end, we were surprised to find that there was also a huge lake with floating icebergs right below the glaciers!

We very much enjoyed sandwiches and somewhat enjoyed some stale popcorn by the iceberg lake. Then we put our hands in the lake to test its temperature: very cold! We took a moment to think about whether we would be down to get in, and tried to figure out whether each of us would do it if the other did…Nolan seemed pretty sure he would if Monisha did. We can't say for sure either way, because neither was willing to instigate, especially given that we didn't have our swimsuits with us. And there were lots of people around. 

The number of people amazed us throughout. It was also a bit of a bummer — we enjoy the less populated nature experienced more. But we were impressed at how many people were doing the whole thing despite it not being an easy hike.

On our descent, we saw a group of people stopped on the trail and looking up at something. Which, we soon saw, was a grizzly bear! It was probably 200-300 feet away, so not like yesterday's sighting, in the level of excitement or fear that we felt. Still, it was cool. And one of the other men stopped on the trail showed us a picture he had taken in the park that day of a giant grizzly bear that was probably within 20 feet of him!

Hike finished, we returned to our camping spot next to Patti and Doug's trailer, cooked kitchari (spiced mung beans and rice) and sauteed onion, and ate them with some fry breads for dinner. Then we spent another lovely evening with Patti and Doug before heading to bed.

Day 34, (August 27, 2021)

In the morning, we went on a short walk to Running Eagle Falls, which turned out to be awesome. We learned the cool story of the only famed Blackfoot woman who became a warrior and was given the masculine name Running Eagle. 

Then we visited the Two Medicine General Store where Patti and Doug were working, and said our goodbyes to them and to Glacier.

The drive to Missoula was very enjoyable, as we’re hooked on the audiobook of Brandon Sanderson’s Elantris. 

Just after we got into town, Monisha spotted a Great Harvest Bread Company! Without hesitation, she made an impromptu stop to run in and get two loaves of bread :)

Next up, a cafe for our (previous) blog post. As well as a latte and peanut butter cookie. 

We visited Monisha’s friend Tamara in Missoula in the afternoon. We had a lovely time catching up, enjoyed cherry tomatoes, met her puppy, and got some recommendations for places to go and things to see!

We found a place to camp on BLM land, 30 minutes outside of Missoula, off a side street and up a logging road. Our spot was up on top of hill in a beautiful place, and we were totally isolated. It feels quite exciting to just pull into a random spot and be able to spend the night. And it makes us feel a lot of affection for Blue for being able to take us on rough roads and provide a comfortable bed for us to sleep in wherever we end up!

For dinner we had canned soup and a welcome addition of Great Harvest bread — sourdough and honey wheat — with butter.