MAGICAL MONTANA: GOING TO THE SUN ROAD / WEST GLACIER - August 2011

Leaving Beaver Mines and heading to Montana through Pincher Creek and on toward Waterton to cross at Chief Mountain Border Crossing. The drive there was beautiful.

The border crossing itself was pretty uneventful – three minutes from pulling up to the Stop sign to being in the USA. The border patrol was actually pleasant.


And there we were – in Montana! We had seen Chief Mountain from Canada before, but until you’re in Montana, you don’t get the iconic view of Chief Mountain -- its unique flat top shape.

After a fairly quick drive through some very beautiful country and a quick stop at St. Mary’s, we finally entered Glacier National Park, heading toward Going to the Sun Road. Wow! The first part of the drive was extraordinarily beautiful and we stopped for a lot of pictures.
Two of the most beautiful spots along the way were St. Mary’s Lake / Wild Goose Island and the Sunrift Gorge.



We climbed steadily, but gradually, and it wasn’t too long before we were in the midst of the most spectacularly gorgeous scenery I’d ever seen. It was everything I’d hoped for … even more. We were surrounded by mountains that plunged into valleys with rivers running through them like thin blue ribbon winding its way through the lush growth of trees.

Glaciers and waterfalls … springs running from the sheer rocks along the road … beautiful wildflowers growing out of cracks in the rocks. Simply stunning. As always, there is considerable construction being done on the road, which is narrow at best and reduced to one-lane most of the way, so there were long periods of being stopped waiting for on-coming traffic to get through. We didn’t mind, though. If you’re going to be stuck in traffic, there’s no more beautiful place to be stopped.




There are too many beautiful pictures to place here, so please click here to view a slide show of some of the amazing sights we saw along the way.

After a day of travelling through some amazingly beautiful places, we were delighted to check into our “West Glacier home” – the Silver Wolf Chalets. Lovely little log cabins, very nicely decorated. The property is extremely well kept – you can tell that the owners and staff (wonderful, cheerful Janice) take great pride in the property.

After settling in, we decided on an early dinner in West Glacier and we chose the Belton Chalet Tap Room. Dining room menu was available in the Tap Room as well. We started off by sharing the Filet & Elk Mini-Burgers. Yummy. I had the crab cakes with a salad: spinach, blue cheese, apples, red onion, and ne of the yummiest thing I’ve ever tasted – walnut/bacon brittle (everything is better with bacon). Bob had the Shrimp Thai Salad and he wasn’t nearly as happy with his meal as I was with mine. We continued our discovery of wonderful new beers – I am crazy about Moose Drool Ale, and Bob had Deschuttes Black Porter (which he’d had before in Washington) and a Blackfoot IPA.

After dinner, we headed back to our cabin to relax on our porch with a glass of wine ... and to listen to the train go by. Just like at home!

For our second day in West Glacier, we drove back to the Park again, hoping to be able to do a little hike in Cedar Grove. Unfortunately we were not able to find a parking spot. The nearest place we could have put the car would have yielded a longer hike than we’d planned on taking. Oh well … on the list for “next time”.

We drove along beautiful Lake McDonald – taking pictures along the way. At one point, the lake was so still, the reflections in the water were perfect. I took a couple of pictures of that, and then – a speedboat went roaring by on the other wise. So much for mirror-like images! We took a little side trip to the famous Lake McDonald Lodge – one of the grand old National Park hotels. It opened in 1914 and sits on the shore of Lake McDonald. It reminded us of Jasper Park Lodge – without the snootiness.
Lake McDonald Lodge also played a role in the horrific events of August 13, 1967 which was referred to as “The Night of the Grizzlies” at which time there were two grizzly attacks just miles apart in West Glacier Park where they hadn’t been any attacks since the park opened. One of the victims, Michele Koons, was a summer student working at the Lodge.

After a little rest at the cabin, we headed into Whitefish for dinner. Whitefish is a very cool town. It’s a resort town – sort of like Canmore – busy during ski season and just really, really cool the rest of the year. There is a City Beach which is part of the glacial Whitefish Lake and on the evening we were there, it was smokin’ hot and that beach was BUSY.
We found the downtown area with no problem, and as is typical for Bob, he managed to find a parking spot right in front of the restaurant we were planning to dine at, in spite of the fact that the Farmers’ Market was going on at the end of the block. We were also very close to The Great Northern Brewing Company – really awesome microbrewery. We had to taste their fine products, of course. I had the Big Fog ESB (a really nice amber ale) and Bob had the Going To The Sun IPA (wasn’t overly “hoppy” – nice). They also give generous samples there. We tried their porter – very, very nice – and a Huckleberry Wheat Beer. I’m not usually a fan of fruity beer, but this one was nice. (I really wish that Canada had more high-quality microbreweries, like they do in some areas of the States. BC has a few, Ontario and Quebec do too. Alberta has some really good ones, but still has a long way to go.)
Although we didn’t have reservations, we were able to get into a great restaurant in downtown Whitefish – Tupelo Grille & Fine Wines.
Our calamari starter was … meh … just okay. Bob’s dinner (Cajun Creole Combo – fried catfish, shrimp creole, crawfish etoufee) was outstanding, and my Chicken Marsala was pretty scrumptious too. And we did NOT say NO to dessert. Bread pudding. Bring it on!
What a wonderful evening – back to the cabin for a glass of wine with our “company” and an early bedtime. Off to Butte the next day.

Sadly, we did notice, though, that on the 25 mile stretch between West Glacier and Whitefish, there were 41 roadside memorial crosses (both sides). This is straight highway. What the heck do those people do there?