Glacier: Avalanche Lake, West Glacier KOA Pool

Location: Glacier National Park: Day 1; Epic Road Trip: Day 8
Attractions: Avalanche Lake, West Glacier KOA Pool
Date: August 10th, 2018

Day 7 was a travel day: Yellowstone to Glacier.

Our Glacier accommodations would be the West Glacier KOA. This was a beautiful campground. We paid a little more to stay here, but I don’t regret it one bit. There were wonderful amenities like a pool, adult hot tubs and very nice showers. But the thing that blew me away was this place had the most beautiful landscaping I’ve ever seen at a campground. Walk ways accented with waterfalls. Beautiful plants and flowers lining the ends of each parking row. Perfectly green grass. They must have a really talented horticulturist.

For our first full day in Glacier, a good chunk of the group decided to get up and do the hike to Avalanche Lake before the day’s heat was upon us. I hadn’t gotten to spend much time with my dad on this trip, so I jumped in his vehicle and we started heading to the trailhead.

Once we were about 25 minutes into the park, I said something about meeting the other group (Jill, my kids, and her parents) at the trailhead. Dad snaps his head around and raises his eyebrows spewing out, “Oh shit! We were supposed to meet them at the welcome center.” He grabbed his phone to try to call them, but of course we have no reception. We are in the middle a huge mountain range deep in a valley. I pulled over at the first place that wouldn’t put us in any danger from on coming traffic. As a group, we are trying to figure out our next move. Do we make our way back? Do we wait to see if they start up the mountain and see if we can catch them? Do we head to the trailhead thinking they will head that way when they figure out we blew past it? Dad decides to take off on foot and look for cellphone reception. The rest of us sit and watch for my father-in-law’s truck in case they started heading to the trailhead. As Dad heads down towards the lake, my blood pressure climbs.

About 15 minutes pass. Now we have no dad and no in-laws. I’m so upset I could explode. What a senseless waste of time. It’s supposed to be super hot and we are wasting precious morning hours, when hiking will be best. I decide to get out and look for my dad, letting everyone else in the vehicle know I’ll be back in less than 5 minutes. I look all around and see him no where.

I get back to the vehicle and just sigh. What else could I do? I try taking a deep breath and looking at the glass as half full. I’m on vacation. I’m in one of the most beautiful places in the world. We aren’t lost, we just don’t know where the rest of our group is. Then I see him. Dad shows up and said he had to go way out on a dock on the lake to get one bar and was able to text them. He asked them to head our way.

About a half hour later when my wife and the others pulled up I could see the anger in my wife and her father’s eyes. Something was said from their vehicle about not following the plan but before I could defend myself, Dad stepped in and said this was entirely his fault. He was the one that knew the plan, but we got to talking and since he was a passenger, we just kept talking… and driving. We all swallowed our pride a bit and decided to head to the trailhead and find a place to park. Some fresh air and a brisk hike is exactly what I needed after that stressful situation.

The trail was a 2.5 mile out and back hike; around 5 miles total since we didn’t go all the way to the end of the lake. The shady path wound through some beautiful cedar trees along a rushing creek tucked beneath breathtaking rock-faced mountains. We really enjoyed looking at all the rock formations and different trees along the hike. At one point, we crossed a creek that had carved out a wispy curling path through the rock. The water was as clear as could be, but it had an emerald-blue tint that made it look like liquid jewelry.

There were some wildfires in Canada, so there was a bit of a haze in the air as a result of the smoke coming down to the States. It actually made for a more mystic, dreamlike view of the mountains and lake.

When we approached the lake, there were about 30 people in different groups all taking a rest and drinking in the view. Some people even packed in their poles and were heading out to do some fishing. The lake water was freezing cold but both still and clear as glass. We all had a snack and made sure we were plenty hydrated before making our way back down the mountain, trying to beat the heat of the day.

When we got back to camp, it was HOT. It hit 102 degrees that day. Some of us took naps in our air conditioned campers and some of us set off for a dip in the pool. After some walking tacos for dinner, Jill and I went for a walk through the fenced in nature trail within the KOA park. When we popped out of the trail we saw the most beautiful sunset. Especially considering there were no clouds. We snapped a few shots headed back to the campers. There would be no camp fire tonight. We all went to bed fairly early. The heat really took it out of us.