Today was one of my favorite days of the trip because we were able to hike on of my favorite places unearth but to be able to show my girlfriend the place she missed while she was staying in the room a month ago. We have had a great trip up to this point. After camping through the night at the place we stayed we decided to have breakfast at the camping resort there. We had an incredible omelet and coffee that morning to which Ashley said was the best she had ever had! That is is quite amazing knowing the places we have been before and the things we had seen.
Nonetheless we hit to road early in order to get to east glacier which as no able to be reached last time.we had a plan to hike the Grinnel glacier trail in the morning. this was a perfect start to the day with a 6 miles in and out hike the featured the bluest lakes and some of the steepest dro offs in the country of any hike. I absolutely love this hike, and I am sure she did too!
This hike started at a parking lot near the lakes on the east side, and hiked from a resort called….. to the glacier on the back side of the gAlicer NP mountain range. The early part of the hike wa flat but presented us with lakeside views and many berries topics from trees for early morning snacks. we had a great start only ascending about 500 feet in the first hour but the the hike became a little treaters but nothing we couldn’t handle. The hike ascended quickly and we came to an overlook that viewed some of the most blue waters of any lake in the world, as you can see here!
The as we ascended we closed waterfalls of glacial melt and more foliage that was unbelievable for us floridians. What was amazing was that the bear grass I had mentioned in my previous blog post was not in bloom anymore so our views were completely different than in the past! WE finally reached the top of the ascent and enjoy the views of the Grinnell glacier which was a lake with an amphitheater of mountains that had solid blocks of ICE in the lake. This lake creates an incredible and somewhat iconic waterfall into the valley below and creating the lake below the ridge. The red and blue/green rocks create on incredible view of the range and park that is unlike other places in this world.
When we finally returned to the car from the descent into the valley we had a great day already accomplished and Ashley was blown away at the scenery of this amazing national park which takes the title of top 3 national parks in america bar none!
With the main part of the day being finished we stopped t the interaction of going to the sun road and ….. for lunch and had a hamburger and a chicken sandwhich and refueled on gas. WE decided to head to Missoula Montana, and have dinner. This included a great scenic drove around the lake Kalispell which is the largest fully enclosed freshwater lake in North American believe it or not! My friend from Tama greeted us with his cherry farm on the lake and we had a beer with him at his house! this was a great surerse seeing as how we had seen son many people on this trip we had known. I randomly called him and he let us spending the afternoon with him.
The drive from Kalispess is a mesmerizing valley drive with some of the most beautiful farmland in this country available to be seen! WE had to get to shoshone falls int he morning for our next stop so I decided it was best if we used the night to drive to gain some space on out trip. So We had dinner at cracker barrel and I loaded up on EAGLE EYE coffee from racetrack, and I hit the road around 10 pm and started our southward bound drive from Missoula to Idaho falls. This was an 8 hour panned drive through the night. This required a lot of coffee and stamina, but with the help of music ad the radio I made it to Shosone falls at sunrise. This ends the day today!
Expenses
20.41 gas
7.25 snacks
17 lunch
24 dinner
10.87 gas
1.70 coffee
Total – 103.23