Today we drove through Glacier National Park.  Our timing was great as they only opened the road for the season yesterday.  Parts were open a week or two ago, but until yesterday you could not travel the width of the park on the “Going to the Sun Road.”

It’s an incredible experience.  We made three stops.  Not far from the west entrance we stopped at Lake McDonald and hung out at the lodge for a little while.  The lake is quite the scene:

From there we traveled to Logan’s Pass where we found snow.  On the second full day of summer.  We tromped around in the slush for a little while; well one of us did.  It was nice to feel some cold crisp air and yet not be too cold.

Finally we hit up the visitor center at the east end of the park as well as the gift shop.

Like Yellowstone, the west side of the continental divide is extremely rugged.  We drove on roads that hug the mountain on one side with extreme drops on the other side.  But when you get over the mountain, or through the pass, you mostly roll gently down hill until you start to see areas that are more like prairie.  The hybrid liked that part of the drive.  We got some good mileage!

We’re spending the night at the Many Glacier Hotel.  It’s, um, rustic.  Historic, and grand, but rustic.  Like a lot of National Park properties, things aren’t up to Marriott or Hyatt standards.  We’ll live.

We took a lot of photos today and got about twelve or so we want to share.  But the Internet here is too slow, I mean rustic, to upload them.  We’ll get the Smugmug site rolling in a day or two when we hit a Marriott or a Hyatt or something.

We’re looking forward to tomorrow and the Red Bus tour.