RV travel during a pandemic gives adventure a new name. The planning part gets tossed out the window, but the travel part can be manageable. We punted on our original plan to cruise up California starting in June (most of our reservations were cancelled) and instead began our Summer 2020 tour at Glacier National Park. It’s easy to socially distance when you’re either camping in a self-contained “camper house” or on a remote hike. For those few times when we encountered small crowds, like a Visitor Center or a popular vista, we masked up. And everyone was well behaved. And ultimately, our visit to Glacier National Park was exceptional.
We visited Glacier in July 2020
Getting There
So yeah, the Coronavirus trashed our plan to depart 7 weeks earlier. Then, the east side of Glacier was shut down as the Blackfoot Indian Reservation understandably put the kabosh on the large influx of visitors there. As a result, we lost our St Mary and Many Glacier camping reservations, but we kept our reservations on the west side of the park. Leaving from San Diego, it was smooth sailing for over 1100 miles north on I-15, but when we got within 40 miles of the park, we took a rock off the windshield, leaving us with a golf ball sized chip. This wasn’t our first encounter with a cracked windshield, so Rainy was instantly on her phone looking for a glass repair shop in the nearest town. We literally got it fixed in less than an hour and made it to Fish Creek Campground with enough daylight for some scooter recon around the lake.
Campground
Bingo
As our plans shifted before our trip, we watched the Recreation.Gov system daily for cancellations at Fish Creek and scored extra nights around our original plan for a total of 5 nights at this lovely campground on the edge of picturesque Lake McDonald. Problem was it was in 4 different campsites. We called it campground bingo – one night C104, then B66, then D168… you get the picture. Since it was dry camping (no hookups), moving wasn’t a big deal, especially since the Rangers were super cool. We highly recommend Fish Creek Campground. It’s peaceful, and oh so beautiful – great sunset photos and we ventured out late one night to capture some great night sky pics. On this trip, it was the only open campground in the park, but there are typically several campgrounds within the west side of the park. Apgar Village was also nice, but the area is definitely more crowded in general, wrapped around a cute village with shops, restaurants, etc. Just not our cup of tea. As mentioned, we missed out on visiting the east side of the park and look forward to a future trip to camp and hike around Many Glacier, Two Medicine, and St Mary.
Huckleberry
Bearclaws
We loved having 5 days near West Glacier. It was a much more relaxed pace, but still allowed us time to take in a lot of what’s available in that area. One of those “extras” was a day in the North Fork section of the park. We packed up Ruby with our daypacks and camera gear and drove up to Bowman Lake. The last 6 miles in was on a bumpy gravel road, no problem for the scooter, but might be uncomfortable in an RV. Bowman Lake was beautiful and we hiked part way around to an isolated spot for lunch. We passed a couple hikers who said they saw a bear, but we didn’t encounter one. Must’ve been my holstered bear spray that served as a deterrent. Anyway, on the way back, we stopped in Polebridge, a small outpost, famous for its baked goods. We had a huckleberry brownie and a huckleberry bearclaw. The brownie was good, but the bearclaw was REALLY good. We definitely recommend taking the road less travelled and head up to Polebridge and either Bowman Lake or Kintla Lake (even further north).
Going to the
Sun Road
In a normal year, the Going to the Sun Road connects West Glacier to St Mary on the eastern border of the park, but in 2020, the road was not open the full distance. Still, we got to experience most of it up close and personal on Ruby. The road itself is an engineering marvel. Constructed in 1933, it hugs the mountainsides as it passes over the Continental Divide. There are numerous waterfalls, tunnels, twists, and turns, but it’s honestly not as scary as we expected. Beartooth Highway, north of Yellowstone is more of a nail biter. One day, early on the GTS road, we stopped at Avalanche and hiked the Trail of the Cedars and the trail to Avalanche Lake. The Trail of the Cedars was a super easy, roughly one mile ADA accessible stroll through shady forest with a cool waterfall. We love seeing some attention to accessibility in the parks. Shenandoah had a similar hike. Extending the hike took us to Avalanche Lake and a better workout. This additional 4+ miles finished up at a stunning sight of a turquoise lake surrounded by mountains on all sides with waterfalls feeding glacier run off into the lake. The correct term is a glacial cirque I believe. A+ hike and A+ destination, although a bit crowded, so go early.
We also spent a full day driving the road as far as permissible – to Rising Sun along St Marys Lake. We left early in the morning to beat the crowds to Logan Pass. The drive up was amazing on Ruby. We hooked up our new Go Pro camera to capture parts of the trek which was great fun.
This is a short time lapse clip from our scooter journey on Going to the Sun Road
Logan Pass
and Beyond
We were warned that the lot fills early at Logan Pass and there’s good reason. The area is so stunning. Yosemite is officially on notice as Glacier may now be my favorite park. We hiked to the Hidden Lake overlook, a moderate uphill trek through beautiful mountains and even a couple still snow covered fields. Rainy smartly wore her hiking shoes, but my running shoes were only marginally effective skating across the snow (but I never technically fell). Be sure to check the gallery of all of Rainy’s great photos. Bearhat Mountain as the backdrop to Hidden Lake is just gorgeous. The Park Rangers weren’t allowing people to hike down to the lake due to bear activity, so we were content with the distant views. On the return trip from the lake, we came across a couple of mountain goats right along the trail. They just kept munching away while we took some quick pics before scooting away. That was COOL! At Logan Pass, we also hiked a portion of the Highline Trail which for the more adventurous hikers goes back to even more stunning sights (Garden Wall, Grinnell Glacier). We continued east from Logan Pass toward St Mary with stops/hikes at Rising Sun, Sun Point on St Mary Lake, and Baring Falls. The falls were especially cool on a hot day.
Glacier is fantastic! And we only got to experience part of the park. We will return soon and get to Many Glacier and Two Medicine. Maybe we’ll even be allowed to venture across the border to visit Waterton Lakes National Park (Glacier’s adjacent sister park that together forms the Waterton-Glacier International Peace Park).
