Day 5 - To Avalanche Lake

Lake McDonald

Today we discovered that the hotel does not have breakfast,  and the most useful breakfast place opens at 7:30AM. I personally would have liked to have been out already heading to the park at 7:30AM or in the park, since parking spots at popular trail heads fill up quickly.   We had breakfast at Glacier Highland Cafe, which was ok, and reasonably fast. From breakfast it was to the park, with the first stop being the visitor center.   

For those that don’t know, Glacier NP went to a ticketing system for park entry, so unless you are staying at one of the lodges in the park you need a ticket, which is good for 7 days.  Tickets went on sale on May 28th;  we got ours that day and we were lucky to get one,  they sold out within an hour for all dates from June to September.   Entering the park was fairly easy, before the actual entrance they had three rangers/volunteers checking to make sure you had a valid entry ticket before you even got to the entry gate.  Once we were through the gate we headed to the Apgar Visitor center, to pick up maps and get my park passport validated.  Our first mini hike was over to Lake McDonald along the hike and bike path.  We walked briefly along the lake before heading back to the car to drive to Avalanche, which is the farthest you can go on the “going-to-the-sun” road from the west side.  The road will probably be closed for another two weeks still as they finish up plowing. 

We arrived late to the Avalanche Parking area, so to speak but we're lucky we only had to circle once before finding a parking spot, this is why you need to arrive early.  We got our stuff out of the car and started the hike which was a combination of two paths, the “Trail of Cedars” which is a 0.8-mile loop and the “Avalanche Lake” spur which is 1.9 miles one way with an elevation gain of 500ft.  The Avalanche Lake trail is rated a moderately difficult trail  with several ups and downs, and really not for those with walking issues.  However, I saw several older people (I’m guessing 70+ since they were talking about air drops during the war) on the trail with their hiking sticks and just taking it slow.  Jim is always in the lead when hiking,  he just walks faster; but was surprised that I ended up second, it usually is Bill.  In a turn of events he was taking up the last position.  His wife was even walking faster than him and she is usually the last one.  All I can say is the stair stepper machine I had must actually work.   By the time we completed the hike it was about 2:00PM and we needed to find lunch since we did not have lunch out on the trail (poor planning).  We ate at the Lake McDonald Lodge, which was doing take out only.   That basically ended our day at the park.  

Avalanche Lake

After returning to the hotel room so Jim could change shoes we went over to the outdoor store so I could pick up a hiking stick (a slick stick as my dad would say).  I determined with the up and down and the uneven surfaces I needed one, so I wouldn’t come down so hard on my knees when walking and it will provide me with a bit of extra balance in some areas.  It is not that I can’t balance but it should just make it safer and easier.  We also stopped to pick up some stamps for postcards at the post office and then attempted to stop at the Canadian Visitor Center right outside of Glacier NP, but it was closed.  So that concluded our day.  Tomorrow we may get up early to try to get some sunrise pictures.