The Fallen Day with the Avalanche and Flathead Lake

Day 3 The fallen Day

Today hikes was going to be about falls, Baring, St Mary and Virginia falls. Another ride through Going to the Sun still just as breath taking as it was the first day. The water falls, the snow, the CLIFFS. It’s amazing that this road was built in 1932. I can’t believe that cars even back then could handle the steep grades without losing their brakes and since it was built then the roads are not wide and scary around those switchbacks. 

We found the place we want to start our hike (we think) so we start at a nice level walk around St Mary lake, one problem was the winds were gusting at 23 mph making you feel like you where being blown off the cliff. Steve had his hat blown off with the chin tie on. Almost lost it over the cliff. The hike had some elevation to it but slow and stead going (and some huffs and puffs) well worth it. Of course we did get in another over 7 miles.

Heading back we keep seeing what's called the Red Jammer they are tour buses that has been running since they open very cool.

Of course more pictures on Going to the Sun

We decided to head into town, which was Kalispell for some supper. Supper was ok and visited with a nice family sitting by us. 

On the way back we saw a sign “Hungry Horse Dam” Hummm dam we are still drawn to dams, we checked it out and walked across it, guess what another 1 mile our day but at least not elevation to it.

Day 4 The Avalanche

Trail of the Cedars and Avalanche Lake was the hikes for the day. Starting at a 43 degree morning

Trail of Cedars was a beautiful boardwalk of these big cedars and hemlock, kept thinking about John Burgraff and what he could make out of these big cedar trees.

Avalanche lake had some high elevation to it we just kept going up, and up. The lake was turquoise. They say that the color is from the water coming from the glaciers. It’s turquoise and its clear it’s a glacier fed lake, no question on that. The pictures are not capturing the color. 

Look at how clear you can see the loon's legs underwater

Thought about ending the day with a kayak ride, but decided to R_E_S_T and do some laundry. Tomorrow’s another day. With the last three days tally on steps of over 67,000 steps that’s a lot of hiking, (accord to Joyce Harris, Steve is good for a couple of years but Joyce he has more to go so he will probably never walk again after this).

Day 5

Off to explore something other than nature

Big Folk, Polson, Lakeside, Dayton and Rollins

We decided to explore Flathead Lake. (Flathead Lake has surface area of 197 miles compared to Lake Winnipesaukee, NH of 71, WOW that’s big)

Our goal was to drive all around the lake and stop where we found something interesting. Our first stop was in Polson, Museum of America.

Tons and tons of things on display, big and small with a cool historical way of seeing the American history and local history too.

The owner has been collecting things for 60 years and still is. You can tell he is passionate about it, he was giving a tour to a kids camp group and he explained the whole history. Could have spent hours there but the tummy broke in and won. And a winner it was. Our buddy Trip (tripadvisor) succeeded again (good thing because he let us down the last time) but he redeemed himself. The little shack where the locals goes Cherries BBQ and it is open from 11 til they run out, the story is they are never open for supper. It’s 1:15 hope they do not run out. WOW glad they didn’t we had beef brisket sandwich, ribbon fries and pea & cheese salad. Oh and Huckleberry Lemonade. (no huckleberries in the east, they are like blueberries and expensive, we saw them for $12. for a pint). This was a winner for sure the most tender brisket hummmm.

After with our full tummies we headed to another dam Kerr dam. Got there and guess what more DAM stair (get it dam dam stairs) 354 down guess what 354 up too. 

Nice dam but now off to a winery (Mission Mountain Winery) to end our stay at Glacier National park and Flathead Lake.