7-5-16 Glacier/Waterton National Peace Parks (Montana and Canada)

After almost four weeks in the Wyoming Rocky Mountains (Grand Tetons and Yellowstone), we travelled north to Glacier National Park, and its Canadian sister Waterton Lakes National Peace Park for two weeks. The parks encompass the same Rocky Mountain Range, but Glacier NP is much larger, while Waterton is a small section on the north side of the border. 

Glacier NP from Going to the Sun Road

Glacier National Park was set up with the true outdoor experience in mind.  There is only one road that traverses the park; the “Going to the Sun Road” was built 1921 to 1932.  It was originally built using only manual labor,  but later they had to resort to machinery to keep the costs down (surprise, surprise).  Most of the access into the park is up small (many gravel) roads to glacial lakes with lot of hikes going into the mountains.  Since it is never known in advance when the “Going to the Sun Road” will open (sometimes there is so much snow it doesn’t open until mid-July), we booked part of our time on the west side and part on the east side so we could access all the lakes and hikes we wanted.  It is a two hour drive around the south end of the park from one side to the other. Luckily, the “Going to the Sun Road” opened four days after we arrived at the park.

The campgrounds in Glacier are all primitive, but there are two beautiful old lodges in the park; McDonald Lodge (well worth visiting for an Irish coffee on a rainy morning) and the Many Glacier Lodge (don’t miss the photo exhibit in the hallway showing the retreat history of the park glaciers).  Since the park is so remote (far northwestern corner of Montana), services directly outside the park are limited.  Even grocery stores are an hour away, so provision well if camping.  One day, on the eastern side, we had to drive over one hour to reach a notary and UPS service. 

Bob at the Lewis Overthrust Front Edge

The mountains of Glacier National Park are discussed in most older geology books (like when Bob was in college back in the dark ages of Continental Drift as opposed to modern Plate Tectonics) as a recognized thrust fault and “unconformity”, but without the benefit of the more recent knowledge of plate tectonics as the driving causative force.  Basically, the mountains of the parks are composed of Pre-Cambrian rocks (1.4 billon years old) which were pushed 65 miles over 150,000 million years to finally reside on much younger Cretaceous rocks (only 70 million years young); the horizontal fault between the two is known as the Lewis Overthrust Fault. 



We now understand this movement was due primarily to plate tectonics.  The older rocks of The Pacific Plate were “overthrust” over younger rocks of the North American Plate.  This caused the mountains to rise up and in many locations buckle greatly. However, while some of the Pre-Cambrian sedimentary rocks have been altered somewhat, the original horizontal bedding and structure of the sedimentary rocks are very evident throughout both parks.  We were able to actually see and “touch” the eastern end of the Lewis Overthrust Fault (Bob got excited – how sad is that?).  It is still moving east, so watch out.

 

St. Mary Lake, Glacier

However, as much as the rocks are interesting and the tall steep mountains are beautiful, it is the last ice age (13,000 years ago) that carved the mountains into the beautiful scenery we see today. Glacier National Park is named, not for the glaciers that are there now or in the past, but for the spectacular glacial-caused landscape of peaks, valleys and lakes we see today. Lake McDonald is over 500 feet deep. The US Glacier NP was established in 1910.  In 2005, there were only 25 glaciers and decreasing every year; down from 150 glaciers in the 1850s.  As a note, there was another warm period after the last ice age, where there were no glaciers; however, glaciers reformed and now are disappearing again.  It is a continuing process.



Going to Sun Road in the Clouds

The mountains are so tall (6 peaks over 10,000 feet) they form their own weather.  Most of the days, the peaks were in the clouds.  On the west side (the windward side), the weather while we were there was mostly overcast, cold and damp.  On the east side, the weather was generally clearer, with warmer and mostly sunny days and chilly nights, but windy.  During our stay, there were only two days where the peaks were out of the clouds.  We drove the Going to the Sun Road both sunny days to get beautiful pictures of the snow-capped peaks (it was still snowing at the tops some days we were there).   

Hanging Valley Waterfall, Glacier

 

 

 

 

We hiked a lot here.  The glacial topography causes lots of waterfalls from hanging valleys and beautiful aqua to clear blue glacial lakes (depending on whether the water is coming from snow melt or glacial melt). 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Moose grazing Trailside, Glacier

 

 

We FINALLY saw not just one, but two moose on a single hike; one young female wading and drinking in a lake, and a large male eating bushes about 30 feet off a trail.  It took 14,000 miles (since Maine where Moose are supposed to be prevalent) and over 1 year to finally see a moose!

 

 

 

Mountain Goat sheading winter coat, Logan Pass, Glacier

 

 A mountain goat visited Linda and our car on her photo trek at the top Logan Pass of Going to the Sun Road. Apparently, the goats like to lick the side of cars for salt.  We also saw a few bears on the side of the road.   

 

 

 

BigHorn Sheep, Waterton Lake

 

 

We saw lots of deer, some elk, and even four big horn sheep.  The wildflowers were in full bloom, everywhere; the fields and lower mountainside were all ablaze with color.

 

 

 

Meadow Wildflowers, Waterton Lakes NP



 

Off-the-Grid Downtown Polebridge

On the eastern side, we visited Polebridge – a small off-the-grid “town”.  No electricity or phones.  Lot of solar panels, batteries, and propane.  The Polebridge Mercantile is a well-known bakery.  Huckleberries are a big thing locally so we had coffee and huckleberry threats. Linda made the better choice of a huckleberry bar, while Bob had a huckleberry bearclaw.  This was in addition to the $27 huckleberry pie we had purchased earlier in the week. Huckleberries are good, but not good enough for another pie at that price.

 

Although in the same mountain range, The Canadian Waterton Lakes National Park is very different from the US Glacier Park National Park.  The Canadians have turned their portion of the national park into a resort-like setting.  The campground is full service, and the “Townsite” includes lots of hotels, restaurants, and shops in the town.  Many of the hikes are very developed with pavement and exhibits,  and not very long. 

 

M/V International at US/Canada Border Control

We really enjoyed a scenic ride on the M/V International, a 1927 historic wooden tour boat.  We rode the entire length of Upper Waterton Lake across the border to the US end at Goat Haut.  If you are going to hike from Goat Haut, you have to clear through an immigration/customs stop at the end of the lake.  It is the smallest of all US Border crossing.

 

Prince of Whales Overlooking Upper Waterton Lake

The mountains in Waterton are lower and there are no glaciers in the Canadian side of the park.  The weather is typically colder and very windy, but we were lucky with no wind and warm weather during our stay.  We actually wore shorts for the first time since a few days in Utah. We really thought the Prince of Wales Hotel (historic lodge) was beautiful and had the best location of all park lodges.  You can even enjoy Afternoon Tea in the British fashion with a fabulous view of the mountains across the lake. 

We enjoyed the change from rustic camps to the resort feel of Townsite with an occasional afternoon or evening ice cream within a short walk from the campground.  The town itself is overridden with deer; they are even brazen enough to graze in the children’s park, only a few feet from screaming, running kids.  We were in Waterton on Canada Day (Canada’s Independence Day on July 1), as the hordes were streaming into the park.  We departed on Saturday, July 2, and were very thankful to be going against the continuous stream of cars entering the park. 

 

We will miss an extra feature of the US National Parks we discovered by accident in the Tetons National Park and enjoyed in Yellowstone and Glacier. There is an organization called Christian Ministry in the National Parks which is a group of young people who are working summers in the concessions of all the parks. We attended their Sunday services at the park amphitheaters.  They are not allowed to actively advertise their services, but well worth the effort to find them when you are in a national park on a Sunday morning or evening.  

 

We’ve enjoyed our time in Glacier and Waterton National Parks, and are now headed to the Alberta Plains and Badlands, and then Calgary for Stampede, the largest rodeo in the world.

 

Best, 

Linda and Bob