Glacier Part I
Steve and I first visited Glacier National Park in 1994, and we fell in love with the place, especially the spectacular Going-to-the-Sun Road. We brought the kids to Glacier in 2012 for a fun-filled family camping trip. And we were excited to visit Glacier a third time and drive Going-to-the-Sun Road in our convertible, as an epic part of our Epic Road Trip,
If you read our previous journal entry, you know that rainy weather disrupted our plans for Sunday at Glacier, so we re-routed to Missoula. The forecast was for partly sunny skies on Monday, so we drove up to East Glacier on Sunday afternoon, hoping for the best.
Monday morning in East Glacier was sunny, so we congratulated ourselves on avoiding the rain and drove toward St. Mary in high spirits. Seeing the sun-drenched peaks was like seeing old friends after a long absence.
As we neared the park entrance, we could see that it wasn't so sunny ahead. But we refused to let a few clouds spoil our day, so we put the top down and drove on. It was a bit chilly, so we were thankful for our car's nifty heated seats. We joked that since we were traveling westward, we were Going-FROM-the-Sun.
We enjoyed the gently winding drive along beautiful St. Mary Lake. But after about 15 miles, as the road climbed with hairpin curves toward Logan Pass, we realized we were literally driving into a cloud.
And soon the cloud-fog was so thick that we could barely see the road and the car in front of us. Since there was no shoulder to pull off on, the only course was to keep moving. At least we knew the road would soon start to descend below the clouds. And the temperature dropped to 42° - our backs were warm, but our fronts were feeling the chill!
As the cloud-fog cleared, we drove on toward Lake MacDonald, hoping to find some sun, but that was not to be. So we decided to turn around and return to the eastern side of the park, where we knew the sun was shining. This time, we knew what to expect - we even stopped for a car photo just before re-entering the cloud. (Yes, we put the top back up - having our heads in the clouds once was enough!)
And this time around, we could appreciate how mysterious and beautiful everything looked amidst the clouds.
As we descended from Logan Pass, we could see the sun peeking through and lighting up parts of the valley...and the clouds moved briskly past us, at eye level, as if to remind us we were at an elevation above 6,600 feet.
Further down the road, Jackson Glacier was visible beneath the cloud cover.
It wasn't the drive we had hoped to have, but "Going-to-the-Clouds" Road was spectacular nonetheless, and a fitting and memorable part of this Epic Road Trip.
