Glacier National Park (sort of) – Shelby Montana to Moscow Idaho

Getting Off on the Wrong Foot

Things didn’t begin well for my visit to Glacier. First I found the antique reservation system the National Park Service uses makes it virtually impossible to use unless you are willing to hover over your computer six months in advance as if you were sniping an eBay auction. Private parks weren’t a great option either, as they were cashing in on the situation and charging in the neighborhood of a hundred bucks a night to stay at a KOA outside the gates.

That brought me to Plan C: locating a campground within a reasonable day trip drive to the park from which I could trek in and check out the possibilities for snagging a site at one of the first-come-first-served campgrounds inside Glacier.

The tallest hill in Shelby MT runs straight into the railyard. On the horizon is Alberta.

I found a fairly good one in the railroad town of Shelby, Montana at the edge of town. It was a typical private place with gravel sites, but they sold propane and had a laundry room, both of which I needed. The host was an old curmudgeonly sort, but we got on well enough, and he advised me the best place to go on the East side of the park was the Many Glacier Hotel.

A two story concrete teepee espresso shop. Some marketing whiz should help the Indians learn what Mr & Mrs Average Vacationer are looking for. Typical native attempts just come off looking shabby and sad like this.

I decided to take his advice and give it a try, even though visibility was low because of smoke from big wildfires in the Pacific Northwest that was blowing in. My route took me directly through the Blackfeet reservation, which didn’t look quite as impoverished as the Dakota rez at Spirit Lake. Still, it is sort of surprising to me that tribe hasn’t found a way to tap in to the wallets of the thousands of tourists that cross their land to reach Glacier every year. There are one or two successful enterprises, like the big Blackfeet Trading Post in Browning, but overall what I saw missed the mark and failed to capitalize on what must be a tremendous opportunity.

Shrouded Beauty – Many Glacier & St. Marys

The road into the Park itself is in pretty rough shape – I was glad I didn’t have the trailer behind me. On the way in I spotted a grizzly working the berry bushes along side the road, but a photo was out of the question on that narrow mountain track. Eventually I reached the shores of Swiftcurrent lake, but every parking area was full. I loitered a bit in the lot behind the hotel until a space opened up.

Many Glacier is one of the most photographed parts of the Park, and I could see why. The glassy smooth lake would act as a perfect reflecting pool on a clear day; the heavy smoke lent my pictures a more somber tone I’m afraid. One of the main draws to Glacier are the extensive hiking trails, and there is a good selection that begin near the Many Glacier Hotel. Unfortunately I had lingering foot problems from a spill I’d taken back in North Dakota so I didn’t feel it was wise to attempt any backcountry exploring in an area with no cell service and poor visibility, so I restricted my walking to within sight of the hotel.

The hotel at Many Glacier was built by the Great Northern Railway in 1915. To fit the railroad’s marketing of “the American Alps”, the styling is faux Swiss chalet.

They stuck to the goofy Alpine theme all the way, right down to lederhosen and Swiss Miss outfits for the hotel staff. I appreciated the decision not to have any TVs though.

Predictions are that no glaciers will remain in Glacier National Park by 2030.

Swiftcurrent lake at Many Glacier hotel. You can barely see through the smoke the only traces of alpine glaciers remaining.

Once upon a time I worked for the SIU Department of Geology. In deference to those fine folks, enjoy this quick rock minute:

This terrain is rattlesnake heaven. Good boots are a must, and watch where you step!

Note how freshly fractured this rock is (geologically speaking). The park isn’t just shaped by glaciers – there is seismic activity too.

Having purple toes did not affect my appetite, so I decided to check out the hotel dining room after stocking up on postcards at the gift shop. It had been a while since I had splurged on a restaurant meal, and the view from the old lodge was spectacular, even with the smoke. I may have chosen poorly, but I was somewhat disappointed by my meal. The salad was impeccably fresh and well presented, but simply lacking in flavor. A zestier dressing or some spice on the nuts would have gone a long way to producing a more balanced dish. As it was, it was a bowl of basic rabbit food, fine for a side dish but I found it lacking as an entree. The coffee however, was excellent.

Many Glacier lodge dining room. If you didn’t look out the windows at the impressive view, you’d think you were in Helen, Georgia.

Spinach salad with goat cheese and toasted almonds. Very fresh, light and 100% organic. Unfortunately, fairly flavorless too.

I finished the day with a stop by the St. Mary Visitor Center where they have some interesting displays about the tribes of the area and in particular the Blackfeet’s attempt to regain control of the East side of the park.

I lingered another day in Shelby, doing laundry, buying supplies and hoping the smoke would clear, but that didn’t happen, so I made ready to move to the West side of the Park the next day to try my luck there.

Over the Divide to Columbia Falls

Glacier National Park is bisected East to West by the famous Going-To-The-Sun road, from which most of the areas of the park are accessed. However, due to the tight turns and tunnels, no vehicle longer than 21 feet is allowed past about a third of the way in from either entrance. That meant my 21 foot truck and 27 foot trailer would have to take US 2 across the Southern border of the park and then come back north to the West entrance at Apgar Visitor Center.

I thought my luck had turned when I left Shelby because an overnight cold front had blown out the smoke and the heat, making for a gorgeous clear day. The first half of the trip was full of delightful scenery – I particularly enjoyed the panorama of a long BNSF train moving past the herd of bison on the Blackfeet Nation Bison Reserve at the Southeast corner of the park. As I drove up to Marias Pass over the Continental Divide, other wildlife was abundant in the form of wild turkeys, coyotes, deer and the ever present marmots, the squirrels of the West.

Rare clear day in Glacier National Park, Marias Pass.

My home on wheels atop the continental divide at the Marias Pass rest stop.

As luck would have it, my one smoke-free day at Glacier National Park was spent in transit from the East to West sides of the park across US 2.

Monument at Marias pass over the continental divide.

Kootenai River, near the Montana/Washington line.

Unfortunately by the time I’d made it to the West side of Glacier NP, fresh fires had closed the Going-To-The-Sun road and smoked up the views again.

After I started down the other side, my brief spot of good luck slipped away. The smoke returned, and the more elevation I lost the thicker it got. At one point I even encountered a temporary sign that said “Fire Event”. A bit beyond that was a ranger parked in a truck on the side of the road. He was watching a fairly small fire that was burning on the slope to the South of the highway, but it looked like it was moving slowly and only involved ten or twenty acres. There were no firefighters or other sign of activity, and the ranger was not stopping traffic or frankly looking all that concerned, so I figured it was no big deal, just a small lightning fire from the spotty storms that came through with the cold front the previous evening.

I found out later I was wrong: it was a big deal, or at least similar fires were. I located a spot at LaSalle RV Park in Columbia Falls, a town near the West gate to Glacier. After a day of driving I planned to get some sleep and take the truck in to the park the next day. Since I had an Internet connection I went online and tried to make a reservation for one of the vintage red bus tours. The website showed me available tours and everything worked fine up until checkout, when I would get a credit card transaction error. Weird, but I was retired so it wasn’t my problem to fix. I’d just try again later.

Once again my assumption was flawed, as I learned the next day a wildfire cause by a thunderstorm had destroyed historic buildings around McDonald Lake and closed the road into the park just inside the West entrance. Apparently the bus tour operator simply pulled the plug on their credit card processor to prevent anyone from booking rather than let people know what was going on. Bad form, Xanterra!

I hung around for three days waiting for the situation to improve. It didn’t. At this point it was clear to me that I wasn’t supposed to be at Glacier this year, so I lit a shuck for Idaho.

Multi-fail to Moscow

When I’m going into a new area without a campsite reservation, I always have a primary campground in mind. Sometimes that doesn’t work out, so I scope out a backup or two as well. In the narrow neck of Northern Idaho, I’d picked out Heyburn State Park just South of Cour d’Alene my goal. There were supposed to be two campgrounds there, and if those didn’t work there were a scattering of National Park possibilities not too far down the road, so I figured I was golden. Wrong again!

The first campground at Heyburn was blocked by road construction – strike one. I reached the second one at the end of a bone-shaking dead end road just in time to see an Airstream setting up in the last open site – strike two. I continued on another 30 minutes to the Saint Joe National Forest. The first location was walk-in sites only – strike three. The second location was inaccessible because the bridge was out – strike four. The third location was an unknown, but it was seven miles down a narrow dirt road I didn’t want to try in the fading light – strike five. A desperate search using the campsite locator apps on my phone turned up a city park in the tiny town of Bovill that was supposed to have a handful of RV sites. When I got there, all I could find was a pay dump station – strike six and now it was completely dark.

Sometimes the Universe throws a no-hitter. When that happens, all you can do is hang your head and trudge to the clubhouse. Yep, it was time for Camp Last Resort, a.k.a. the Moscow, Idaho Walmart.

Tomorrow is another day

Turns out, it wasn’t so bad. In fact, compared to my first experience at Camp Wallyworld in Michigan it was pretty good. This store had a small parking lot off to the side of the store that already had a couple van dwellers in it. This lot was away from the road and relatively traffic free. I’d learned last time to park so that my slideout could open over a grassed area so I could use my bed instead of sleeping in the recliner. I actually got a good nights sleep!

The next morning when I went in the store buy groceries (after all, fair is fair) I found it was full of college kids spending their parents money to set up their new dorm rooms. Yes, it turns out Moscow is the home of the University of Idaho, and the town was buzzing with the energy of students beginning a new school year. Even the cashier at checkout was a bubbly second year psychology major and the vibe was infectious. Better still, now that I knew it was a college town I could be assured of finding a Starbucks to indulge in a good cup of coffee and a Danish!

While circling to find a spot to park the trailer near the Starbucks I saw a sign for the Appaloosa Horse Club and Museum. I don’t consider myself horse people, but my friend Jill definitely is, so for her sake I decided to check it out and see if they had any postcards. Sadly, the note on the door said they were “closed due to illness”. I tried, anyway.

Goodbye Idaho, we barely knew ya

To my surprise, the Washington State line was only a few horse lengths West of the Appaloosa museum, so I was out of Idaho before I knew it. Within a short distance of crossing the border I discovered three things:

The price of diesel fuel went up forty cents a gallon in Washington 🙁
Moscow’s sister city Pullman is the home of Washington State University, swarming with freshmen taking selfies in front of the entrance sign
Floyd’s Cannabis Company on the state line between the two colleges was doing nearly as much student business as the Walmart

Next time: Smoking it up in the Snake River Country