Glacier Pace

Putting 2 posts in one to try to catch up!

We left our (marginal) hotel in Missoula yesterday morning (but at least the roses outside were nice!) and headed to Garnet Ghost Town, which was a sleeper hit of the trip! It is about 40 minutes from Missoula (more on the way back because they closed the highway entrance, but hey...). It's up a long, rutted dirt road (and we took the alternate route back which was even more harrowing). But it was
fascinating!

Once a large quartz mining town, it was especially unusual for having a large number of families instead of just single male miners. But it still had 13 saloons, a blacksmith, a store, a hotel, several other businesses, and a very old west feel. It's been relaly well stabilized and reconstructed, and you could just wander around and explore.

The store:

An old miner's cabin I knew Elyse would love:

Saloon:

Blacksmith:

The hotel is said to be haunted...

Me in front of the "Hanifen" house — wonder if we're related?

We then (slowly) went back to Missoula, had lunch at the Catalyst Cafe (SO good but again slow), and did some shopping. Then headed up north along Flathead Lake, quickly through Kalispell, before getting to our place in Whitefish for the night (the adorable Chalet Inn).

Delicious dinner at Chez Mambo, then headed to the west side of Glacier to watch the sunset over Lake McDougal.

Today we had coffee/light breakfast in a very Beatrix cafe (the Boudoir Bar) in Whitefish, then back to the park.

Going-to-the-Sun Road is still closed due to snow and avalanche and weather, which put some big crimps in our plan (and everyone else's, Whitefish was filled with bored looking tourists!). 

But my friend Jenn, who is a genius on national parks, is ever so right when she says you have to both do your research AND be flexible.

So we drove around the outside of the park, which was also pretty, to the east entrance. We went in at Two Medicine, and did some hiking.

Then we went up to the east entrance, where we continued awhile down GTTSR to reach the dock for the boat trip we had arranged!

We could not have asked fro more from the trip. The college dude/captain was entertaining, we learned a lot, and we got fantastic views of the lake. 

We learned about several places Louis Hill had had cabins, including this site:

And we got to dock mid-ride and walk to another waterfall!

We even saw a moose.

After the boar trip we drove as far down GTTSR as we could until it was closed, then turned around and headed out. We drove through rural Montana (along the edge of the Blackfeet nation) for about an hour before stopping at a lovely taproom with a great, Native-run kitchen and even better beer.

We are now in Shelby, Montana, in a tiny no-frills motel at a crossroads, but the front desk people were very friendly (and had a dog and a cat). The neighboring room has 2 small kids and 2 dogs and one of the kids asked her mom, as we were coming in "Why is that man's skin back?" but hey, it's only for one night and it can probably not be worse than the sports team a few night's back, so....