Travel Tales: Glacier National Park

My trip to Glacier National Park got off to a rough start. I was already on the plane when I learned that I was en route for an airport that was a two-hour drive from my destination. “You should have flown into Kalispell,” the flight attendant informed me.

As I crouched down in my seat and watched people board the plane, I looked for a glimmer of hope. I knew it was a stretch, but many of us leaving from New York were told to take the same flight into Great Falls. Luck was on my side that day as I turned around to see a familiar face three rows behind me who was also on his way to the same wedding.

The two of us loaded up into a convertible and set out on a two-hour drive that turned out to take six hours. We had two more people to pick up along the way, and managed to stop at 14 different photo opportunities along Highway 89. Rumor had it Montana had no speed limit; we worked off of that assumption, and made up some time. On the drive I found that Montana’s desert was all it was cracked up to be—majestic, never-ending and a little bit lonely.

It was pitch black when we entered a little farm on the outskirts of Browning, Montana. A group of wedding party members returned early from the rehearsal dinner and took us into town to show us the De La Salle Blackfeet School, where the bride and groom worked as teachers. Some of the school’s fifth graders and their parents, who were members of the Blackfeet Nation, were there to meet us, give us a tour of their land and an oral history of their culture. We also had the opportunity to check out their beautiful artwork and crafts.

The children at the school taught us a few word from their native tongue. “Omitaa” means dog, “ponokáómitaa” means “horse” and “pitsííksiinaa” means “snake.” The kids who taught us the three names must have had a premonition; during my time in Glacier National Park I had encounters with all three.

After the wedding ceremony we went to a beautiful chalet-style building called Glacier Park Lodge for the reception. We parked near the train tracks of the Great Northern Railroad system and when I stepped out of the car, I had a panoramic view of the lodge. Even though I had never been there before, it looked familiar. I realized that I had seen a picture of my grandmother in front of this same building from the 1930’s, when she spent a summer here horseback riding before heading to Seattle. I snuck away from the reception to learn more about the history of the hotel and the train system.

The next day, a group of us visited the east side of Glacier National Park. We had a proper send-off by one of the Blackfeet Nation elders as he reminded us to watch out for the grizzly bears. As looks of fear grew on all of our faces, with a raspy laugh he said to us, “they’re all over the place…just make friends!”

When we arrived, we removed all items a bear would enjoy from our car and began our hike. Within twenty minutes of entering the park, a tour group guide spotted a Grizzly Bear far away on the hillside. I thought it looked more like a little tree, but once I looked through binoculars I could see a bear enjoying the July sun.

There are many hiking routes to choose from. We eased into our hike by starting on Two Medicine Valley. As we climbed higher in our vehicle, the roads became narrower, skirting along the tops of cliffs. The butterflies in my stomach were alive and well. The view was magnificent, but I didn’t want to move one inch, for fear that any movement would force our car to go off to the cliff.

We arrived at our second hike at the Iceberg Lake Trail. Surrounded by three mountains, the aquamarine gem provided the tranquil scenery we needed after our unnerving drive. As we explored the nooks and crannies of the area around the lake, we eventually sat down and dipped our feet in. Remarkably, there were chunks of ice—glaciers—floating by us, with birds relaxing on them.

We spent the latter half of the day taking a boat ride across Many Glacier Lake and hiking to another destination. This time our hike was easy, but at one point we looked up to see two rock climbers making their way between two far-off peaks. This caused me to declare my resolution to get in touch with my adventurous side.

On our way out from the park, we were stopped for over half an hour because of traffic…or so we thought. We finally got out of our car to see what was going on around the ridge. A group of bighorn sheep was using Going-to-the-Sun Road as a resting place. They finally moved and we made a quick escape from the park.


Going-to-the-Sun Road

We cruised home smoothly, until our driver stopped a few feet short of six horses crossing the road. We pulled over to the side to find two members of the Blackfeet Nation attempting to steal them from one of the farms. Shortly thereafter, the state troopers showed up, and under the big sky, we received a lengthy and in-depth lesson on Blackfeet Nation Law and Order. I don’t know if this was the perfect end to the perfect day; I think an exciting end to an exciting day is more like it.