Monday, August 1, 2011

Our trip to Glacier National Park {We can just say "Wow God, You are amazing!"}

 Yesterday we arrived home after spending a week at Glacier National Park in Montana. It was a wonderful trip and an absolutely beautiful place! We live in a beautiful place here in Minnesota and so I am used to thanking and praising God for his amazing creative powers but I was incredibly in awe of Him during this trip. He is awesome!

I took 450 pictures but I won't share them all! (are you terribly disappointed? ) Here is a few odds and ends of the ones I took. I will probably share quite a few more pictures one at a time in my Sunday posts.  I have tons to do here at home (mountains of laundry, a weedy garden and a dirty van to name a few) so I will just quickly tell a few things about our trip.
 We met up with Ken's parents - Terry and Sharyl, at the park. The park was about halfway between our homes. We each had to travel nearly 1000 miles one way. We enjoyed spending time with them.
We hiked every day we were there. The first day we ate our lunch at the edge of this rushing river. 
 Then we crossed over it on a very wiggly cable/plank bridge. What fun!
 There was a mountain stream near our campsite that the kids had fun moving rocks around in, creating rapids and changing it's course.
 When in camp we had fun playing games and of course had to work on cooking. The camp cooking here was different for me as we were in bear country and so had to make sure to pack everything that had anything to do with food and put it in our vehicles as soon as we were done eating. Leaving dishes or a stove out could result in a fine.
 One rainy day we drove over the mountains on the Going-to-the-sun-road (though it didn't go to the sun that day) and visiting the cedar forest on the other side. There was a river there with all colors of beautiful rocks. The girls and I had fun making people out of the rocks. Terry and Sharyl made a cross.
Some of our rock people.
Ken and I in the Cedar Forest.


 This big cedar tree took Ken and Terry and the four kids to get around it.
Aaron on a stump or a cedar.

A beautiful river in the woods.
 Lakes and trees and mountains are such a beautiful combination and we got to see that view (with different lakes and mountains and trees) over and over again.
 Granddad with his granddaughters. Standing on a bridge made of a couple of flattened logs. On that fun hike we got to cross over a bunch of little waterfalls and a couple of rushing rivers.
 The large Saint Mary's river near our campsite.
 Cliff climbing was a great favorite of the boys. Mara after falling once (not badly) wasn't as fond of it.
There were flowers all over the park. It looked like a flower garden so many places. It was, but a natural one planted by God. I took tons of pictures of them but decided you might not want to see every variety as there were so many! 
Miniature Lupine. It was all over and beautiful!
 Hiking down the trail. On this day Ken and Terry were off climbing a mountain so just Sharyl, the kids and I went hiking. We had a bunch of fun and also found our first bear evidence- some big bear scat and a place the bear had dug for grubs. We decided to turn around and go back.
 Another gorgeous falls. This was just down from Sunrift gorge- one of my favorite areas of the park that I saw.
 One morning we went to an Art class at the park. Here Megan is adding her touch to a painting. We also did our own watercolor paintings.

 Checking out Many Falls. This was the area we finally saw a bear but were thankful that it was on the other side of the lake. (so I didn't get any pictures).
 Our final stop before heading home. We drove down to the Two Medicine Lake area.

Now I had better go get busy!!! Have you ever gone to Glacier National Park? What is your favorite sort of family vacation?

6 comments:

Nola said...

How beautiful! I miss the mountains so much. I spent a lot of time there in my younger years when I lived closer to the mountains and I spent 4 months living there before I got married. I haven't been there since. I've never been to Glacier but I've been to many parks and mountain areas just north of there in Canada. It looks very similar to the landscapes I am familiar with. How many days/hours did you take to drive there? I'm surprised you don't have bears where you live. I would have thought you do. We have them here even in my neighbourhood I have seen them. I've seen dozens of them and never once had a problem but I've also always been very careful. I am glad you had such a great trip. I look forward to one day showing my husband and kids the west as none other than me have ever been.

Abbi said...

Have you visited Waterton National Park in Canada? It is actually attached to Glacier. We took two days to drive there )and two days back) I think the total travel time (each way) was around 16 hours. We do have black bears in our area and we do see them occasionaly (not very often) and for that reason I do have an electric fence around my bee hives but at Glacier we were seeing Grizzlies and were being careful concerning them. In our reading of a wilderness survival book before we left there were quite a few stories of bear attacks which all happened in Glacier Nat. Park and so we went out feeling slightly nervous. Getting there and seeing all the signs and warnings about Grizzlier and black bears didn't help calm our nerves too much. Praying and resting in the fact that God can take care of us in every situation did calm our worries and we had a great time!

Abbi said...

I just noticed your comment about missing the mountians. My husband grew up in Mountians too and though he loves it here in MN every time we can travel to mountians he is very happy! He was so excited when they finally came in view as we traveled on this trip.

Erin said...

How fun for you guys! My family visited Glacier for a few weeks a little over 10 years ago. My brother and sister-in-law were working there for the summer in various park restaurants, but their main purpose was to hold weekly church services for park visitors. I think it was a neat experience for them, and it was surely a beautiful trip for all of us. All of God's creation is something to marvel at, but for me there is nothing quite like the majesty of the mountains. I have many happy memories of summers spent in the Rockies & Adirondacks.

Nola said...

Abbi- no I have not visited Waterton but where I was living was about 30 minutes from there and so it was very similar landscape. I forgot that it is connected to Glacier but now that you mentioned it I remember.

I didn't mean by my comment that you shouldn't have been so careful with the bears- I totally agree to be careful! I've done many wilderness camping (without cars nearby) in the mountains and we always did bear lines with all food/smelly stuff etc. and for sure Grizzly bears are much worse than black bears. I always worried about that out west too. Sorry if my comment came across the wrong way. I'm glad you had a great time despite the bear fears. I was thinking about bears (black only here) this morning when we went blueberry picking since a few years ago I was about 10 feet from one while picking. I wasn't making any noise though and didn't stick with the group. I think making noise a lot helps.

I get so excited when I see mountains too. Its been 8 years now though.
:( however I am also thankful for the beautiful northern scenery we have where I live (I imagine similar to your landscape from the little I know about MN).

Abbi said...

Erin, I am glad you have been able to experience that beautfy as well!

Nola, I didn't think you were putting me down about being careful concerning bears. So no worries!! :-)

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