Missoula, Lakeside and Glacier National Park

After our morning hike and soak in Goldbug Hot Springs we motored north on Highway 93, eventually climbing up Lost Trail Pass to cross the border into Montana next to Lost Trail Powder Mountain ski resort. Max was adamant I stop for a pic next to the “Welcome to Montana” sign, no way he was going to let it fly by…

Gramps Greg spent his final year of university at the University of Montana, and we always seem to enjoy university towns so spent a few hours exploring the main drag of Missoula during the afternoon. I knew we were in a good spot when we saw a fisherman in waders walking through town with a fly rod on his way to the Clark Fork River! The kids and I enjoyed strolling through the center of town perusing knickknacks and a handful of clothing stores. Max’s afternoon sugar bomb from Bigfoot Cookies was definitely a memorable stop, as was his new favorite store in the world: Grizzly Hackle Fly Shop. He actually opted out of a fried chicken slider with Lilia and me at Tamarack Brewing for more time at Grizzly Hackle! We stumbled upon the opening of the Montana International Choral Festival in Caras Park during our afternoon in town, experiencing some of the warmups as well as a bagpipe performance before we had to get back on the road.

After a very ordinary night trying to sleep next to the highway at Yellowrock Campground – options were pretty limited in the populated area around Missoula – midmorning we rolled into one of our main Montana stops in Lakeside: Legacy Bike Park. Legacy is a relatively new establishment, but in the four years since its founding it’s established itself as one of the premier mountain biking destinations of the west. Rémy Métailler suggested the jump lines are better than the famed Whistler descents in British Columbia, and Brandon Semenuk filmed an entire feature movie on site (Array). The park boasted over 20 miles of the most perfectly designed, smoothly manicured singletrack I’d ever ridden, well worth $60-a-piece for a day of unbridled adrenaline and smiles. Legacy’s only open Friday-Sunday so the crew has four days a week to work on the trails, when Friday comes around there’s fresh dirt to be had through the entire park. The shuttles were a mix of local families, season pass-holding park rats and tourists like ourselves, and there was something for everyone on site: technical root-strewn trails, jump lines from mellow to ginormous, and an endless array of bermed flow trails that kept us busy for more than four hours in the saddle. We rode ourselves close to exhaustion. The trails were graded like ski runs from green to double black, with a special “pro line” category that had warnings about the fact the trails were unwalkable if one decided to bail partway down… I’d planned to take a lot more video during our afternoon at Legacy but we were having so much fun on the trails I only shot a quick one of me chasing Max down a portion of his favorite flow trail (RADish). My personal fave was a jumps-centric blue-graded descent called Bluetiful: sailing in the air with Max on my tail was a little above the pay grade of these 46 year old bones and would have been a mess if I’d come off, but man it was a ton of fun. Just an awesome afternoon!

After a day on the bikes we had no trouble sleeping solidly amongst the pines at Lake Mary Ronan State Park, devouring a mountain of pesto chicken pasta between the three of us for dinner after Max had hauled in a handful of pike from the lake. On our way north to Glacier the Rockies pulled in some mountain weather and we had a few hours of torrential rain as we explored and restocked in Kalispell, fortunate we’d packed up camp well before the rain hit that day. Around lunchtime Max asked if there were any fly shops in the area and I took them to a spot called On the Fly which happened to be in Kalispell International Airport. On the Fly was actually a coffee shop and not a fly shop – eye rolls from the kids – but it gave me a great cover for the main event of the morning: running into Lisa in the airport as she surprised the kids in the middle of our road trip. I wish I had a video of their faces as she greeted them at baggage claim, they had absolutely no idea…

Fortunately the rain showers passed for the four of us to explore some of western Glacier National Park during the afternoon. We perused the grand Lake McDonald Lodge, took a stroll through the towering trees at Trail of the Cedars, marveled at the picturesque turquoise water of McDonald Creek, and Max and I weren’t able to resist taking an afternoon plunge in the frigid water of Lake McDonald. It was cold, but not a patch on the bone-crushing temperature of Alice Lake in Idaho. We even had a moose sighting alongside McDonald Creek to cap off the afternoon.

Everyone was in great spirits with the arrival of Mum, we spent the late afternoon with a few local brews at Backslope Brewing followed by a scrumptious dinner at the Back Room across the street. We actually discovered the Back Room – a spot with a very locals-only feel – when we visited Kalispell way back in 2012 when Lilia was a wee babe. We loved the BBQ fare back then, so wanted to make sure the kids got to sample it this time around. Libations by the fire next to Hungry Horse Reservoir to finish the night, another good day in spite of the morning thunderstorms.

The weather delivered for our second day in Glacier, with blue skies and fabulous temps as we crossed from west to east on the Going to the Sun Road. To manage the throngs of tourists entering Glacier from the Kalispell area, a few years ago the National Park Service instituted a reservation system for driving the Going to the Sun Road from west to east. It wasn’t hard to nab one of the hundreds of reservations for our desired two hour slot the night before, but I can imagine how disappointed you’d be if you rolled into the western entrance not knowing about the reservation system and being told to turn around.

The views from the Going to the Sun Road as we climbed to Logan Pass were breathtaking, with the Rockies stretching out in all directions under the morning sun and patches of snow here and there in the shadows. After braving the gauntlet of trying to lock in one of the few treasured parking spots at the top of Logan Pass, we took advantage of clear skies and hiked the 2.7 mile/4.3 kilometer out-and-back to the Hidden Lake Overlook. Some stunning views of Clements and Reynolds Mountains on either side as we climbed to the summit, and fun to get up close and personal with a few very well fed marmots along the trail.

The eastern side of the Going to the Sun Road was no less stunning than the west, with panoramic views of Citadel and Little Chief Mountains on the way down and a handful of waterfalls in the valley miles below. We left the 4Runner at the Jackson Glacier Overlook and spent a couple of hours hiking down the valley alongside Reynolds Creek past Deadwood Falls – this one was too cold even for Max and me – and eventually to Saint Mary and Virginia Falls just above Saint Mary Lake. It was pretty incredible to walk through the burn scar from the massive 2015 fire that ripped through the Saint Mary Lake area, the forests were regenerating quickly but it was a striking difference from the lush green when we visited in 2012. We hitched a ride back up to the truck in the park shuttle and finished the Going to the Sun Road at Rising Sun with some well-earned ice creams from the general store. Oh man, they tasted so good…

It’s pretty rare to be able to camp inside a US national park without reserving a spot a year in advance, but the eastern side of Glacier is so remote that most of its campgrounds operate on a first-come-first-served basis. After our ice creams at Rising Sun we finished our second day in Glacier at Cut Bank in a secluded valley below Bad Marriage and Mad Wolf Mountains (creative names…). The kids were in their elements collecting wood for the nightly campfire and there was certainly nothing left of the sauerkraut and sausages we’d bought a couple of days prior from a Native American butcher on the Flathead Reservation.

We’d planned to spend the morning of our last day in Glacier in the Two Medicine area of the park, but at 2AM we were all woken by the pitter patter of rain on our sleeping quarters. I was hoping it was just a passing cloud, but the unpredictable mountain weather set in and it proceeded to pour well into the daylight hours. There’s very few things I can think of that are worse when camping than packing up in the rain, it really sucked. We found one of Max’s Blundstone boots full to the brim with water. The rain continued into the morning and prevented us from exploring any of the trails around Two Medicine Lake, but we did get to take in towering Sinopah Mountain from the banks of the lake as we passed through. The silver lining: next stop has a solid roof and warm beds at Aunt Cheryl and Tio Nelson’s house in Cascade.