The National Parks of Montana & North Dakota - Week 5

Our next planned destination was Whitefish, Montana (just outside of Glacier NP) to stay with the very generous Shelley and Abe McCoy, long time family friends of the Natenbergs. The McCoy's brilliant annual migration involves spending May-September in Whitefish and October-April in Texas. 

Our first full day there we hiked up Whitefish Mountain on the Danny On Trail. This beautiful 4 mile hike wound through stands of spruce, fir, and pine forest with the occasional open field of wildflowers where the ski runs are in the winter. 

Abe & Shelley McCoy with us at the top of Whitefish Mountain. 

The top of Whitefish Mountain had a nature center that involved my favorite exhibit yet in an interpretive center: plastic, but very realistic, animal scat models! S got a kick out of it too, since one of her favorite topics of conversation these days is poop.

In the interest of nap time, we took the "Scenic Lift" gondola down the mountain instead of hiking another 4 miles. 

And now...a brief montage of a very happy Hudson. 

Chalet McCoy has an incredible upper deck which looks out on 10+ acres of wooded beauty with the mountains of Glacier NP in the distance. Hudson spent 2 glorious and unsanctioned outings chasing deer and wild turkeys on their land. 

Our second day we hiked the Lion Mountain trail in the morning and played on the "beach" on Whitefish Lake in the afternoon. You can see the ski runs on Whitefish Mountain in the background of this photo. 

Our last day in Whitefish we made a day of it and drove into Glacier NP. Mike and I visited Glacier on a road trip in 2005 and were blown away by the beauty, so we were very excited to return and to share it with S, especially before it loses it's namesake to climate change.  

We got up early to ensure there wasn't much traffic on Going to the Sun Road, the singular and stunningly beautiful east-west through-road in the park that runs along a sheer mountainside for much of the way. 

 

Learning from our past mistakes adventuring with a toddler, we decided to stick to minimal stops and one big hike. We ended up hiking to Virginia Falls from St. Mary's Lake, on the east side of the park. This incredible hike: provided stunning views of St. Mary's Lake, crossed over aqua streams laden with glacial flour, showcased 4 postcard worthy waterfalls, and resulted in one incredible (and, luckily, safe) grizzly bear sighting! Syb was very excited to see her first real bear, especially considering "Going on a Bear Hunt" and "A Bear in the Woods Ate My Underwear" are two of her favorite songs. 

Virginia Falls

Tuckered out on the hike back along St. Mary's Lake.

While we were all sad to leave the creature comforts, hospitality, delicious healthy food, and world class vistas of Chalet McCoy, we were excited to move on to see good friends at our next planned destinations: Minneapolis, Minnesota and Long Lake, WI. 

But before we could get there, we had to endure the lows of the High Line. The day started out innocuous enough with a road side stop on the south side of Glacier NP (along Hwy 2) to view a herd of mountain goats. But after abruptly exiting the Rocky Mountains to the east of the park, the monotonous flatlands of eastern Montana set in. There are few camping opportunities in eastern Montana, but Mike found some dispersed camping opportunities at Beaver Creek Park south of Havre, so we pitched our tent after a very long day in the car with not many miles to show for it. 

The next morning we got up early (not difficult to do when the sun is up at 4:30 am) to grind out some miles. Evidence of the natural gas boom is all around you driving through North Dakota. Nearly every agricultural field has a gas well in the middle of it, with hastily built trailer camps every few miles for the itinerate truck drivers, welders, wildcatters, and machinists that come to work. And surrounded on all sides by miles and miles of drilling sits Theodore Roosevelt National Park & the Little Missouri National Grassland. 

The sheer joy that S brings to our adventures is indescribable. The simple act of putting up a tent is a party. 

The landforms are considered part of the badlands; they look similar to the Badlands of South Dakota but are much greener. 

Bison roam freely in this park, as you can see from the photo above of the enormous bison that walked through the campsite next to ours. Hudson was beside himself, and I had to quickly shove him into the car so he wouldn't further provoke it. We also spotted a family of 4 owlets in the tree right above our site. 

We left with a renewed sense of gratitude for our nation's protected places that afford much needed protection for the awesome creatures that we were lucky enough to observe, and the ones we weren't.