07-22-2009 - Day 6 - On the road again.

Day broke and we broke camp. A short trip to the Avalanche Campground but it will take us 2-3 hours.

From the lake, the first half is through mature forest.












As we approach the North fork of the Flathead River and the community of Polebridge, we drive through the area of an old forest fire.











Across Bowman Creek.













Then finally down to Apgar then up Lake McDonald to the campground at Avalanche.

Tomorrow will be taking short hikes off the Road to the Sun.

50 miles on the odometer today.

07-21-2009 - Day 5 - Bowman Lake

Today is a stay put day. We have driving many miles but today we stay here at Bowman Lake.

What a wonderful place to hang for a day here in the Northern Rockies.

Only thing on the agenda is to take a hike toward the Numa Ridge lookout. It's about 6 miles each way to the lookout so, between the heat and the altitude, there is no real expectation of making it all the way.


Sure enough. After about 3 miles of slogging up the ridge the lake was still below we were out of gas. We did make it to the top of the ridge but we were still in the trees making it tough to get much of a view.

On the way back done, some members of our group saw a black bear our noise making flushed out.

After getting back to camp, a few of us jumped in the lake to wash off the bug repellent, sunscreen and sweat. It was mighty cold but boy it felt good.

Another bear was spotted by another of our party while she was fly fishing near the boat launch at sunset.

What a way to kill a day.

No driving today.

07-20-2009 - Day 4 - GNP in sight

I know it's been a number of days since the last update. Internet connections in Glacier Nation Park were few and far between. We knew that was going to be the case so I just continued to write just like I did on the long road to Alaska a couple of years ago. Now that I'm connected again, I will be updating several days.

Today we hit the road and know that tonight we are going to be in the park tonight. In Columbia Falls, just outside the park, we broke into two parties. I stayed in Columbia Falls with the kids for an afternoon at a great water park while everyone else firmed up our navigation/camping plan for the next couple of days.
Good news it the road, while washboard and narrow in some places, is suitable for us navigate up to Bowman Lake in the Northwest corner of the park.















Up the hill we go.

Up and up. The road got steeper and narrower.

















Peek-a-boo views started teasing us.













Until finally the destination for they day - Bowman Lake.

Which, come to find out, is very difficult to photograph well.

For now it's time for bed. Then on to blogging tomorrow.

07-19-2009 - Day 3 - Headed for Montana

I'm sure I'm driving some people nuts. "Hey, you can get to Kalispell in one day if you put your mind to it" Well sure I can. But I would have missed a lot of county by just rocketing down the Interstate. The journey is half the fun.

Today was Lake Pend Oreille to Kalispell MT. A journey of a whopping 217 miles down US-2 through some great country.

Kootenai Falls for example.


A short hike off the highway but worth the trip.














For the more adventurous, there is a cable bridge just down river from the falls.

Oh, and the bridge of the Moyie River
1,223-foot (373 m) long and 424 feet (129 m) high. Can't see that on the Interstate.











Camping in a nice campground just outside Kalispell.

Can't say for sure when the next update will happen. We will depart shortly for the final push into the park so Internet access may not be available for a few days.

Cheers.

07-18-2009 Day two - Easton to Lake Pend Oreill

Another day, another drive. Got up and out on I-90 and headed further East. Didn't get too far from Ellensburg and we needed to fire up the AC in the truck. Got well into the 90's.

Saw some wildlife near Vantage.













And in spite of these big fans they have installed, it was still dang hot.














Made it to Lake Pend Oreille in Northern Idaho. Bad thing about camping by the seat of your pants in July on the weekend is camping sites are hard to find. Good thing about camping by the seat of your pants in July on the weekend is sometimes the overflow sites are fantastic.

Here we are at Farragut State Park Wikipedia article about the park

For those of you that take the time to look it up, we are on "Ward Loop". No formal camping here since it the overflow lot. Just pick a spot along this infrequently used loop road and call it camp. We have this over 100 acre field in front of us. Mountains in the background and not another camper in site. It got dark at night so we could easily see stars, the International Space Station and other satellites. It was a grand camping site.

Showers were a quick bike ride away and they were very nice facilities. Shower fees are including in camping fees. The lake and a cooling swim were maybe a mile away down a long hill. Not looking forward to the long bike back up the hill in the hot weather, I jumped in t-shirt and all for cooling on the way back to camp.

It helped....

Mileage today - 260. We are really racking the miles up now.....

07-17-2009 New trip - old blog

Greetings all.

When I created this blog, I thought I would use it whenever we took a camping trip. Well, life goes by and updating the camping blog just didn't rank very high. That and local trips just didn't seem very interesting.

Today we depart on a new and hopefully exciting trip Glacier National Park. Thought we had better go see it before it becomes Glacier Memorial National Park.

Day 1. Late start as usual. We didn't get away from the house until around Noon. Met up with our friends and camping companions the "B's" (as they will be known in this blog to protect their innocents) and away we went. Made it as far a camping spot in Easton and settled down for the night. 209 miles today.