Thursday, May 10, 2007

Glaciers


I forgot to mention that last night while washing the cars we had a local guy talking to us about the cars and he had us stay put while he got his camera to take a couple pics of the TTs. I have a feeling they don't see very many of them out here. They've got a ton of Audis in Jackson Hole but otherwise German cars are pretty rare.
Anyway, we ventured from Great Falls further northwest to East Glacier and then up to Babb. There's a park entrance at Babb that leads into the Many Glacier Lodge. The drive in is a bit rough and the lake is actually a dam and the water level is pretty low. But, the view at the lodge is spectacular and well worth the visit. There was a boat ramp leading down to the lake so we took advantage of it and parked the TTs there for a few pics.
From there we headed back south to East Glacier and into the main entrance of the park which leads to the Going to the Sun road. The pass is closed for construction but you can still drive several miles into the park. The views along the lake keep getting better and better all the way up so we of course stopped several times for pics along the way. We had hotel reservations in Kalispell over on the west side of the park so we started in that direction. Since the pass is closed that means driving around the south side of the park to West Glacier. Russ and I had done this drive last year so we were both looking forward to it. It's not the twistiest stretch of road but it's still one of my favorite drives ever. It's worth doing this drive in addition to the Going to the Sun drive.
It was still pretty early so we decided to head into the park at West Glacier instead of waiting until tomorrow. This is the other end of the Going to the Sun road but the park on this side is slightly different. The lakes on the east side of the park are a deep turquoise but the west side are very clear blue. Great views all the way in and out and a most impressive waterfall/cascade about halfway up. I was finally able to get the tripod out and do a few long exposure shots, a few of them came out decent, I still need to work on my technique a bit.
We finally made it into Kalispell about 8pm and grabbed dinner and checked in. Since we were able to cover so much ground today we'll be parting company on Thursday and Russ will head for home and I continue east. It's been a fun week and Russ has been a great tour guide along the way. So, since I won't have another TT to take pictures of I'll probably have to start stalking Camrys for on-road pics :)

Pics from Glacier

Trip Stats:
415 miles
8hrs of driving
54mph average speed
29mpg
17k ft climbed
two stops for gas

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