We decided to take a drive up the west side of Glacier towards Canada. You can drive all the way to the border but there is no longer a crossing open. There is even a rougher road inside the park that is more suitable for 4-wheel drive but a large stretch of that road is closed due to bridge being out. After being on the road for a while, it is completely understandable - its a gravel road almost the whole way up.
The first stop was the Fish Creek Campground and Picnic area on Lake McDonald. We just wanted to see the lake and walk around. Turned out to be a gorgeous day and the shift in perspective seeing the mountains that make up the Logan Pass area was amazing.
This side of Glacier had a fire and so we drove through a few miles of dead trees but the interesting thing was the regrowth going on underneath the dead trees. The tree trunks you see standing are lodgepole pines which actually need fire to spread their seeds.
The whole west side of Glacier really is for backpackers. There lots of nice forests and mountains that no roads cross.
And there are very few people in this area. The biggest is Polebridge and it can't get much more remote than this.
The mountain range just north of Polebridge is very close to the Canadian border according to the park map. Had we continued on the road past Polebridge we would have come to another glacier created lake, Bowman Lake, that is about 1/4 the size of Lake McDonald.
The area was pretty lush with new growth and we really expected to see some wildlife. No such luck on this trip - no four footed wildlife but we did find some pretty six legged ones.
Our next trip in Glacier was to visit the East side - from Two Medicine to Waterton Park in Canada.
Thanks for the pics and info. on Polebridge. We didn't get up that far, but we did take that nasty road inside the park up past Fish Creek Campground. I thought we'd never arrive at the trailhead for the hike.
ReplyDelete