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Chelan & Coeur d'Alene

Glacier National Park

Calgary

Banff & Lake Louise

Rest of the Trip

Glacier National Park

We took a beautiful route north from Coeur d'Alene through Sand Point rather than take I90. As we drove up through Idaho we kept seeing signs that read DO NOT PASS SNOWPLOWS ON THE RIGHT. We couldn't help but wonder is anybody REALLY stupid enough to try to do that?

It had been rather hot through Chelan and Coeur d'Alene, but it was somewhat cooler as we arrived at Lake McDonald Lodge. The top had been down most of the way to this point. There is a boat that does an hour-long cruise on Lake McDonald and we went on the 7:00 PM cruise. What a setting!

    Lake McDonald

On our second day in the park we drove to St. Mary Lake and took the boat ride there as well. While on the boat you get great views of mountains including these

    Mountains from St. Mary Lake

and Rising Sun Mountain.

It's a longer ride and at one point you leave the boat for a brief hike before returning to finish the cruise. That hike takes you to Baring Falls.

One of the geological features seen from the boat is the black band just above the snow in the next photo. I don't recall the significance, but you can't miss it.

Some of the views from the Going to the Sun Road are quite something.

In the next shot you can see the path taken by avalanches in the left part of the photo where the avalanche mowed down all the trees.

And here is a panorama shot within the park.

Of course you have to get some shots of your Mustang on a trip like this.

        Maria in Glacier National Park

We took a hike on a prepared boardwalk through and area of large cedar trees. We saw a lovely Columbine along the way. One of the cedars had fallen and all the dirt was gone from the roots. When you see what shallow roots they have you wonder how they ever stand.

We heard the usual warnings about watching for wild life, but the only wild life we saw (other than some of the tourists) was this goofy deer that was wandering around on the grounds of Lake McDonald Lodge.

We attended a naturalist lecture on our second night. The ranger talked about the building of the Going to the Sun Road. It was quite a marvel when it was built in the '30s. One of the things I found very interesting was that on years when there has been a heavy snow fall and they bring out the bulldozers to clear the road, in some places they have to resurvey to figure out where the road IS under all that white stuff.

From Glacier we continued across the border and to Calgary.