After 4 hours of sleep, my internal clock wouldn’t let me go back to sleep. I hung around until breakfast hours and I’m glad I did! This small lodge has a great breakfast with lots of options. I had the waffles with strawberries, chocolate chips and whipped cream.
I headed out around 8:30 and drove to Glacier National Park (about 40 minutes). From the visitor center, it’s a short walk to Apgar Village where there are a few touristy shops, places to eat and a great view of the mountains.
There’s a boat dock where tours launch and it makes for some good photos as well. It’s quite popular with the selfie takers, so I had to stand around until they were done looking pretty.
From there I drove over to East Glacier (about 2 hours). The Going To The Sun Road goes from West Glacier to East Glacier, but the middle portion is closed for the season, so you have to take the scenic route to enter from the east side.
Looking at this mountain, it didn’t seem very far away. As a boat tour passed, it was like the weirdest illusion to see how small the boat was compared to the mountain.
There were a few other stops along the way that offered great views. However, the more popular trails, like the St. Mary Falls trail, were packed no matter how many times I drove by.
It was around 3:30pm at this point, so I decided to make the long drive back and hit some turn out spots I had seen on the way here.
My last stop on the way back was at Two Medicine. Again, it was quite full, but I enjoyed a short 1 mile hike.
I got back to the lodge around 6:30pm and started editing some photos (then went to bed early!).
These pictures are amazing. The scenery is so beautiful.