Our 10 year anniversary was a big deal to us and we wanted to get away to do something we fell in love with each other doing. No, we didn't get to do any rock climbing, but getting outdoors was a good second and y'all I am pretty sure I have the best friends out there and without them this trip would not have been possible. 3 families (The other Mezgers, the Kinslows & the Fosheas) took all three of our kids!!! We so appreciate all the offers of help even if we didn't end of using your family. So with 5 days away with no kids, we set off for Glacier National Park. The only thing I would have changed is to have not spent 12 hours getting there and getting back, but we had a great time! I really tried to get it down to my favorite pictures, which ended up being just shy of 100, which is pretty good considering I took a total of 520. Here are the highlights.
Grizzly sighting!!! Mom grizzly on the left and her cub is down a bit to the right.
Going to the Sun Road
The view!
Many Glacier Hotel.
For such a beautiful exterior & great room, the guest rooms of the hotel were very basic.
But you don't go there for the accommodations, you go there for the views and easy access to some awesome trails.
This was Swiftcurrent Lake Trail.
A few more as we left.
Hike #1.
Luke and I had talked about doing some day hikes, which to me meant 5-8 miles, but to Luke meant a day of hiking and what ended up being 14-16 miles. Sadly my shoes didn't fit good & I just barely got myself back to the car, but we were all smiles when we started out.
Bear Warnings
The Trail to Iceberg Lake
Our first glimpse of the lake.
You have to be really careful were you set your food.
10 seconds was about as long as I could stand having my feet in the water.
A glacial rock.
It was hard to believe there was 3,000 ft difference between the top and the lake.
We didn't see too much snow up close so we went a little off trail to get this picture.
Around this point we had hiked ~9 miles and I was needing a break, so I stayed down by this lake while Luke hiked 2 more miles to get to Ptarmigan Tunnel. Can you believe the color of the water?
You can really see the trail well in this picture.
Just go through here and
this and
this is what you get to see.
Taking a swim.
One of my favorite parts of this hike was all the huckleberries we found along the trail. Yummy!
Bear Sighting #2.
St Mary Hotel. Not as pretty, but was definitely the nicest accommodations we had.
The view out our back window.
Looking at Two Medicine Valley.
A vintage Red Jammer.
The beautiful East Glacier Lodge were we got some massages to recover from the previous hike.
Running Eagle Falls.
I have never seen a waterfall come out of a rock like that.
Bear Sighting #3.
This was at ~30 ft away with me getting pictures outside the car.
This is him 3 ft away as I rushed to take a pictures after closing the window.
Another Going to the Sun Road View.
Lake McDonald Lodge
Lake McDonald Lake as a storm was blowing in.
Our rings overlooking Lake McDonald.
Heading into the clouds as we drove to hiking day #2.
Mountain Goat.
What was so interesting about this is that the ice was all the way to the ground on both sides when we first saw it. I think the July temps were melting a lot of snow!
On our way to Florence Falls. This was the type of trail that made you feel like you were the only people on planet Earth.
This hike was crazy. A lot of the time was spent hiking waist and neck high through these thimblebush plants.
Eating as we went of course. : )
This was bear sighting #4.
I know you can't actually see the black bear, but he is in the bushes almost in the middle of the picture right under the horizon tree. We were walking along and 10 yds ahead of Luke was a black bear. Luke called out "bear" and I was supposed to start taking pictures. We didn't get a great picture because he was so close and I wanted Luke to get out the bear mace, but he was wanting me to be taking pictures.
Florence Falls
We only had a couple of hours on day 4, so we did a short 1 hour hike. After seeing so many bears, we did not go anywhere without this- the bear mace.
Next we headed for a 1 hour helicopter ride. It was so worth it because the park is so big and it really let you see a lot of what you couldn't see without doing so major backcountry hiking.
It was Luke's favorite part.
I wasn't sure what we would see at first because of the clouds, but I quickly changed my mind. I wished some of these pictures were clearer, but between the fog/clouds and taking the pictures through the helicopter window, some not as clear as I wish they were.
The glaciers up close.
The US/Canadian border.
This was so crazy, but we ended up seeing most all of the pastors and elders of The Austin Stone Church. We were headed back to the hotel after the helicopter ride and they were going on this bus tour. Yep, I took a picture to text to some of friends back home. There was a 5-8 minute window we could have seen them and we did. What's so crazy about it is that Austin Stone is such a big church that I have never seen so many of them in one place ever in Austin.
Lastly, we rented a motor boat for an hour.
This is what 10% of the park looks like due to a fires.
It was so nice to get away for some quality time with Luke & when it was time to go home I was also ready to see the kids. The older kids reactions were so polar opposite- Bailey gave us many hugs & told us she missed us, where as Blake started yelling at us "I told you not to leave" and was really angry with us. I loved hearing the stories of fun times the kids had at the different houses. Click here for my sister-in-laws version of their time.