Glacier National Park, Day Two: An Autumnal Beauty Display

Day 2: October 27, 2020                          Going to West Glacier and US Highway 2

Motel 6 has two franchises in Missoula, but we spent the night at the one on Expo Parkway, which is just off the interstate (I-90), a little north of downtown Missoula. After a nice breakfast at the local IHOP, Doug and I hit the highway at 10:26 AM on Tuesday, October 27. We turned north onto US Highway 93, at exit 96, about five miles northwest of the Motel 6. The first leg of our journey, that day, led us past Flathead Lake and to the city of Kalispell, Montana. At almost 26,000 living souls, Kalispell is the seventh largest metropolis in Montana and was the perfect logistical starting point to visit Glacier National Park from the west side. In fact, if you are flying into Glacier, and want to get as close as possible to the park, the Glacier Park International Airport, about six miles north of Kalispell is the perfect destination.

It is about sixty-five miles from Missoula, by way of US Highway 93, to the junction with Montana State Route 35. At this point, just south of the Polson Bay area of Flathead Lake, US-93 veers to the left and takes you up the west side of the lake. My brother and I turned right, however, onto Montana-35 and traveled north along the east side of this 200 square-mile body of water between the Mission and Salish Mountain ranges in northwest Montana. This allowed us a view of the Mission and Swan Ranges. We would have much closer, and thus better, views of those mountains three days later on our return. Doug and I passed through Bigfork (I’ll talk about that place, later, on our fifth day of travel) and then turned left on Montana Highway 82, a few miles north of that unincorporated community of about 4,700 people.

It was around thirty-two miles to the top, or north, of Flathead Lake. That’s where you find Bigfork. From there, it is another three miles to the junction with Montana Highway 82 W, a short two-lane road that dead-ends into US-93 N, about half a mile from the town of Somers. We stopped and refueled at this point, having traveled 106.6 miles, and reset the trip meter. From here it was just over seven miles to the Kalispell Motel 6, which was right on US-93 in the southern part of Kalispell. From the motel, it is a little over a mile to the junction with US Highway 2, otherwise known as Idaho Street, just north of downtown Kalispell. From there it is about a forty-five minute drive, depending upon traffic conditions, to the western entrance of Glacier National Park. Highway 2 will, also, take you all the way to the east side of the park by traveling along the southern edge of Glacier.

It was well past noon when we arrived at West Glacier, but Doug had learned there might be some good fall color along US-2, so we continued east and then south past the western entrance to the Going-to-the-Sun Highway and headed toward Essex on the southern flank of Glacier National Park. This unincorporated community is just about halfway between East and West Glacier.

As we headed toward Glacier National Park, it was just a few miles, heading north by northeast on US-2, from our motel to the junction with Montana State Highway 35. This junction is one of those weird interchanges that makes no sense. I saw a lot of this while stationed in Germany during the 80s. We started on US Highway 2. If you continue going straight, you will find yourself on Montana 35. We had to make a left turn in order to remain on US-2. There is no logic to this, but that is the way the roads are set up. Just after the junction, we drove through the  census-designated (CDP) town of Evergreen. Unlike most unincorporated communities that I am familiar with, however, this one has a population of right at 8,000 citizens. The Glacier Park International Airport is around six and a half miles down the road. From there, it is another five miles to the junction of US-2 and Montana State Route 40, another convoluted interchange. At this four-way intersection, you have to turn right, heading due east, in order to remain on US-2. Turning left puts you on MT-40, while going straight leaves you on Halfmoon Road.

Columbia Falls, with a growing population of well over 6,400 people, is only five or six minutes down the road. At a distance of just seventeen miles to the west entrance of Glacier National Park, this thriving community would make a very nice staging area for those who want to visit Glacier from the west side.

From Columbia Falls it is a little less than eight miles to Hungry Horse, a CDP of a little over 600 souls, a short distance north of Hungry Horse Reservoir. At this point, we were definitely beginning to see larch. But they were not at absolute peak, ranging predominantly from light green to light yellow, interspersed with some trees at or near peak color.

From Hungry Horse, it’s right at ten miles to West Glacier, the western entrance to the park, and the Going-to-the-Sun Highway. We did not stop there, however, as our journey on this day was to follow US-2 for several miles along the southern border of the national park.

We reached mile marker 153, on US Highway 2, which was at the West Glacier entrance. The scenery in the first ten miles or so, after we passed the entrance to Glacier National Park, really started to look nice. There were a lot of larch mixed in with the pines and other trees, however, on the whole, they still have not peaked, with color values of light green, to soft or pale yellow with some bright yellow trees thrown into the mix. When you talk about a larch, or as they are really called, tamarack, my brother would say they are “confused conifers.” Most trees fall into one of two categories. They are either deciduous, with leaves that fall off yearly, or they are conifers. Conifers have needles that do not fall off. The larch, however, have needles like a conifer. And these needles do change colors and then drop during the fall.

There was a small pull out, on the left, or westbound, side of the road between mile markers 160 and 161, about seven miles into this section of road. A few miles later we came to the Skiumah Creek Trailhead, which provides access to The Great Bear Wilderness.

There was a pull out, at mile marker 167, on the westbound (left) side of the road, which provides dramatic views of Mount St. Nicholas (9,376 feet) through stands of timber.

Mount Saint Nicholas is a peak in the southwestern corner of Glacier National Park. At 9,376 feet, the mountain is a steep, pointed pinnacle, which is an individual column that stands alone, or is isolated from other rocks or group of rocks. When I think of a pinnacle rock, however, visions of Nebraska’s Chimney Rock, a famous landmark on the Oregon Trail during the middle of the 19th Century, come to mind. When you look at St. Nicholas, though, the craggy peak resembles a pyramid. This mountain is part of the Lewis Range, which runs south-southeastward for 160 miles from Alberta, Canada to the Blackfoot River, a stream of water that was featured in the novel and later movie starring Brad Pitt, A River Runs Through It. Along the way, the range covers part of Waterton Lakes, a Canadian National Park, Glacier National Park and the Chinese Wall in the Bob Marshall Wilderness Area.

In 1926, Reverend Conrad Wellen of Havre, Montana, made the first ascent of this mountain that many considered unclimbable. The northwest face, for instance, rises one vertical mile, 5,280 feet or 1,760 yards, in around one and a half horizontal miles. That’s not for the faint of heart. Even the standard route, by way of the northeast ridge, will require “technical climbing equipment” such as pitons and perhaps even crampons along with the skills to overcome a thousand vertical feet. As I said, Mt. Saint Nick is not for the layman. Even today, with all the advances in mountaineering equipment and techniques, this mountain is considered to be very dangerous and possibly the most difficult mountain in the park.

We came to the Izaak Walton Inn Road turnoff, on the right side of the road, at mile marker 180. This was at the unincorporated town of Essex, Montana, a stop-over point about halfway between East and West Glacier. At this late-afternoon juncture, trees on the eastbound side of the road were heavily in shadow and, thus, really captured that winter wonderland look, given the fact that they were heavily laden with snow.

The Izaak Walton Inn, first built in 1939 by the Great Northern Railway, is a 33-room Tudor Revival lodge that is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. In addition to the inn, there are cabins, vacation homes and even old-time cabooses available for travelers. How would you like to sleep in a completely refurbished caboose? Actually, it sounds pretty good.

Essex, with a population of slightly less than 250 individuals, provides a year-round stop for Amtrak’s Empire Builder passenger train that makes a thrice-weekly run between Chicago, Illinois and the west coast ports of Seattle, Washington and Portland, Oregon. A mile down the road, the Walton picnic area parking lot provides a place for visitors to leave their vehicle in order to view mountain goats and other forms of wildlife at Goat Lick Overlook. The Goat Lick Interpretive area sign is visible, at mile marker 182, but only to westbound travelers. Doug said that if he remembered correctly, “the sign leads to a parking lot with interpretive signage, however, you may have to take a short, down-sloping spur road from US Hwy 2 to the Goat Lick overlook.” And since the area was icy, we decided not to take a chance. Between mile markers 181 and 182, the highway is lined with larch on both sides, with snow-draped conifers on the steep, heavily shadowed mountainside visible in the background.

I’ll stick with Doug’s general opinion about the viewing conditions we found on US Highway 2 during our travels to Essex. “General observations on larch visible from US Highway 2 from West Glacier to Essex and Goat Lick Overlook: The limited number of safe pullouts on this stretch of highway certainly poses challenges from a photographer’s perspective. It would be a bit of an exaggeration to say that mountainsides are literally carpeted with larch, but extensive stands of the conifer populate both sides of the highway throughout the segment described above. Again, larch here, on the whole, still have not peaked, with color values of light green, soft/pale yellow and bright yellow represented throughout.“

We turned around shortly after passing Essex, somewhere around mile marker 182.

On our return journey, Doug and I were treated to an exceptionally nice present. We saw two bald eagles perched in an extensive stand of cottonwoods and aspens, along the Middle Fork of the Flathead River. This was a couple miles past the town of Hungry Horse.

We stopped off at Taco Bell, for our night’s nutrition, and then it was to bed we went. We had a date with the North Fork of the Flathead River, on Wednesday, as we drove to Polebridge, a town completely off the electrical grid.