Location: Glacier National Park: Day 2; Epic Road Trip: Day 9
Attractions: Going-to-the-Sun Road, Virginia Falls Hike
Date: August 11th, 2018

We woke up fairly early and headed into Glacier Park around 7:30 for some hiking . The trail we decided on was the Virginia Falls Hike but we had to take The Going-to-the-Sun Road to get there (the only road that takes you through Glacier).

The views on this road are just beautiful. You drive through gorgeous mountains capped with snow and glaciers. The lush green valleys below appear to be a wonderland for wildlife. We were anxious to see more wildlife, so as soon as we parked, we got started on the trail right away. Others in the group hung back for a bit as they were prepping for the hike and I later found out they had a nice view of a bull moose wading in the river below. Sometimes being anxious has the opposite effect of the desired outcome, I guess.

When we started out on our hike, the beginning is an area that had caught fire in the not too distance past. Walking through the charred trees creates an interesting smell, but also allows for the ability to see further into the forest. At one point, a bridge crosses the deep turquoise water directly in front of a double falls area known as St. Mary’s Falls. My daughter wanted to get down close to the water and feel how cold it was, but I was nervous. The water is really rushing by and the parent in me could only think about her slipping in and getting washed away never to be seen again. But the adventurer in me wanted her to experience this hike in a way that she would hopefully never forget. So I let her… carefully crawl down and feel the water. Of course, then I had to too. Brrrrr.

As we continued on our hike, we followed some rushing falls up a stony path that led us to the prize of our hike, Virginia Falls. There are several ways you can view the falls, depending on how close you want to get, and of course, we wanted to get as close as possible. We saw some people actually get right underneath the falls, letting it painfully shower them with it’s forceful water, but we just enjoyed it from the bank. The breeze that the falling water kicked off was pretty impressive.

After quite a lot of time and about 100 photos later, we headed back down the trail to our vehicles. We were hungry. Our snacks where just about gone and we had heard that there was a pretty cool restaurant at the other end of the park, so we headed into St Mary.

We stopped at Johnson’s of St Mary for some good ole home cooking. We all loved our meals but we heard they had great desserts, so we continued the feast by sampling a cinnamon bun ala mode and some ice cream pie. After all, this hiking had us burning tons of calories, so we earned it! Both desserts were amazingly delicious.

Once we paid for our dinner, we headed back to Going-to-the-Sun road so we could make our way back to our campground. We changed into our swimming suits and the kids played in the pool while Jill and I took a nice long soak in the hot tub. What a great day.

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