A Beautiful Day

It’s not what you look at that matters. 

It’s what you see. 

– Henry David Thoreau

We left early this morning for the east side of Glacier National Park (we live on the west side). We knew it would take a little over 2 hours because highway 49 (the little shortcut) wasn't open from the winter yet.

It was a beautiful day even with the haze.

What we didn't know was that we would run into road construction on highway 89 on the east side of Glacier NP on the Blackfeet Indian Reservation. Our first flag person had us stopped for 10+ minutes. She was telling us that a long dirt hauler truck had just overturned up ahead. She thought the driver was okay. She thought karma was paying him back for constantly being on his phone and distracted while driving. She and others had complained about him. 

We were first in line behind our first pilot vehicle.

The overturned long dirt hauler truck was not very far into our 5 mile guided trip.

We didn't get too far past our first guided trip when we had to wait a few more minutes and follow another pilot truck.

After 3 hours, we finally reached the St. Mary Visitor Center. Here is a view from the center.

We headed for the St. Mary Falls trail. There were lots of wildflowers.

Another thing we didn't know was that our whole plan for the day would take place where a July, 2015, fire had destroyed much of the landscape.

We found a cute little waterfall on the trail.

St. Mary Lake is large and beautiful.

We found St. Mary Falls and it was magnificent!

We enjoyed our lunch near the falls

and also the rocks.

After lunch, we headed on to Virginia Falls. It has three parts; we hiked as high as the second part.

On the way down, we found this. It might be bear grass.

When we left the park, we had to hunt to find a place open to get some ice cream - we needed a cool break! The temperatures were in the 70s and the sun was very warm.

We headed towards home. The construction had ended for the day; the overturned truck had been removed; and the road was ready to be paved on Monday. 

 We headed back on highway 89 and then on highway 2.

Just before we entered the park on highway 2, we stopped by the side of the road to visit this waterfall. It was a great day to see waterfalls - the air temperature was much cooler near them and sometimes you could feel and enjoy the spray.

We continued on through the park

and made it home about 5:30 pm. 

Tomorrow we expect another beautiful day.