West Glacier National Park

Next stop, Glacier National Park. I checked into my hostel room in East Glacier Village. I highly recommend making a stop there if you are in the neighbourhood. $20 a night got me a basic, but private, room and a shared bathroom. The place was clean and the people were friendly. Admittedly, the building itself was a little scary. It seemed to be sagging in several places and there were gaps in the floor large enough that I wasn't going to walk around wearing a dress upstairs. However, the experience was a positive one overall. I grabbed a quick shower and headed straight out to the famous Going-to-the-sun road, one of the main attractions in the park.

Unfortunately, much of Glacier National Park and the surrounding area was on fire at the time of my visit so the famously glorious views were mostly obscured. However, the excursion was still immensely interesting. I was repeatedly assured that the ecosystem of Glacier National Park, like that of Australia, depends heavily on fire for regeneration and continued health. The Rangers were impressed with my easy grasp of this counter intuitive concept. I told them a few things about gum trees and bottle brush seed pods. They are all coming to visit Australia very soon.

Although I drove the road first from east to west, I did so quickly, intending to dawdle over the return trip. Thus, the photographs appear in west to east order as I did it the second time, with my camera out.


The drive starts at Apgar Village by the smoky shores of Lake McDonald. The shores aren't usually this smoky, so you're lucky I was there to catch them like this. Normally they're clear and picturesque. You can get that kind of thing anywhere.

This is Avalanche Creek on the Cedars Nature Trail. This is a dense cedar-hemlock old growth forest with a raised boardwalk to allow tourists to traipse through without hurting anything, including themselves.

This part of the park is very wet. There are ferns everywhere, puddles on the ground and water running down the rocks. This high moisture content has protected the forest from fires, like the ones burning right now, and allowed it to remain this lush and dense despite 7 years of drought in the surrounding areas.

It's a lovely walk, and quite short. There are lots of nice places to sit and commune with the silence. The squirrels seem to like it in there too.

The water is an amazing turquoise colour that the camera didn't quite capture. It's a mysterious, soothing sort of blue.