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- Day 1

We left Orem at 6am and arrived in Missoula around 3pm. We pulled into town about thirty minutes ahead of a storm that dumped rain for our entire stay in Missoula. The kids enjoyed bouncing around the hotel room and we stocked up on groceries for the next few days.

– Day 2

In the morning we left Missoula early and headed towards Glacier National Park. The rain finally let up around Flathead lake.

After setting up camp in the Fish Creek Campground inside Glacier the rain started again. We spent over an hour in the tent then jumped in the car to check out the McDonald Lake lodge.

While at the lodge the weather cleared so we head up to hike Avalanche Gorge on The Trail of the Cedars.

We took photos at Avalanche and headed back to camp. Clint and I walked the 100 yards from our Fish Creek campsite to Lake McDonald.

– Day 3
We started our day off driving from Fish Creek towards Logan Pass. We stopped a few times along the way to take photos of McDonald Creek.

The Going to the Sun Road.

Logan Pass was very cold and windy, far too cold to take the kids out hiking. So we drove back down the Going to the Sun Road to lower elevations to get out of the freezing weather.

Bird Woman Falls

Haystack Creek

We hiked the short distance to Johns Lake. The forest along the trail was far more interesting than the lake itself.

McDonald Creek footbridge near the Johns Lake trail head.

The skies had cleared and the weather was perfect. We drove up the road to the trail of the Cedars to hike up to Avalanche Lake. The hike is 4 miles round trip and both kids made it with no problems at all.

I took a bit of time on the hike down to take photos of Avalanche Creek and Avalanche Gorge.

Bowen love the board walk on the end of the trail

We made it back to our Fish Creek camp just before sunset.

Day 4
We packed up our Fish Creek campsite and drove north to Polebridge Montana. We rented a cabin from the North Fork Hostel.

After we got cleaned up we drove up to Bowman Lake.

Great views from downtown Polebridge

– Day5

View of Glacier National Park from above the North Fork of the Flathead river.

In the morning we packed up and headed south to Lake McDonald and drove back up to Logan Pass. The weather was perfect so we hiked up to Hidden Lake.

Marmot on the Hidden Lake trail.

Hidden Lake.

After hiking to Hidden Lake we returned to the car and ate lunch. We then drove down the east side of the Going to the Sun Road to Sun Rift Gorge and Barring Falls.

Barring Falls

We set up camp at the St. Marys campground on the east side of St. Marys lake. We made a much needed stop at the grocery store and ate dinner at the local burger joint.
April and Annie went for a walk around the campground and St. Mary river.
St. Mary River

Sign at camp

While the girls when on their hike Clint, Lanik, Bowen and I drove up to Wild Goose Island to take photos.

Camp at St. Marys Campground in Glacier National Park.

– Day 6
We were up early (thanks to the kids) and were off to Many Glacier. We saw our first two Grizzly bears of the trip crossing the road 200′ in front of the car. I fumbled the camera out of the bag but it was too late, the bears made it back into the dense brush so I had no chance at a good photo. This is all I ended up with.

First stop of the day was to Swift Current Lake and the Many Glacier Hotel.

April and Bowen on Swift Current Lake

Grinnell Point

Next on the list was to hike around Swift Current Lake to Lake Josephine.

Lake Josephine

After the hike we drove over the Swift Current Motor Inn to eat some Pizza. Clint and Annie drove up to Waterton while we chose to spend the rest of the day at Many Glacier.
After our pizza we hiked down to Swift Current Falls.

We stopped to eats some snacks and enjoy the falls when we noticed a large group of people gathering on the far side of the river. They were getting out their cameras and taking photos of something just below and down stream from us. I have a pretty healthy fear of bears so I made April, the kids, and I hiked back up the trail just to be safe.
We went around to where the people had gathered, they said there was a large black bear in the river and it was climbing up the side of the hill.

After waiting for a few minutes the beast came up the hill and walked within 20 feet of us. I was so startled to see a black bear so close I only took photos of the sky. I did manage to take a few photos of the bear walking away.

The bear then crossed the river and climbed up to the exact spot we were having snacks on not 20 minutes before!
We were sitting RIGHT THERE.

We went back up the road a bit only to see the same bear dart out from the trees and cross the road 100 feet in front of us.

After seeing our third bear of the day we went back to the Many Glacier Hotel and rented a row boat.
The kids had a blast rowing around Swift Current Lake.

Myself and Hotel

After rowing round the lake we were all tired and ready to head back to camp to eat some dinner.

On the way down from Many Glacier to Babb we saw these two Grizzly Bears walking along the edge of Sherburne Reservoir.

We made another trip up the road to Wild Goose Island just as the storm was rolling in.

– Day 6
We woke up to rain and packed as much as we could from inside the tent. We dressed the kids and put them in the car while April and I hurried to pack up camp. Once we got everything in the car the rain really started to come down as we drove up towards Logan Pass.

Bowen enjoying a pop-tart in his car seat

We pulled over and took a few last photos of Wild Goose Island from the comfort of the car. It was raining and blowing much too hard to get out.

Delay

Fog at Logan Pass.

Scary Drive ….

McDonald Creek seen from the Going to the Sun Road

The last photo of our trip. 16 hours after leaving camp in St. Mary we pulled into our driveway in Orem Utah. Quite the drive with two little kids.